A Closer Look

Mach Xtreme equipps the Armor series with elaborate heat spreaders, which utilize a fine array of fins to aid in heat dissipation. As you can see, the spreaders are void of any special prints, spray logos or even color. Instead of the urban look we would have loved to see the modules have a simple company name printed on them in gray and the font does not even match that found on their website or logo. Sure the tall heatspreaders have definite potential, but Mach Xtreme has not managed to get rid of that distinct OEM look to them. Both sides of the spreader are of excellent quality, but the silver fins on top are rather fragile and bend very easily as one can even pull them off without exerting too much force. For those in the know, these heat spreaders are manufactured by Xigmatek and a pair of these will set you back around 20 Euros or 30 US Dollars in retail.


Both sides of the spreaders have the same shape and are made of thick aluminum. Holding them together are three screws, which reminds me of the units placed on the now defunct Cellshock brand. Interestingly enough, Mach Xtreme has not placed any stickers on the screws, so you could take the heatspreaders off without having to worry about voiding your warranty. Only a single white sticker has been placed on each module.


That afore mentioned sticker holds all the required information of model, speed, latency and required voltage to operate the memory properly. So, even if you lose the original packaging, all the required settings are still at your immediate disposal.


You will find two different marking on each module. The first is a simple model identifier, as "KO-60244" can be found on multiple other modules from various manufacturers. If you look very closely on the other edge, there is another marker, which reads 100319S. Allthough I have no way to confirm this, this seems to be the production date - March 19th 2010.


Taking a close look at the module profile, you can already see that the frag tape does not seem to make proper contact with the ICs. As we are always curious, I grabbed my standard Philips head screw driver and took one module apart. Noting the weird and uneven markings on the frag tape, it is clearly visible how much contact each IC of the stick has with the tape and thus the heatspreader. It is obvious that they do not really make full contact with the memory ICs. It seems like Team Xtreme has labeled the ICs with their own logo and model number, so I cannot really tell you who actually produces these.