Here at Tekbunker we have just received takeMS Mach2 DDR2 1066Mhz memory modules. When you first hear about series of product which is called "Mach" you get the impression of extreme speeds. So if you would like to find out if this is the case, read the rest of this article and find out!

Quick note about the German company takeMS... we have spoke before about them in our previous reviews of DDR2 modules and USB drives. So I won't prolong this anymore, if you're interested ti hear more about the company, you can read more about then on my previous article.

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To start with this review let's first look at the product packaging, the package arrived in carton box filled with styrofoam. The transparent packaging firmly holds and protects the modules. The right packaging is a "must have" nowdays for high quality/high performance memory modules. One thing that I've noticed on packaging is the black check mark on 2*1 gb modules. But just below it there's a empty checkbox for 2*2gb modules! So does this mean that takeMS will soon release 2 gb memory modules? I sure hope so! To finalize with product packaging, on the other side of the paper there are multilanguage instructions on how to install ram in computer in 12 steps. The only critic here would be that there isn't a single picture that could show how to complete the procedure. But luckily installing new memory modules into computer isn't that much of a "nuclear science". These 1066 Mhz memory modules really represents the top-of-the-line modules of high performance DDR2 modules. I assume that this frequency will be the last one in DDR2 area. And the marketing image about this product I think it's really great! Mach2 sounds like a great marketing image for new product that was just launched on the market.

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Appearance of the modules is standard green PCB layout, but with another feature of high quality memory modules (as you can see on the picture) red colored aluminum heatsinks. takeMS modules work on standard voltage for DDR2 modules which is 1.8v. This is very good since these modules can operate on 1066 Mhz without any voltage adjustments. And this will certainly make overclocking easier and without any extra heat to be dissipated. The only thing that I couldn't do with these modules is to power up my computer with 3-3-3-8 memory timings on 2.2v (as it shows on the box). Main reason for this is the limitation of my motherboard on Intel P965 chipset. Although I've paid expensively for it at the beginning of this year, it's time is slowly passing by. Newer Intel chipset motherboards like P35 and X38 have much better performance and overclocking abilities on them. You should keep in mind that these modules are designed and certified to work on nForce motherboards with SLI support (unlike mine which is Intel based and supports Amd/Ati's Crossfire). You can of course check for yourself on nVidia's Slizone certified part list.

As you can see for yourself when German based company claims something - it must be true.
It's interesting to see that takeMS is surrounded with some of the really big players in memory industry which are a couple times bigger then takeMS: Crucial, Corsair, Kingston, OCZ etc.
It's really nice to see smaller companies to make their way on certified product list. One last thing about memory heatspreaders that I've mentioned earlier. During their work in my computer I've noticed that they are just mildly hot. And when they were overclocked the temperature difference was definitely noticeable.
One last question remained unanswered  is what type of memory chips and which brand are these modules are made of? I didn't want to remove the heatsinks to find this out. Since I could damage the mechanism and ruin the heatsinks on these modules. Of course you can do this on your own, but be warned that this action will void your 10 year warranty! The procedure for this I've found on the internet, but be warned that you are doing so on your own risk!

One other thing that I wanted to mention here is the timings of those modules and it's voltage. As you can see from the picture you can see the programmed frequency and timings of those modules 533Mhz with 5-5-5-15 timings and 400Mhz with 3-3-3-9 timings with 2.2v as required voltage. But in order to view all of this information in detail - be sure to upgrade to the latest stable version of cpu-z 1.41. The previous versions of cpu-z application are just unable to display these information's correctly.

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Here are detail specifications of those memory modules:     http://www.takems.com/mach2/en/info.html
Part number: takeMS RMS2GB264C08x-105xx
Type: TakeMS Mach2 ddr2-1066 Mhz (2*1Gb kit)     technical datasheets-> http://www.takems.com/mach2/en/site/images/Mach2.pdf
Speed: DDR2-1066 Mhz
Density: 64Mb * 8 chips, double sided / 16 ICs - DDR2 SDRAM
Timings: 5-5-5-15 default 800 Mhz - 1.8v; EPP0: 5-5-5-18 1066 Mhz - 1.8v; EPP1 3-3-3-8 800Mhz - 2.2v
Voltage: 1.8 V (default speed)
100% Jedec compatibility
New thermal design and takeMS heatspreader for better cooling
6-layer PCB technology
standard UDIMM form factor (133.35 mm * 30.0 mm)
NVIDIA SLI memory certification
Operating temerature 0C ~ 55C
Warranty: 10 years
Price: 2*1GB Mach2 DDR2 kit    Price for the kit will be round about 159 Euro (excl. VAT).

So finally we've reached the part with some action, and that's of course inserting these modules in pc to see how they perform in everyday's work and also benchmarks. They were inserted in dual-channel mode and have worked without any problem during my four weeks of testing. And it goes for the most fun part of this article - overclocking! While the modules that I've tested before from takeMS - DDR2-800 Mhz worked flawlessly the only negative comment that I had was it's overclocking capabilities! The modules were able to handle about 10% of overclocking, so at then end I couldn't recommend them to computer enthusiasts. I must admin that I had a pretty large dose of prejudice in my head when I've received these modules. But I definitely was wrong about these modules the minute I've started testing them when they were not working on their default frequency. So after I was able to easily boot them on 800 Mhz with 4-4-4-12 latencies and 1066 Mhz working on 5-5-5-15 latencies. But what I thought that overclocking would be boring procedure, I was totally wrong! Firstly I started to raise FSB and (which automatically increases CPU and RAM frequency on Asus motherboards) with increments of 1. It started to become REALLY boooooring and when I've finally reached 300 FSB I saw that this could take ages to complete this article. So I've decided  to increase FSB with increments of 5... and AGAIN I was amazed how with it's overclocking abilities. I had to increase steps to 10, and finally I have encountered some problems with FSB 360. I was so relieved since I thought that these modules will be 100% overclockable :-) But just when I've thought I've reached the final frequency - but I've easily bypassed this problem by increasing CPU Vcore to 1.425. But this time I was unable to boot my computer with FSB set to 380! At this point I was glad that I've reached some limit at overclocking!!! I knew that I'll find the right frequency between 360-380 FSB. With memory frequency set to 800 MHz (memory ratio 2:3) and CPU Vcore to 1.5125 I've finally reached the last stable value - FSB 372, which means 558 Mhz memory frequency - multiplied by two equals the final 1116 Mhz memory frequency! So at the end of this overclocking test it wasn't that much easy to find out the maximum overclocking settings, since I've changed the FSB frequency and memory and cpu voltage about 30-40 times! My Asus motherboard has really a great feature called C.P.R (CPU Parameter Recall) and the procedure work o.k. when I pushed the memory over  it's limits. But sometimes I've crossed the line of moderate overclocking so the motherboard refused to power up, and I didn't have any other option but to remove physically BIOS chip from motherboard.
At the end of this overclocking part I would once again like to repeat myself that these are results of some moderate overclocking of memory modules. You should know that my RAM and CPU got REALLY hot during their work as overclocked components. And both of them had additional cooling, but forget the fact that CPU and RAM worked 40% faster then their default and recommended speed! I'm just under the impression that 372 FSB is not the last limit which I've reached during my  overclocking test, since I had success with booting my machine to windows with 380 FSB and even 385 FSB, but I was unable to complete any test for stability testing (like Prime95, Orthos and OCCT). With some additional watercooling I'm sure that I would accomplish stable and higher memory frequencies then 1116 Mhz.

Test platform:
Intel core2duo E6300 processor, cooled with Zalman 7000B-Cu cooler
Asus P5b deluxe/wifi motherboard @ 1101 BIOS
Leadtek pci-e 7600gt 256mb
Seagate Sata 120Gb, 8mb cache
Antec P150 case
Seasonic S12 430w PSU
Pioneer dvd-rw + Lg dvd combo

Software: Windows XP with service pack2, with all the last patches

So to test those modules, I've included test samples that I have to compare them with: 2*1024 DDR2-800 TakeMS modules. At the time of writing this article, those were the only memory modules that I had to compare them with. The good thing here is that you can clearly see the benefits and the performance increase from ddr2-800 Mhz with ddr2-1066 MHz memory modules! I didn't include the results with other overclocking options (like when FSB of computer was between 320-360) because there's not much of a difference in those bechmarks.

Test include synthetic benchmarks: Super pi 1.1 , Lavalys everest 4.0, Sisoft sandra vXI SP1 and ScienceMark 2.0

As you can see from those generic benchmarks, that there not much of a difference between 800 Mhz and 1066 Mhz memory modules in CPU related benchmarks. But if you look at Everest benchmarks which measures raw speed you can see how much it's faster then 800 Mhz memory modules.

At the end of this article I have to write my opinion on those 1066 Mhz memory modules. I think that they are really great product from takeMS company, which demonstrated that they don't just produce usual memory modules which only work on it's default speed and without any overclocking abilities. Mach2 memory modules have proved that they can work with various memory timings (4-4-4-12, 5-5-5-15) and on various memory ratios, from which you can easily overclock the final memory frequency! If you look at the beginning of this article, you can also see that memory modules are SLI certified, which also gives them additional value. I'm sure that AMD users, or those in Intel platform using nVidia's nforce chipset will know to value this!
Mach2 memory modules also worked flawlessly in my computer for about a month, and I haven't had any single issues with them. When I've overclocked them beyond normal specifications, I have just reset the BIOS and could continue to work with them normally. But Germans have always been known for their reliability and stability of products, and Mach2 memory modules are no exception. With their 10 year warranty, I just don't have a single reason not to recommend them to you - readers of this review at Tekbunker.
1066 Mhz are currently the top of the line offering in DDR2 memory area, and I assume that memory manufacturers will not make any DDR2 memory modules faster then this. With DDR3 memory standard, which is offered on the market about half a year ago I think that DDR2 product lifecycle is coming (slowly) to it's end. These takeMS Mach2 modules will give you computer a real boost in it's performance - if you use Windows XP you'll definitely notice the difference. With Windows Vista I'm sure that for normal work 2 Gb will be enough for basic task, but for gaming and other memory intensive tasks (like Photoshop or video encoding) you will need atleast 4 Gb of memory.

At the end I'm very much glad that I had the opportunity to test these high performance modules, and to give them 10/10 mark!
I just hope that takeMS will start to produce DDR3 memory modules very soon, since the prices of those modules are really high.

And again I would like to thank one special person at TakeMS company (she knows who she is) :-) for having the patience with me and waited for a LOOOONG time to complete this article. And thanks again to takeMS for providing us with review samples.

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