Just when DDR2-1066 was amazing enough, OCZ has to go out and push the envelope farther. Just recently, OCZ has announced the availability of some extremely fast DDR-2 1100Mhz Modules, making them the vendor with the absolute fastest (clock speed wise) modules commercially available. Only available in 1GB capacities, the DDR-2 modules must suffer a very high latency to reach such speeds, but the raw speed seems to more than make up for that deficit. It also has to operate at much higher voltages than standard DDR-2, meaning it not only draws more power but gets hotter. The XTC coolers are used on these chips, and are definitely required. OCZ sees this as just another step towards pushing DDR-2 even higher:
"DDR2 speed grades evolve faster than anybody would have thought to be possible," commented Dr. Michael Schuette, VP of Technology Development at OCZ Technology Group, "and we are proud that OCZ has played a major role in this push for new performance superlatives. The result of our constant effort to fine-tune components and maximize their performance, once again pays off in our release of the world's first 1100 MHz DDR2 system memory modules."
Operating at a "true" 550Mhz, these modules don't yet have a CPU that fits them perfectly, but with the introduction of AMD to the DDR-2 world and Intel's slow push of 1066Mhz and 1333Mhz Xeons, we may see even faster modules coming from OCZ in the near future. Amazing stuff. You can read the full press release from the link above or in the comments section.