OCZ Flex XLC Water-Cooled CAS-3 DDR2-800 2GB Memory Kit

The OCZ Flex XLC modules definitely stands out in a crowd due to their unique cooling system. While the actual memory chip PCB is standard sized, when the cooling system is added, the overall module height is roughly double a standard module. The height is similar to Corsair's "Dominator" modules, although OCZ's unique cooler design certainly separates themselves away from Corsair, and well, everyone else on the market as well.

The cooler works in multiple ways, which is the beauty of this particular design. The heatsink design is efficient enough to cool the module without specifically needing water cooling. OCZ combines a heat-spreader on one side of the module along with a larger heatsink on the other side, both of which connect to a series of fins at the top of the unit to help dissipate heat. Even the water-barbs help to dissipate heat when the water cooling system is not in use. Without water-cooling even being thrown into the mix, these modules can run at their intended clock speeds and latency levels just fine. 

While you don't have to use water cooling with these modules, it's hard to imagine most end users buying modules with integrated water cooling support and not using it. Each module has a 1/4" (inner diameter) water barb on both ends of the unit, which allows a simple path of water to stream through the inside of the heatsink, taking heat away along with it. Even while water is flowing through the module, the heatsinks on the top and side of the module also help dissipate heat, making for a very efficient overall design. Water cooling, again, is not required, but will certainly will help lower module and PCB temperatures while aiding in potential overclocking. 

We were able to run the modules at their intended CAS 3-4-4-15 timings at 800 MHz with straight air cooling, as expected, and showed absolutely no ill effects. However, in order to reach these timings, we had to bump up the voltage to 2.2V. The stock voltage which OCZ recommends is 2.1V, but at this level, our benchmarks would crash almost immediately at 3-4-4 timings. However, a slight bump up to 2.2V made our system rock solid stable, and we were able to run through all of our benchmarks without crashing, and we were also able to overclock quite a bit at this level as well. OCZ has EVP (Extended Voltage Protection) with these modules, which allows you to bump them up to 2.4V and maintain your lifetime warranty, certainly a nice feature to consider when overclocking.