Verdict: Fast and overclockable, but way too expensive

Patriot has almost become a dirty word among the politically correct fraternity, which is partly due to George W Bush's scary Patriot Act, and partly due to 'The Patriot', Mel Gibson's appalling 'historical' movie.

Fortunately, this Patriot memory is more palatable that the two aforementioned Patriot-related products, as it's fast and overclockable. The PDC22G8000 XBLK is rated as PC2-8000, so it's guaranteed to run at up to 1GHz at 4 - 4 - 4 - 12 timings. Patriot states that the PDC22G8000 XBLK requires 2.2V to operate.

We had to test the PDC22G8000 XBLK at 889MHz in our Core 2 test system, and 800MHz in our Athlon 64 test system, as these are the highest speeds possible at the stock CPU frequencies. Even so, thanks to its respectable latency timings and high bandwidth, the PDC22G8000 XBLK performed well in our Core 2 and Athlon 64 test systems.

By increasing its voltage to 2.45V, we were able to overclock the PDC22G8000 XBLK to 1,050MHz. We then lowered the timings to 6 - 6 - 6 - 18, and managed to overclock it to 1.14GHz, making it one of the highest overclocking kits.

The PDC22G8000 XBLK is fast at its guaranteed settings, and has a reasonable amount of overclocking potential if you up the voltage and latency timings. Unfortunately, at £351.60, it's simply too expensive.

• 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

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