Verdict: A solid debut for CellShock, but there are faster, cheaper alternatives.

This is the first time we've reviewed memory from German-based company CellShock, and first impressions indicate that the company certainly has an eye for designing sleek heatspreaders.

An EPP-compatible PC2-6400 kit may not set overclockers' hearts racing, but the equally eye-catching and much faster CellShock PC2-9200 kit confirms that the company has its sights firmly set on the enthusiast sector. As such, it's not surprising that this PC2-6400 kit boasts tight latency timings of 4-4-4-12.

In order to offer such tight latencies, the memory's voltage is rated fairly high at 2.2V, and we found that the RAM was happy overclocking with 2.4V. With the latencies untouched, the RAM was eager to overclock up to 1,070MHz, which is faster than the rated speed of PC2-8500 RAM; this is good going for an 800MHz PC2-6400 kit. Dropping the latencies to 6-6-6-18 meant that we could raise the frequency to an impressive 1.17GHz, which is very fast for a PC2-6400 kit.

The problem for CellShock is that Crucial's similarly specified Ballistix memory is a better performer and has a lower price tag. This means that while the CellShock is still good memory, it doesn't quite have what it takes to come out on top.

• Cases - 21st November 2008
• Motherboards - 24th October 2008
• Gaming Headsets - 26th September 2008
• Dream PCs - 24th September 2008
• Headphones - 12th September 2008
• Media PC components - 22nd August 2008
• PSUs - 14th July 2008

• Intel DG45FC - Motherboards
• Intel X25-M Mainstream SATA SSD - Hard disks / storage
• OCZ Core Series 30GB - Hard disks / storage
• Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB - Hard disks / storage
• Asus EAH4870 TOP - Graphics cards
• Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Pro - Sound cards
• Multiwinia - Games