The Mach Xtreme Armor 1600 MHz CL8 kit is hard to describe. Even though the company is a newcomer to the market, its team has some very respectable experience in the industry, the look and feel of the brand is extremely interesting to say the least. Thus my slight dissapointement as the Armor kit looks a bit boring. Sure the Xigmatek heat spreaders are a great little touch, but too little has been done to move away from the mainstream look towards that edgy urban setting, which the company logo and Internet presence convey. Mach Xtreme has managed to do so with their SSD and other memory line-up, but the Armor and Armor-X are simply not as "cool" as the brand itself.
From a performance standpoint the Armor Series is not a clear cut case either. While the fact that the memory does not work well with high voltage is not a bad thing, as the industry seems to go in that direction anyways, the fact that it does not perform as well on low latencies as the competition is just too bad. A positive aspect is the big headroom at CL8 with 1.6 and 1.65V, while the overall performance across the different latencies is nothing out of the ordinary and the fact still remains, that the Black Diamond - which is placed below the Armor line - offers tighter timings at the same speed.

So where does this leave the Mach Xtreme Armor 1600 MHz kit? Simply a bit out of place. Those who really want the Xigmatek heat spreaders preinstalled and thus full warranty of such a set, should go for the higher speed versions - even if they cost a bit more, while those wanting the best performance should grab the Black Diamond 1600 MHz CL7 kit instead. Nonetheless, the Mach Xtreme Armor kit does offer plenty of headroom at CL8, which means that you can easily run them at 1800 MHz with the intended latency - giving you that much needed satisfactory feeling of having made a good investment.

That said, it comes down to price. While memory with simple heat spreaders and identical specifications is noticeably more affordable, the Xigmatek heat spreaders clock in at around 20 Euros, making these Armors actually quite competitive in that regard.