Going For 4GB: DDR2-1066 Kit Round-Up

Walton Chaintech Apogee GT AU2G732-12GH001

This is the only memory product in this roundup that was labeled as DDR2-1200, while all others are rated at DDR2-1066 or a bit more. The Apogee series is available in DDR3 versions for DDR3-1066 and DDR3-1333 speeds, while the Apogee GT Blazer runs at up to DDR3-2000 speed. The DDR2 series is called Apogee GT, and it consists of multiple kits with 2 x 1 GB or 2 x 2 GB DIMMs between DDR2-800 and DDR2-1200 speeds. We received the top model, which—we’re sorry to say—disappointed, as it did not reach its specified clock speed.

Technical Details

The Apogee GT is rated for CL5-5-5-15 timings at 2.3 V operating voltage and for DDR2-1200 speeds. This information can be found on the sticker that was placed on the back side of the modules. Heat spreaders cover both sides of the memory and a large heat sink on top of the memory is supposed to get rid of the heat produced by the chips. The modules are still slim enough to install four of them into mainstream motherboards with four DDR2 DIMM sockets. Walton Chaintech boxes the product into a plastic package.

Overclocking

Surprisingly, the Apogee kit by Walton Chaintech was the one that reached the fastest clock speeds when we applied a 2.3 V voltage, as it ran reliably at almost DDR2-1200 speed, or DDR2-1188 to be more specific. However, 2.3 V isn’t only the voltage we selected for our overclocking tests, it is also the default voltage for Chaintech’s Apogee GT DDR2-1200 4 GB kit, which means that the product failed to reach its specified speed. We tried again on a P35 motherboard, as we wanted to be sure that our Asus P5Q-E (P45 chipset) wasn’t the issue, but that didn’t help either.

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