"We're still not ready to proclaim Vista a must-have upgrade, but as DirectX 10 titles continue to hit the market, the days of XP could be numbered among the gaming community. Factor in DDR2's rock bottom pricing, and 4GB kits have suddenly become a viable option, helping to negate the concerns over jumping onto Microsoft's resource hungry OS.

But despite deliciously low prices, gamers (and the overclocking enthusiasts who are synonymous with this crowd) aren't willing to bite on just any kit of RAM, instead showing an appetite for low latency modules. The reward for such selectivity typically manifests in better performance at stock speeds, along with a reasonable amount of frequency headroom. Or at least that's what we've become accustomed to in a 2GB world.

Today HardwareLogic plays with Patriot Memory's 4GB Extreme Performance Viper Series DDR2-800 kit. Slithering along at 800MHz with 4-4-4-12 timings, these DIMMs look promising on paper, but do they pack enough bite in a real-world setting?"