Regular readers will remember reading about the PC4000 Redline memory kit we reviewed back in January. It was by far the best performing 2GB kit of memory we have had the pleasure to play with, but whilst this is great news for AMD fans, what about the Intel platform? With the release of the 9xx series of processor we are finally seeing some top enthusiast performance from the Pentium once again, and as usual, Mushkin has delivered the goods with some memory to back it up.
As with the Redline kit, Mushkin has decked the XP2-5300 2GB kit with its new-style heat spreaders that not only look great, but also promise superior cooling. Since Micron stopped making their Rev A DDR-2 chipped there has been a real shortage of low latency DDR2 on the market, yet this Mushkin kit can mix it with the best of them – rated for 3-3-3 timings. Since the Micron chips are no longer available, we were excited to see what chips were under the hood.
For tXPhose not familiar with DDR 2 speeds, PC5300 is rated to run at 667MHz. This in itself is unspectacular, as you can buy generic memory also rated to this speed. One cannot however overstate enough the importance of the memory timings as well, and in this aspect the Mushkin kit is quite some way ahead of its competitors.
Under the spreaders we found a brain power board – BP has consistently been producing the best PCBs for overclocking for some time – and Elpida DDR-2 ICs. These have on them E5108AG-6E-E, which is an IC we are completely unfamiliar with before now, but is rated for 667MHz timings at 5-5-5 timings at default voltage. Mushkin has been able to combine these chips with a great PCB and with some extra voltage unlocked their true potential.
Performance
As with our other DDR-2 reviews, the test rig consists of the excellent Asus P5WD2-E motherboard, an Intel Pentium 4 D 920 CPU and a Radeon X1900XTX video card. To test the memory, we ran multiple passes of Memtest86+ v1.65 at each setting until we received errors. We then increased memory voltage and re-tested, repeating the process until we could raise vdimm no more. The Mushkin passed Memtest fine at its rated speed and timings, DDR2-667 3-3-3-10 with the processor front side bus at 266MHz. Something the Intel 975X chipset allows us to do is change memory dividers to either increase or decrease memory speed while keeping the CPU bus the same.
533MHz
667MHz
750MHz
800MHz
840MHz
Mushkin XP2-5300 DDR2
3-3-3-10
3-3-3-10
3-3-3-10
3-3-3-10
FAIL
Crucial Ballistix PC2-6400 2GB
4-3-3-12
4-3-3-12
4-3-3-12 2.2v
4-4-4-12 2.2v
4-4-4-12 2.2v
Corsair Value Select PC2-5300 2GB
4-4-4-12
4-4-4-12 2.0v
FAIL
FAIL
FAIL
As with the Crucial memory, we found there was a lot of headroom for overclocking with this kit, but unusually we found that relaxing timings other than the tRAS did not significantly improve overclockability, but did cost us plenty of performance. This is spectacular, as it allows us to achieve the holy grail of both high clock speed with tight timings.
By raising the voltage to 2.35V we maxed the memory out at some 820MHz with full stability. Whilst this is lower than the overall overclock for the Crucial Ballistix, these were at far more sedate timings. Given a choice between the two kits, only a fool would choose 885Mhz @ 4-4-4-12 compared to 820MHz at 3-3-3.
Conclusion
Overall the Mushkin XP-5300 2GB kit is a spectacular achievement, capable of both extremely tight timings and excellent overclockability as well. It has been a long time since truly low-latency DDR-2 was available, but with this product Mushkin has managed the impossible – both 3-3-3 timings and a top speed of well over 800MHz. Despite a relatively high selling price, for Intel users there simply isn’t better memory to choose right now. Very highly recommended.
Click for an explanation of our awards.
Pros
- Great looks
- Superb performance
- Extremely tight timings For DDR2
- At least as good as Micron Rev A
- No absurd voltages required - No sacrifice of performance for 2GB
Lows
- Rather expensive
Check out our other reviews from the Memory category:
