The Modules
The Mushkin 1Gb PC4400 High Perf Dual Pack arrived to us in Mushkin’s trademark “airbag” packaging. The modules are shrink wrapped in a anti-static bag. Included with the package is a free Mushkin pen and a aluminum "powered by mushkin" case badge. Only modules we received with useful extras to go with their RAM.
These modules awere built with sixteen 32M x 8 bit 66pin DDR chips in a dual bank, double sided configuration mounted on a custom six layer PCB. Gone is the black Mushkin PCB that we are so used of. Sad coz we kinda liked the black ones compared to the traditional green PCBs. This dual pack is designed for use on a dual ddr platform running a 275Mhz (DDR550) memory bus. SPD is programmed at 2.5-4-4-8 latency values and tested at 2.5v - 2.8v.
The custom-designed aluminum Heatspreader reduces the risk of localised hot spots within the memory core and further increases overclocking margins of the modules, according to Mushkin. Note though that heatspreader color may vary and that tampering with them VOIDS warranty. Our particular sample has the silver heatspreader.
Test Setup
| Hardware |
| Chaintech 9CJS i875P Canterwood Motherboard |
| Intel P4 2.4GHz 800MHz s478 Northwood |
| Chaintech GeForce FX5700Ultra 128mb AGP |
| Corsair Hydrocool200 |
| Enermax 550w PSU |
| Western Digital 80Gb HDD 7200 rpm PATA |
| Western Digital 120Gb 7200 rpm SATA |
| Corsair TWINX1024-4400C25PT for comparison |
| G. SKILL Extreme Samsung TCCD PC4400 for comparison |
| Software |
| Windows XP Professional SP2 |
| nVidia Forceware 61.77 |
| Direct X 9.0c |
| Benchmark |
| Sandra 2005 Pro SR1 |
| PCMark 2004 |
| Quake 3 |
| 3DMark2001 SE |
Overclocking
We go straight into this part so that we can include results taken from the highest rock solid overclock. For the overclocking test, we tried a variety of timings that the memory would work on besides its rated settings. Below are the following CAS timings used:
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CAS 2.5-3-3-6
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CAS 2.5-4-4-8
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CAS 3-4-4-8
The highest ROCK SOLID overclock we achieved using these modules on our dual channel setup was 281Mhz (DDR562). We tried to increase the voltage up to 2.8v and fully relax the timings to CAS 3-4-4-8 to see if we can go any further but the results were the same.
What’s very impressive though about these modules is that they can run way better than their rated latency timings. We were able to run these modules at CAS 2.5-3-3-6 up to 281MHz (DDR562). The tightest we have seen at this frequency to date.
Next: Test Results & Conclusions