Lord of the RAM, Return of the MushkinG

Memory by KeithSuppe @ 2005-05-16

Mushkin has been a supplier of quality PC and Server based memory since the days of SDRAM. Today [M] has been invited along on Mushkin?s latest excursion as they once again prove themselves worthy as the DDR Ring Bearer, and the Lord of the RAM.

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1GB Redline XP4000 (2x512MB)

512MB (x2 tested) Redline XP4000

Madshrimps (c)


Mushkin's flagship is the Redline Extreme Performance series. Utilizing UTT chips specially chosen for their "beyond BH-5" performance, these chips are currently holding some of the tightest latencies ever seen at such high frequencies. Contrary to popular misconceptions they are not dependent upon excessive amounts of voltage for their exceptional performance. I've been living with both UTT based Redline parts now for one month and have not had the need to surpass 3.3v. in most tests performance deteriorated as voltage surpassed 3.3V. Featuring chips based on a Winbond revision UTT IC's out-perform both Samsung TCCD, and Winbond's own BH-5 parts. Intended for the extreme overclocker Redline XP4000 runs at 250HTT at CL2-2-2-6. I was able to run the memory below its default timing's of CL2-2-2-6 dropping it to CL2-2-2-5 at 250HTT (PC4000) it's default speed. This only required 3.1VDIMM which is much more common on enthusiast motherboards these days. Mushkin's star in this round-up was tested at 10x250FSB CL2-2-2-5 (3.1V), 9.5x270FSB CL2-2-2-6 ((3.4V) requiring some explaining) and 10x260FSB CL2-2-2-6 (3.3V).

First off I would like to breifly explain the nature of AMD's on-die MCH (Memory Controller). The formula is such that half-multipliers are rounded up and there is a substantial hit taken on memory performance. The simplest example of this can be seen on the bottom CPU-Z thumbnail which shows a CPU frequency of 2565.8MHz, the multiplier = 9.5x and the HTT frequency = 270.1MHz. Yet on the adjacent CPUZ memory screen we see a frequency of 256.6MHz and FSB/DRAM value of CPU/10 (1:1). Here is the formula for those interested;
multiply the (HTT/ram) ratio -inverse of ram:htt ratio in the bios with the cpu multiplier and approximate to its closest larger integer. The result = memory divider, then divide cpu mhz by this divider.. I chose to leave in the half multiplier result for those who may be unfamiliar with this phenomenon. I hope it's educational. Here is another helpful utility a few people shared with me.

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