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Anandtech Reviews Mushkin RAM

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the maybe-not-quite-the-holy-grail dept.

EisleyRocks writes "Trying to find the right RAM to satisfy your overclocking needs? Anandtech has reviewed the latest offering from Mushkin. From the article: 'For gamers who seek fast timings and high bandwidth at stock memory ratios, the Mushkin XP2-5300 is a very good choice. The same can be said for overclockers looking for the highest DDR2 clock speeds that they can find. There are a few memories that can go higher in speed than Mushkin DDR2, but there are very few current DDR2 modules that can do 3-3-3 timings to DDR2-700 and above, or DDR2 memories that can handle higher voltage as well as this Mushkin. For now, the Mushkin XP2-5300 is a good choice among DDR2 1GB modules in 2GB kits.'"

32 comments

  1. Bah! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    640K should be enough for anybody!

    1. Re:Bah! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Bill, is that you?

    2. Re:Bah! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That this joke actually stopped being funny a long time ago. The only people who still laugh at it are the most pathetic losers on the planet.

    3. Re:Bah! by Psiven · · Score: 1

      Hahahahah... oh, nm.

  2. Mushkin by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So, do they actually manufacture RAM, or just retail it?

    1. Re:Mushkin by RupW · · Score: 2, Insightful

      So, do they actually manufacture RAM, or just retail it?

      Judging by the article, they take Elpida's RAM chips and put them on their own custom "Brain Power" PCBs.

      I don't see how much difference the PCB can make though: it's just an electrical connection to the chips, right? Sure, you can keep the circuits short and use really high purity copper but that's about it isn't it?

    2. Re:Mushkin by JonyEpsilon · · Score: 4, Informative
      I don't see how much difference the PCB can make though: it's just an electrical connection to the chips, right? Sure, you can keep the circuits short and use really high purity copper but that's about it isn't it?

      Not at all! It's all about preserving signal integrity between the components. Remember, at these speeds you shouldn't really think of the signals as plain-old electrical currents flowing down the tracks. They're really high-frequency radio waves propagating down waveguides. Think of where 400MHz lies in the radio spectrum - it's well above fm radio (in the uk, at least) and that propagates pretty well as a wave :-) The pcb's job is to guide these waves around, and this is trickier than you might think. You have to consider the effect of the dielectric circuit board (the fibre glass bit) and coupling between various tracks and layers in the board. Jony

  3. Why is this news? by Groo+Wanderer · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Umm, who OK'd this news, and what were you smoking. No comment on the review itself, just a hearty 'WTF'? Were you guys really that bored?

    In related news, there was a car crash on the freeway this morning, and it probably rained somewhere, why aren't those headlines?

    While this will probably get me flamed, I expected better from Slashdot.

              -Charlei

    1. Re:Why is this news? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why do you hate Slashdot?

    2. Re:Why is this news? by Too+many+errors,+bai · · Score: 1

      Because hardware news is part of Slashdot too. Sure, I might as well visit HardOCP for my hardware reviews, but I wouldn't say it's far off the usual topics.

    3. Re:Why is this news? by ab0mb88 · · Score: 1
      Funny you should mention the weather. I should post a story that there is a chance of rain in Elwynn Forest today.

      WoW Patch Notes

    4. Re:Why is this news? by Gabrill · · Score: 1

      Well I'm hoping you understand that this article was posted as a substory, and not a headliner. Ths having been said, your views are apparently in the minory. Your tone is less than cooperative, and your criticism falls somewhat short of contructive. In short, your reply shows the debating ability of a chihuahua.

      I hope this flame lives up your high expectations of Slashdot in general, and of me in particular. Call me sometime, and we'll meet for tea.

      --
      Always going forward, 'cause we can't find reverse.
  4. Misreading the title... by unkaggregate · · Score: 5, Funny

    Who here quickly glanced at the title and saw "munchkin RAM"?

    1. Re:Misreading the title... by kraada · · Score: 1, Funny

      Not only did I see that, I then wondered "I wonder what would happen if someone played '... of Doom!' on it" . . . my best guess? A wandering 7 year lich would show up. Conveniently, it's dead!

    2. Re:Misreading the title... by Ceriel+Nosforit · · Score: 1

      Guilty. Thought it was RAM for laptops at first.

      --
      All rites reversed 2010
  5. Slashvertisment by Inverted+Intellect · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I don't go to /. for advertisments. Yes, I know that high-end computer gear keeps improving, and that's all very exciting for rich computer enthusiasts and gamers. But I don't need to read about it on /. as it's not particularly exciting for me unless I just happen to be in the market for high-end gear (which I'm not at the moment), and any info on the subject is almost completely uninformative.

    (Score -1, Redundant)

    1. Re:Slashvertisment by Shivetya · · Score: 1
      I don't go to /. for advertisments. Yes, I know that high-end computer gear keeps improving, and that's all very exciting for rich computer enthusiasts and gamers. But I don't need to read about it on /. as it's not particularly exciting for me unless I just happen to be in the market for high-end gear (which I'm not at the moment), and any info on the subject is almost completely uninformative.
      Well /. does not force you to actually read the story. You can customize what stories are presented to you and how they are through your personal preferences -> Homepage. I do this to minimize any story under Politics. In between the stories with their text blurb I occasionally see a one line entry from Politics with its title. From that I can determine quite quickly whether or not to "waste" my time with it. Same goes for Hardware which does encompass many review articles. Anandtech is far from just a parrot of company advertisements, they do do a good job with the reviews on the most part and many of us like to keep up with the products available as well as those competing.
      --
      * Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
    2. Re:Slashvertisment by Inverted+Intellect · · Score: 1
      Anandtech is far from just a parrot of company advertisements, they do do a good job with the reviews on the most part and many of us like to keep up with the products available as well as those competing.
      I am well aware of Anandtech as an extremely useful source for hardware reviews. However, /. is all about new developments, and RAM chips which are slightly faster and better in every regard than previous chips simply aren't newsworthy. And I also know that I don't have to read the article. It's just that I don't like it when /. is used to advertise things, it devalues it's worth and is in no way informative, interesting nor worthwile discussing in any other regard than as being uninteresting slashvertisments.
  6. Because by Groo+Wanderer · · Score: 1

    Think of it as 'tough love', not hate. Maybe 'premtive editing in the search for sites of mass destruction'. How about 'Teh sux0r!'?

                      -Charlie

  7. Does it really matter? by ami-in-hamburg · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I may be ignorant on this subject, but considering the speeds of non-overclocked hardware, is there really a human noticable difference when you overclock your hardware compared to if you don't?

    I mean seriously, is the human eye capable of noticing a few more frames per second. I am almost certain that your keyboard, mouse and joystick cannot be overclocked. Therefore, if your input is limited by your input device speeds, does it make sense to increase your memory performance by 10% if it will burn out 50% sooner than if it were not overclocked?

    No, this is not sarcasm, I really don't know the answers and am genuinely curious.

    1. Re:Does it really matter? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You can tell a difference between 266 and 333 Mhz for ddr1, It helps make sure your computer can load everything in, and use everything in it without hickups. It's just increasing a bottleneck so that some other part's bottleneck is hopefully faster.

      Load times in games can decrease too.

    2. Re:Does it really matter? by miller701 · · Score: 1

      I'm with you. I buy a new PC every three years and they're generally so much faster than the ones before it that another 2, 5 or 10% doesn't really matter.

      I used to do the look through Computer Shopper & spec out a machine myself, but now I have a house, a wife and a kid and I just don't want to spend time on those things.

    3. Re:Does it really matter? by ObsessiveMathsFreak · · Score: 1

      I may be ignorant on this subject, but considering the speeds of non-overclocked hardware, is there really a human noticable difference when you overclock your hardware compared to if you don't?

      You may as well ask if "GoFaster" Stripes increase vehicle speed.

      --
      May the Maths Be with you!
    4. Re:Does it really matter? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I want an overclocked keyboard, dammit!

    5. Re:Does it really matter? by enigma48 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Well, Obsessive Math Freak's reply was a waste.

      In most cases, you're right - overclocking isn't useful. The edge cases where it would help tend to *require* better accuracy/stability, which you risk when you overclock. Manufacturers have expensive equipment to benchmark their own products so they can sell them at the highest speed, I really hope people don't think burn-in testing comes close to what manufacturers do. About the only time you could really luck out is if a manufacturer decides to under-clock a bunch of chips because they can't tolerate an inventory shortage at that pricepoint/speed in the market.

      The CPU, RAM, or GPU-speed limited programs I can think of would be video/audio rendering, gaming, heavy math/scientific work, etc. The only one people would "allow" errors in would be games.

      Even if you overclocked everything 25% (a *very* nice overclock for the majority of equipment, but enthusiast/high-end stuff tends to overclock better) you normally won't see a 25% performance increase. Memory performance up by 20%? Great - in most cases, you'll see around a 5% general improvement. CPU performance is largely irrelevant these days, 25% won't get you much. GPU overclocking is the only thing that makes much sense - 25% overclocking will get you approximately a speed bump of the same size.

      Big-spenders and media companies are the only ones who are thoroughly concerned with overclocking. Everyone else just gets by with their 5-second Word startup instead of 4.6s. Jocks are picky about their equipment, musicians even more so, and many computer users like tweaking what they've got.

      Seems to be a pretty "basic" psychological condition, to tweak, experiment, etc. No one cares about the speed, they care about the bragging, the learning, and the process of doing it themselves.

    6. Re:Does it really matter? by jandrese · · Score: 1

      I remember overclocking my first PC. I ended up overclocking it about 33% and managed to get it to the point where it played Starcraft smoothly. Other than that, I've not seen much point in overclocking.

      --

      I read the internet for the articles.
    7. Re:Does it really matter? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It really depends on what level your hardware is at in the first place, and what you're using it for. In the case of games, if you have all the latest hardware and overclocking means the difference between 150fps and 175fps, obviously that really doesn't matter. However, if you're using older hardware and you're able to get the game from 25fps up to 30fps, that can be a noticeable, and useful, difference.

    8. Re:Does it really matter? by billcopc · · Score: 1

      Funny, I overclock my Athlon X2 rig by a substantial margin thanks to slightly better quality components. Since they don't yet make a 2.7ghz dual-core Athlon, the closest thing being a 1000$ FX-60 at 2.6ghz. My components cost significantly less than that chip alone, I consider it a win.

      I do see the benefit of running 35% faster, since I do lots of CPU-intensive processing. Encoding jobs and compilations take 1/4 less time to do, which for me equates to 2-3 hours saved each day. This also means my PC consumes 1/4 less energy, the slight increase in core voltage is negligible compared to the constant power requirements of the disk arrays.

      Hell, six or seven years ago I was probably one of the first nuts to break the Ghz barrier while everyone else was trucking along at 450-500 mhz. I even went dual-cpu at that time. My PC from six years ago outpaced today's new 299$ systems, how sad is that. Overclocking has been and will be a way of life for me, for the foreseeable future.

      --
      -Billco, Fnarg.com
    9. Re:Does it really matter? by mink · · Score: 1

      Set you A20 gate option in bios to FAST.

      --
      Well I've wrestled with reality for thirty five years doctor, and I'm happy to say I finally won out over it.
  8. ECC? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I don't know about ECC (or even just parity) support in current desktop chipsets, but shouldn't overclockers who are worried about reliability (and all of them should be) start using ECC memory so that they are at least likely to notice when they are going too far?

    1. Re:ECC? by miller701 · · Score: 2, Insightful
      I don't know about ECC (or even just parity) support in current desktop chipsets, but shouldn't overclockers who are worried about reliability (and all of them should be) start using ECC memory so that they are at least likely to notice when they are going too far?

      As I remember it, ECC is signifcantly slower than non-parity. Parity RAM is pretty much non existant, and has been for quite some time.

      From my perspective, most overclockers seem to be only worried about going from 80 fps to 83 fps in their First Person Shooters, I don't think they really care that much about stability.

  9. I used to like Mushkin by Some_Llama · · Score: 1

    My experiences with Mushkin have proven them to make overall decent RAM, but I got burned on my last purchase in regards to a rebate offered by Mushkin, I met all the requirements but they still rejected me.. so they are on my blacklist for now... >:(