Mushkin Redline XP4000: Winbond with Voltage Be Damned
by Wesley Fink on May 16, 2005 12:05 AM EST- Posted in
- Memory
Performance Test Configuration
The Mushkin Redline XP4000 was tested with the DFI LANParty nF4 SLI-DR Athlon 64 Socket 939 motherboard. The DFI nForce4 SLI and Ultra are the only current production boards that support the 3.3V to 3.5V rated voltages required for Redline DDR500 performance. An OCZ DDR Booster can be used with motherboards without support for high memory voltages. Other components remain the same as used in the memory setup in Athlon 64 Memory: Rewriting the Rules.The A64 test bed includes components that have been proven in Socket 939 Athlon 64 benchmarking, such as the Socket 939 4000+, and the OCZ Power Stream 520 Power Supply. Since the Athlon 64 tests represent a new series of DDR testing, we have chosen the current generation NVIDIA 6800 Ultra video card for benchmarking. We have found the 6800 Ultra to be a particularly good performance match to NVIDIA motherboards.
All other basic test conditions attempted to mirror those used in our earlier Intel memory reviews. However, test results are not directly comparable to tests performed on the Intel test bed.
| AMD nForce4 Performance Test Configuration | |
| Processor(s): | AMD 4000+ (FX53) Athlon 64 (2.4GHz, Socket 939, 1 MB cache, Dual Channel, 1000HT) |
| RAM: | Mushkin Redline XP4000 (DS) 2X512MB Kingston KVR400X64C25/512 (DS) 2X512MB Kingston KVR400X64C3AK2/1G (DS) 2X512MB Mushkin PC3200 EM (DS) 2X512MB OCZ PC3200 Value Series (VX) (DS) 2X512MB OCZ PC3200 Gold (BH5) (DS) 2X512MB OCZ PC3200 Premier (DS) 2X512MB Transcend JM366D643A-50 (DS) 2X512MB Patriot PC3200+XLBT (DS) 2X512MB OCZ EL PC4000 VX Gold (DS) 2X512MB Corsair TwinX1024-4400C25 (DS) 2X512MB Crucial Ballistix (DS) 2X512MB OCZ PC3200 Platinum Rev 2 (DS) 2X512MB |
| Hard Drives: | Seagate 120GB SATA 7200RPM 8MB Cache |
| PCI/AGP Speed: | Fixed at 33/66 |
| Bus Master Drivers: | NVIDIA nForce Platform Driver 6.53 |
| Video Card(s): | NVIDIA 6800 Ultra 256MB PCIe, 256MB aperture, 1024x768x32 |
| Video Drivers: | NVIDIA Forceware 71.89 Release |
| Power Supply: | OCZ Power Stream 520W |
| Operating System(s): | Windows XP Professional SP2 |
| Motherboard: | DFI LANParty nF4 SLI-DR |
| BIOS: | 3/10/2005 Release |
In past benchmarking, we have found performance of the nForce4 and nForce3 chipsets to be virtually identical, and we have found AGP and PCIe performance to be virtually the same in the benchmarks that we use for memory testing. Therefore, you can also generally compare these results to TCCD benchmarks in recent memory reviews.
With nForce3 motherboards, the fastest performance on AMD Athlon 64 was at a Cycle Time or tRAS of 10. However, the nForce4 behave a bit differently with memory. We ran a complete set of Memtest86 benchmarks with only tRAS varied to determine the best tRAS setting for these memories, and found the best bandwidth at tRAS settings ranging from 5 to 8. Therefore, a tRAS setting of 6 was used for testing.
Test Settings
All AMD Athlon 64 processors are unlocked downward, and the FX CPUs are unlocked up and down. This feature allows a different approach to memory testing, which truly measures performance differences in memory speed alone. All tests were run with CPU speed as close to the specified 2.4GHz of the 4000+/FX53 as possible, with CPU speed/Memory Speed increased at lower multipliers to achieve 2.4Ghz. This approach allows the true measurement of the impact of higher memory speed and timings on performance, since CPU speed is fixed, thereby removing CPU speed as a factor in memory performance.The following settings were tested with the Mushkin Redline XP4000 on the DFI nF4 test bed:
- 2.4GHz-12x200/DDR400 - the highest stock memory speed supported on VIA 939/nF3-4/SiS755-FX motherboards
- 2.4GHz-11x218/DDR436 - a ratio near the standard DDR433 speed
- 2.4GHz-10x240/DDR480 - a ratio near the standard rating of DDR466
- 2.4GHz -9x267/DDR533 - a memory speed achieved by only a few top memories on the Athlon 64
- Highest Memory Performance - the highest memory bandwidth and game performance that we could achieve with the memory being tested; this is rarely the highest memory speed that we could achieve. It is normally a lower speed with 1T Command Rate and tighter memory timings.
We ran our standard suite of memory performance benchmarks: Quake 3, Return to Castle Wolfenstein-Enemy Territory-Radar, Super Pi 2M, and Sandra 2004 Standard and UnBuffered. We also included Everest Home Edition memory tests, free at www.lavalys.com, for read speed, write speed, and Latency.
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41 Comments
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jmke - Monday, May 16, 2005 - link
I agree with you completely Zebo; is an increase of 2-5FPS in an already OLD game like Wolfenstein worth $300 (memory + ddr booster/new motherboard)?I don't think so
Zebo - Monday, May 16, 2005 - link
My above comments excludes cyber-athletes participating in cyber olympics. Mainly geared twards average enthusiast at AT.Zebo - Monday, May 16, 2005 - link
As usual almost no difference with increased bandwidth:At 2400Mhz same timings:
DDR400 though DDR533 are virtually identical, less than 5% within one another on the largest game, wolf.
It is'nt until you bump processor speeds (which I never liked this testing method for memory) do the numbers begin to change signifigantly with added bandwidth. Due to bandwitdh? nope, due to running 2.72Ghz A64 instead of 2400Mhz.
Anyway I think these sticks are a waste of $ for the most part. Primarly due to the fact you must push signifigant volts though them and fan them and maybe destory them if not well learned. Noise and only DFI can provide this voltage eliminates lots of people. One is much better off IMO with low volts TCCD or some crucial 8T running 2-2-2 ~200Mhz at low volts all day without the noise of additional ram cooling.
thumbs down to extreme modules.
cryptonomicon - Monday, May 16, 2005 - link
VX/REDLINE/UTT is nice and everything, but I don't get why people will buy it since BH and CH based models are much cheaper and perform very similarly with a bit less voltage, and can also run stock at 2.6v-- which makes them incredibly flexible. best ram ever.bersl2 - Monday, May 16, 2005 - link
#5: http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.aspx?catid...The point of that thread is to show that in *real-world* situations, the measurable effect of 2T over 1T seems to be no more than 3%. Also keep in mind that at 2T, you can OC the RAM higher and tighten your other timings, and thus you can OC well with 4 sticks or more than 1G of RAM.
flatblastard - Monday, May 16, 2005 - link
Nice review....I couldn't help but notice that in most of the benchies that mattered, hi-po ddr400 2-2-2 was at the top of the charts. Especially OCZ Plat Rev 2 and Crucial Ballistix....kinda makes me wonder if DFI mobo with high voltage ram is just a big waste of time and money.Shinei - Monday, May 16, 2005 - link
Which thread? As far as all AT benches have shown, 2T cripples performance on Athlon 64 testbeds...Anyway, great review, but I gotta wonder just what we're going to be doing to cool our cases in a few years--active cooling for the RAM, northbridge, CPU, and video card (the latter two of which account for 150+W)... Why do I get the feeling that I'm going to turn on my computer one day, and there'll just be a tiny mushroom cloud where the case used to be?
Lonyo - Monday, May 16, 2005 - link
Any hopes of some 2T command rate testing/overclocking potential-ing?A thread has shown 2T makes very little difference to performance, but may help overclocking a bit, so mabye we could see if this stuff can be pushed even further?
JustAnAverageGuy - Monday, May 16, 2005 - link
P1: "OCZ st arted it all with their VX series memory."P2: Redline is available as DDR433 (PC3500) p arts.
For these reasons, Mushkin Redline memory was only tested on the DFI LANP arty nF4 SLI-DR Athlon 64 Socket 939 test bed.
P3: The Mushkin Redline XP4000 was tested with the DFI LANP arty nF4 SLI-DR Athlon 64 Socket 939 motherboard.
We have found the 6800 Ultra to be a p articularly good performance match to NVIDIA motherboards
Don't worry though, all those macros are spelling error free ;)
classy - Monday, May 16, 2005 - link
Great performance, but the price is really high. Especially considering the fact the OCZ 3200 Gold is not far behind and is almost $100 cheaper.