There's no shortage of PC4000 ram manufacturers, and Mushkin actually has a couple of different products for you to choose from, depending on the budget. Today, we'll be looking at their High Performance Black PC4000 memory, which is their top-of-the-line product.

Specifications

512MB (2x512MB as tested today)
4.0ns Hynix IC's
500MHz (PC4000) Unbuffered DDR Modules
CAS latency: 3 clock cycles
RAS precharge: 4 cycles
RAS active to precharge: 8 cycles
Command rate: 1T (1 cycle)
Aluminum heat spreader for thermal diffusion (Flat Black)
Latency: 3-8-4-4-1T
Jet Black 6-Layer PCB
2.75V

The sticks we'll be looking at aren't normally sold as a kit for Dual Channel users. We'll be testing them in Dual Channel mode though, but just in case you have some reservations, Mushkin did test them on DC motherboards.

"Tested compatible with VIA, AMD, Intel, NVidia and Sis chipsets. Overclockability of your system is dependent on all other components including but not limited to Motherboard, CPU, graphics and PCI cards and other peripheral devices. Our PC4000 eliminates the memory as a potential bottleneck when overclocking. Tested on motherboards with the KT400, P4X400 and NForce2 and Intel 865, 875 chipsets most of which are officially supporting the PC3200 (DDR 400) spec."

I don't have any pictures of the packaging, as I destroyed it while getting the ram out. I am uncertain if what I got was the retail packaging, but both ram modules arrived in an anti-static bag, encased in a large, plastic air bag to protect it during shipping. There's no documentation, but the Mushkin's target audience will certainly not need any.

Mushkin's products carry a limited lifetime warranty, meaning that if it's a manufacturer defect, they will replace your ram (shipping not included). If you run your memory out of spec, modify it, or simply put it through a ton of abuse, your warranty can be kissed good-bye. This is the case with most manufacturers, but at least Mushkin states it clearly so there's no misunderstanding.

Like many other manufacturers, Mushkin uses Neng Tyi aluminum heatspreaders. These are anodized black, which gives them a sophisticated look with the silver tabs. I've never felt heatspreaders were mandatory, as our pasts tests have shown that they don't always help in overclocking, but they do do the job as the Mushkin modules became quite warm during testing.

Mushkin's ram modules are built on a 6-layer PCB process. Lower quality PCBs are made using a four-layer process. The power and ground layers are sandwiched between the two outer signal layers. Though this process is cheaper than six-layers, the modules are vulnerable to signal noise which can cause instability and corruption. In a six-layer design, two additional grounding layers are placed on the outside, shielding the modules more efficiently, which is especially important as we move from PC3200 and up.

The memory label has very little information about the ram. Only the brand, the memory size, and speed are indicated here. There's no mention of memory timings, though on their website (and confirmed via the BIOS of our test system) the timings are indicated as 3-8-4-4-1T.

Overclocking and Stability Testing

Since we're using a 200FSB (800MHz) ABIT IC7-MAX3 motherboard, the first thing I wanted to try was what are the tightest timings I could run the Mushkin PC4000 at 200FSB. After a bit of tweaking, it seems that 2-3-3-5 is about as low as I can go at 1:1.

200FSB (400MHz) @ Tweaked

vCore needed a boost to 2.65v though, but the ram was able to past Memtest at these settings. Next up was the rated speed of PC4000 (DDR500 or 250FSB) at 1:1. At default timings, 250FSB was no problem at all, though we needed another bump in voltage up to 2.75v.

Next thing we did was to adjust the timings and to see what the Mushkin would allow us to tweak to. At 250FSB, the best we managed was…

250FSB (500MHz) @ Tweaked

The ram was completely stable, and passed MemTest without any problems at 2.5-4-3-7. Memory voltage was at 2.75v, and even with an additional bump to 2.9v, we were not able to tweak it any further. I have read reports that there are some voltage fluctuations on the IC7-MAX3 at 2.9v of -/+ 0.1v, which I can confirm by watching the BIOS readings, though at 3.0v, the problem seemed to have gone away. I was still not able to tweak the ram further though, and the system would repeatably hang at POST.

We relaxed the timings back to the Mushkin default of 3-4-4-8, and went forward with the FSB once again, adjusting the voltages as required until we settled on our final overclock.

280FSB Max OC

At 1:1 CPU and memory, we settled on a final OC of 280FSB. I'd be lying if I said the ram was running 100% reliably, as I did experience lockups when running stress tests. All our benchmarks ran fine however, and although I am going to present those numbers, just keep in mind that we were at what I would say 75% stable. This was at 3.0v, and a Delta 80mm 68cfm fan blowing directly on to the ram modules. I removed one module, and retested the overclocking in single channel mode, but our end result did not change.

Lowering the speed down to 274FSB at 2.8v was enough to keep things running smooth.

Test Setup

ABIT IC7-MAX3: Pentium 4 2.4C, 2 x 512MB Mushkin PC4000, ATI AIW Radeon 9800 Pro, 120GB Seagate, Windows XP SP1, ATI Catalyst 3.6.

Benchmarks will be presented at 200FSB, 250FSB and maximum OC. Keep in mind that the numbers at maximum OC will be skewed since we're running 1:1 and the CPU's speeds will be different when showing each memory's OC speed. There isn't anything I can do with this since it's impossible to set the memory speeds independently with the CPU FSB unless we go with a lower memory divider.

Test Software for both platforms will be:

SiSoft Sandra 2003 Memory
PC Mark 2002 Memory
PiFast
TMPGEnc AVI-to-MPG Encoding
Unreal Tournament 2003

Game Accelerator will be configured at Street Racer for 200FSB, and Auto for the rest. Competing sticks will be OCZ's 1GB PC4000 EL Gold, 1GB Kingston HyperX PC4000, and the Corsair TWINX1024-4000 Pro Series. At 200FSB, all the competing ram kits will be running at 2-3-3-5, and the HyperX at 2-3-3-6. At 250FSB, the ProSeries will be running at 2.5-3-3-6, whereas the OCZ and Kingston kits will be at 2.5-4-3-6, since neither could do 2.5-3-3-6. The Mushkin will run at 2.5-4-3-7, which was the best I could manage at those speeds. All the ram modules will be running at 3-4-4-8 at their maximum overclocks.

SiSoftware Sandra 2003 Memory - Pentium 4 @ 12x200

Although a synthetic benchmark, it's a popular one, freely available if you wish to make comparison benchmarks. We will be testing the memory speeds only. All memory timings are at 2-3-3-5, with the exception of the HyperX, which will be at 2-3-3-6.

SiSoftware Sandra 2003 Memory - Pentium 4 @ 12x250

At 200 and 250FSB, Mushkin only trails the Corsair TWINX by a slight margin, and edges out the other two, despite running at a slight timing disadvantage at 250FSB. Not bad at all.

SiSoftware Sandra 2003 Memory - Pentium 4 @ Maximum OC (Mushkin @ 280FSB)

In case you missed it in our last reviews, the TWINX kit is clicking away at 285FSB, the HyperX at 272FSB, and the OCZ EL Gold at 280FSB. Trailing the TWINX by 5MHz, Mushkin still performs within percentage points of Corsair's finest.

PC Mark 2002 - Pentium 4 @ 12x200

PC Mark 2002 - Pentium 4 @ 12x250

Very close across the board, and the Mushkin PC4000 finishes in a solid second place.

PC Mark 2002 - Pentium 4 @ Maximum OC (Mushkin @ 280FSB)

The CPU clock speed differences between the ram modules account for the differences in performance. Given that the IC7-MAX3 doesn't allow memory speed adjustments independent of the CPU speeds, there isn't much we can do here. Anyhow, this is a purely synthetic test, so let's see if things look up as we move to real world tests.

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