by Rob Williams on March 20, 2006 in Miscellaneous
Are you in the DDR2 market and want a speedy kit at a good price? The kit we are looking at today have a modest DDR2-533 stock speed and fantastic 3-3-3 timings. They also turn out to be good overclockers, making them a good value.
As like all the other OCZ modules, these ones arrived in a clear blister pack with the orange backing we’ve come to expect. This allows you to open the package easily, and be able to use it again in the future. The only difference between the DDR1 and DDR2 packages are that the DDR2 ones clearly denote what they are. This is to avoid some sort of confusion and doesn’t force people to count pins ;)
The pictures can’t really capture just how great these modules look. At first, I wasn’t too impressed with the XTC heat spreaders, but I’ve become quite used to them and actually think they are some of the best looking spreaders out there. I can say that they look far cooler than the previous solid gold heat spreaders that were used. Whether or not the air holes aide that greatly in heat dissipation is hard to discover, but they certainly do no harm by being there.
If you look close at the modules, you will be able to see the BGA chips underneath, although the thin thermal tape and small holes disallow you to be able to read any characters on the chips to distinguish what they are.
The huge Z in the middle helps add to the looks of the modules. If it wasn’t there they may actually look a bit plain, so it helps even things out.
When you pick up the modules, you will immediately notice how light they are compared to some others on the market, especially the original Gold series with their thick heat spreader. Because the heat spreaders are so light and the air holes are there, it would seem likely that even a simple fan could help greatly in keeping the modules cool.
Enough gawking over the modules… time to see how well this stuff overclocks.