Value RAM Roundup: Computing On a Budget
by Wesley Fink on April 11, 2005 4:26 PM EST- Posted in
- Memory
Mushkin EM Series PC3200
Mushkin is admired by many computer enthusiasts for the quality of their products and the customer service that they provide. In the past, the only way to buy Mushkin memory was direct at www.mushkin.com. Recently, however, Mushkin has also been available through web retailers like Monarch, NewEgg, TigerDirect, and AxionTech. In Canada, Mushkin is available through NCIX.If you do order direct from Mushkin, you will get their famous "pillow pack" that cradles their memory in an air bubble. The point is that Mushkin makes solid products, stands behind their products, and treats customers well.
Mushkin EM is their Value line product, and like other Mushkin memory, it comes in a sealed anti-static bag instead of the fancier packaging that many others use. All Mushkin memory, even this Value product, comes with heatspreaders.
Specifications
The Mushkin EM is specified at the unimpressive specs of 3-3-3-8, but keep in mind that Value RAM is normally about price and not performance.| Mushkin EM Series PC3200 (DDR400) Memory Specifications | |
| Number of DIMMs & Banks | 2 DS |
| DIMM Size Total Memory |
512 MB 1GB |
| Rated Timings | 3-3-3-8 at DDR400 |
| SPD (Auto) Timings | 3-3-3-8 |
| Rated Voltage | 2.6V |
The EM memory performed fine at stock DDR400, but it is another Value RAM with no overhead.
Test Results
| Mushkin EM Series PC3200 (DDR400) - 2 x 512Mb Double-Bank | |||||||
| CPU Ratio at 2.4GHz | Memory Speed |
Memory Timings & Voltage |
Quake3 fps |
Sandra UNBuffered | Sandra Standard Buffered |
Super PI 2M places (time in sec) |
Wolfenstein - Radar - Enemy Territory fps |
| 12x200 | 400 DDR | 3-3-3-6 2.6V 1T |
524.0 | INT 2600 FLT 2752 |
INT 6049 FLT 6005 |
83 | 111.1 |
| 12x205 (2.46GHz) |
Highest CPU/Mem Performance | 3-3-3-6 2.9V 1T |
525.9 | INT 2616 FLT 2749 |
INT 6153 FLT 6130 |
81 | 112.4 |
All the memory manufacturers generally have access to the same memory chips, and we can only surmise that Mushkin chose the chips in our EM sample for price. The manufacturer chose which Value RAM to send us for testing, and we can only wonder why Mushkin chose to send us EM for this roundup. We have tested other Mushkin Value RAM over the years, and we have generally been pleased with the performance and head room of Mushkin value products. Our advice would be to choose this Mushkin EM if you will only run at stock speeds. It could be that the memory is just a bad match to the AMD memory controller or the DFI, but further testing would be required to see if the EM performs better on other platforms.
Aida 32 is now available as Everest Home Edition, a free download from www.lavalys.com. We have found this benchmark to be very useful in examining read/write performance and memory latency.
| Mushkin EM Series PC3200 (DDR400) 2x512Mb Double-Bank Everest 1.51 |
|||||
| CPU Ratio at 2.4GHz | Memory Speed | Memory Timings & Voltage |
Everest READ MB/s |
Everest WRITE MB/s |
Everest Latency ns |
| 12x200 | 400 DDR | 3-3-3-6 2.6V 1T |
5710 | 1873 | 52.8 |
| 12x205 (2.46GHz) |
Highest CPU/Mem Performance | 3-3-3-6 2.9V 1T |
5790 | 1940 | 51.0 |
There's little to analyze with such a small performance range. We would suggest that you choose another Mushkin value RAM if you want to shop for a Mushkin product at low cost. The Mushkin website shows a 1GB CL2 DDR400 kit at $155 compared to $147 for the EM.
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CanadianDoc - Sunday, April 17, 2005 - link
1 GB (2 x 512 MB) of Crucial Ballistix PC 3200 now lists for $192 U.S. at crucial.com.On any mobo, it runs at 200 MHz (DDR 400) at 2-2-2-6 timings at 2.8 V, outperforming any other RAM in this review.
As shown by AnandTech (www.anandtech.com/memory/showdoc.aspx?i=2386), on a DFI nF4 mobo, it overclocks to 280 MHz (DDR 560) at 2.5-3-3-6 timings at only 2.9 V, where it closely matches the top performance of any RAM available at any price, bar none. IMHO, this is real value.
Adding a Venice 3200+ overclocked to 10 x 280 MHz = 2.80 GHz (www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/athlon64-venice.html), a Thermalright XP-90 heatsink with a SilenX 92mm 14dBA fan, a Seagate 7200.8 SATA NCQ hard drive, and a Gigabyte X800 XL video card with SilentPipe cooling (GV-RX80L256V), in an Antec Performance One (P160) case (www.anandtech.com/casecooling/showdoc.aspx?i=2346) with an XG Magnum 500W heatpipe PSU (available later this month, according to www.xgbox.com), you have the makings of an ultra-quiet gaming rig with near state-of-the-art performance at a great bang-for-the-buck price.
ozzimark - Thursday, April 14, 2005 - link
you can. i'm a big advocate of crucial ballistixspeaking of that company, why were they missing from the testing too?
BaronVonAwesome - Thursday, April 14, 2005 - link
195 seems a bit steep for value RAM. I'd like to point out that you can get Ballistix from Crucial for less than 210 I believe.Den - Thursday, April 14, 2005 - link
Thanks for pointing out that the part numbers are on page two. As many others have said, it would have been really nice to see the best the different rams would do at 2.9v in addition to what they would do with DFI voltage. Also it would have been nice to see a greater range of memory tested but I understand you are limited by not being able to afford to buy and test what you want. Beggars can't be choosy. Thanks for doing this though, the general concept was good and there was some interesting information.NXIL - Thursday, April 14, 2005 - link
Paying $100 to buy some Corsair Valueram (Newegg--had an $88 special yesterday) would have been the fair and reasonable course of action.Consumer Reports has been testing products fairly for decades--they don't accept advertising, and, they buy the cars, electronics, and other items they test anonymously. Of note is that "Sharper Image" has sued them recently (SI lost) when they tested one of their bogus "air purifiers"--seems to make the air less clean, actually, by releasing ozone.
Anandtech should get some Corsair RAM and test it--and, they should buy samples of the other brands tested, and compare the "off the street" samples with the ones provided by the manufacturers. Unless I am mistaken, video card makers were found to be rigging their drivers to test better with certain benchmarks. It would not be too surprising to find that memory manufacturers had taken some of their special high cost "binned" chips and sent them out with a "value" label on them.
MadAd - Wednesday, April 13, 2005 - link
Oh dear ... I left this review for 2 days till I had time to read it properly, I'm sorry to say I wish I had not bothered.1) Should have been titled value ram from non value companies. Wheres the real value ram?
Since the price began to drop we seem to be up to our ears in stuff ive never heard of purporting to be cas3@3200 - Stupid me for thinking that thats what a value roundup should include, noname oem kit, not some hand selected bunch of good-but-value-priced ram from the majors.
2) Why is the following question being avoided and ignored? Namely why wasnt any corsair memory got from another source and included in the test?
A reader posted some assumptions however further to that it could be i) they use pretty much the same chips all over and dont want to give the game away that the extra $100 doesnt get you much increase and ii) anandtech dont want to bite the hand that feeds so bowed down to the request rather than doing whats right and finding the truth come hell or high water.
Im not usually this negative but I do feel quite let down, sorry.
classy - Wednesday, April 13, 2005 - link
I think a lot of folks are missing it. I think some people need to look at this way. You would have upgrade your cpu 1-2 speed grades to equal the performance increase that using the VX or BH5 memory would bring. Even at stock speeds. Now yes you need more voltage, but DFI I believe produces the best A64 borads as well as the best athlon XP board, Ultra B, which all are capable of supplying the necessary voltage. You can also use the ddr booster on some boards. Its a great alternative to increase system performance without spending a lot of money. And this is memory that you can grow with for at least a couple of years. I believe AMD said it won't go DDR2 until 2007. Great article, good stuff, and nice to see other ways to bring a performance increase. Nice job Wesleyunclebud - Wednesday, April 13, 2005 - link
84 comments in 2 days!!! haven't seen that in a while...thanks for the article! good reading as usual
XRaider - Wednesday, April 13, 2005 - link
The cheap OCZ is faster then the Plat. Rev2 !!! Ain't dat a Bitch!!! >:-(WTF is up with OCZ. shooot.
srstudios - Wednesday, April 13, 2005 - link
Wesley, I hate to be a nag, but now you have both the OCZ PC3200 Gold, and the OCZ PC3200 Premier with the same model number. PC3200 Gold P/NOCZ4001024ELDCGE-Kis correct.
The Premier should be PN- OCZ4001024PDC-K, at least I think that's the correct part. http://www.ocztechnology.com/products/memory/ocz_d...
I have a gig of the 'old' BH-5, Mushkin Black L2 PC3500, do you think they would play nice with this new value BH-5? I don't think I would combine them, just wonder if you guys have any thoughts about it.