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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Wesley Fink - Tuesday, April 12, 2005 - link
xsilver -PLEASE read my Final Words. I made a very clear distinction between Value RAM for normal motherboards and Value RAM for Mad Overcockers. If I take your approach then it assumes there are no overclockers who buy a cheap motherboard, or a DFI nF4 Ultra for $134, and use cheap ram they push to the limit. I assure you there are lots of overclockers who push cheap ram to the limits, and who are looking for some great overclocking RAM at a cheap price. YOUR definition of Value is just one of many and we talk about this in depth on page 2.
Most really cheap motherboards in the Value category have no adjustments at all for memory voltage, so I should logically only test at 2.5V or 2.6V using your approach. We are testing what this Value RAM can do with a consistent test bed.
As for the 6800 Ultra and DFI, they were ONLY used so we could compare results to many of the high-end RAM we have recently tested - to keep the test bed consistent. I can imagine the uproar if I had tested with a 6200 and then listed past results with our 6800 Ultra test bed. We are not suggesting a Value System USE a 6800 Ultra, it is merely to have a consistent test bed.
Wesley Fink - Tuesday, April 12, 2005 - link
#40 - You are correct about overhead with Super Pi, but since we use a consistent test platform to test memory the Super Pi results can be accurately compared with each other.Your approach to running Super Pi in a RAMdisk is interesting, and should remove some barriers to broader comparison of CPUs and platforms.
xsilver - Tuesday, April 12, 2005 - link
cygniI've been reading anandtech since 1999
and from that time there have been very few instances where CLEAR errors have been made.... I am afraid though this is one of them. I was trying to make a point that it is dissapointing as it is the first review right after anand did his whole spiel about integrity of reviews
about corsair not co-operating... how about source the memory from somewhere else? newegg or other stores would be happy to oblige (they are a major sponsor... and you only need to borrow the ram)
its just sad when corsair smells that you're doing a roundup and they know they could possibly look bad, so therefore they decide not to submit anything for review
I mean imagine if there was a whole nvidia and ati shootout and one team know beforehand that they would lose... and they refuse to submit a card.... would people hear about if the card performs bad? or how companies are trying to do a shifty? people would be all over the forums spewing froth from their mouths!!!
I consider anandtech the best tech website out there and in efforts to making it better I offer constructive criticisms... I don't know where the "All these "anand must be embarrased" posts every time are getting FREAKING OLD""
is coming from but its the first that i've heard of it......
and I don't know how to make it any clearer but this was a VALUE roundup right? who in their right mind would spend craploads of money on a dfi nforce4 + 6800ultra and get VALUE ram? .... I'm not saying you can't use good hardware.... just dont push it to 3.4 damn volts!!!!!
Wesley Fink - Tuesday, April 12, 2005 - link
#36 - On the AMD Athlon 64, there is no FSB since everything is derived from the HT bus. You are therfore correct that lowering the ram multiplier and running at DDR400 at a higher CPU speed makes little difference on the A64 platform. There are, however, two concerns with this approach:1) There is an Asynchronous Latency penalty, which can be tweaked somewhat on boards with better BIOS options like the DFI. It is not, hoever, the kind of asynchronous penalty you see on a FSB board like Intel.
2) RAM multipliers are usually limited. If you have a standard set of 400, 320, and 266 speeds, you could only achieve DDR400 speed at a CPU frequency of 250. Anything lower than that would be running the RAM at less than 400. Most A64 CPUs can't do 250 on air at stock multipliers (the low end ones can) so they will be running less than optimum ram speed. That's where you could lower CPU multipliers or use a board like the DFI with lots of intermediate RAM ratios.
In the end, overclocking on the AMD is a balancing act with more variables than the simpler FSB platforms. You are balancing LDT (the HyperTransport Multiplier which controls HT speed), CPU frequency, and RAM frequency to find the best mix for performance. You also have all the different memory controllers since they are on the CPU.
In my experience there are not any simple rules for this, except faster values usually perform better than slower on the same variable. In other words, the easiest way to consistently improve memory performance is 1:1 memory speed.
AnnihilatorX - Tuesday, April 12, 2005 - link
Replying #29 Wesley FinkThat's exactly a Gold series but NOT value series.
Based on part number OCZ4001024WV3DC-K
http://www.atacom.com/program/print_html_new.cgi?&...
is the right one.
See the reply below
Replying #21 dvinnen
I asked some other people on other forums. I've post some info on anandtech forum
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.aspx?catid...
highlandsun - Tuesday, April 12, 2005 - link
Just a tiny point, I see this misperception all over - Super Pi is not a pure number crunching program. It writes huge sets of temporary files to disk and reads them back between loop iterations. A lot of people quote Super Pi times and assume they're all reasonably comparable measures of CPU+memory performance, but they're overlooking the fact that there's a significant chunk of I/O in there too, so disk type and filesystem state (fragmentation, etc.) will also impact the timing results.If you can install a ~128MB RAMdisk and run from there, then you can be sure that you're only measuring CPU+memory with Super Pi. (Then of course, the performance will depend on how good the RAMdisk's block memory move implementation is. But if you use the same version for all tests, you'll get consistent, comparable results.)
ChineseDemocracyGNR - Tuesday, April 12, 2005 - link
It's been mentioned "if you don't overclock..."You don't need expensive RAM to overclock the Athlon 64. On this platform the memory is always running on a divider, there's no performance penalty from overclocking the processor by increasing the reference clock but keeping the memory happy at DDR400.
As for the $195 "Value" RAM, I wouldn't recommend it. Save $100 and get a more powerful video card or whatever else your system needs. This money could mean an upgrade from a GeForce 6200 to a 6600GT, or from a 6600GT to a X800XL; there's no RAM that makes up for that.
You can achieve the same overclock on your processor with DDR400 RAM that doesn't like to be overclocked!
I know this article was a lot of work, but I think it would be a good idea to have at least one other test platform. The DFI LP nF4 is known to be... "special" when it comes to memory compatibility. The results could be (and probably would be) very different on another board, like the more value-oriented nForce4 or K8T890 boards that would fit in better with this article. Heck, I think even the DFI NF4-DAGF would be a different story.
Cygni - Tuesday, April 12, 2005 - link
xsilver1) ALL reviews work this way. You think Autoweek BUYS the cars they review? You think PC Gamer BUYS the games they review? Anandtech asked for samples, and was given them. Or they are given to AnandTech to promote the product. That is how hardware reviews / review sites WORK.
2) They were pushing the RAM to the absolute limits, which meant using voltages not available on most baords. Big deal! They also noted performance at each different speed setting, so even if your board doesnt have that voltage, they STILL had you covered.
All these "anand must be embarrased" posts every time are getting FREAKING OLD. If you HONESTLY think that, there is NO WAY you have been here for more than a few months. Let alone years.
Googer
RTFA, and RTFC. For the love of christ...
Googer - Tuesday, April 12, 2005 - link
How can you do an article like this and NOT benchmark the KING of ALL Value RAM- Crucial?cryptonomicon - Tuesday, April 12, 2005 - link
hmm I asked last review and I received I suppose...>> FINALLY << a comparison against BH5.. and by coincidence I'ts amazing that they are producing some, however it is just from those old dies lying around.as a side note, wth happened to kingston and mushkin. their stuff only hit 204mhz??? what a joke.
:spelling corrections:
"OCZ PC3200 Gold is sold as a 1 GB kit with two 412MB DIMMs at a price of about $195. "
-change to 512mb