Mushkin PC4000 High Performance: DDR500 PLUS

Performance Test Configuration

The Memory testbed is the same used in our earlier reviews of DDR500 and other High-Speed Memory:

Corsair TwinX1024-4000 PRO: Improving DDR500 Performance
Mushkin & Adata: 2 for the Fast-Timings Lane
Searching for the Memory Holy Grail — Part 2

All test conditions were as close as possible as those in our earlier memory reviews.

INTEL 875P Performance Test Configuration
Processor(s):	Intel Pentium 4 2.4GHz (800MHz FSB)
RAM:	2 x 512MB Mushkin PC4000 High Performance (DS) 2 x 512MB Corsair TwinX4000 PRO (DS) 2 x 512MB Mushkin Level II PC3500 (DS) 2 x 256Mb Adata DDR450 (SS) 2 x 512MB Adata PC4000 (DS) 2 x 512MB Corsair PC4000 (DS) 2 x 512MB Geil PC4000 (DS) 4 x 256MB Kingston PC4000 (SS) 2 x 256MB Kingston PC4000 (SS) 2 x 512MB OCZ PC4000 (DS) 4 x 256MB OCZ PC3700 GOLD (DS)
Hard Drives	2 Western Digital Raptor Serial ATA 36.7GB 10,000 rpm drives in an Intel ICH5R RAID configuration
PCI/AGP Speed	Fixed at 33/66
Bus Master Drivers:	875P Intel INF Update v5.00.1012, SATA RAID drivers installed, but IAA not installed
Video Card(s):	ATI 9800 PRO 128MB, 128MB aperture, 1024x768x32
Video Drivers:	ATI Catalyst 3.6
Power Supply:	Vantec Stealth 470Watt Aluminum
Operating System(s):	Windows XP Professional SP1
Motherboards:	Asus P4C800-E (875) with 1010 Release BIOS

Mushkin targets their PC4000 High-Performance at the Intel 875/865 enthusiast. They consider the better memory for an Athlon user to be their new PC3500 Level II, which we reviewed in Mushkin & Adata: 2 for the Fast-Timings Lane or their fast DDR400. Our benchmarks confirmed that PC3500 Level II is one of the few remaining memory modules that can perform with complete stability at 2-2-2-5 timings at DDR400. Since PC4000 High Performance is not targeted at Athlon, performance on an Athlon nForce2 Ultra 400 was not tested.

Test Settings

The following settings were tested with Mushkin PC4000 High Performance:

1. 800FSB/DDR400 — the highest stock speed supported on 875/865 motherboards.
2. 1000FSB/DDR500 — the specified rating of the memory modules we were testing.
3. Highest Stable Overclock — the highest settings we could achieve with the memory being tested.

These are the same settings used in benchmarking other memory in the above list of memory tests.