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Mushkin 998681 kit in our labs

by on08 December 2009

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Review: 1600MHz CL8 6GB kit works well

This article is also available in German.


Mushkin has been well known for its high end memory modules for many years. While in the early years they concentrated on the U.S. market, nowadays Mushkin pushes hard to get a foothold also in the European market as well.  

Today we will check out the Mushkin 998681 memory kit. It consists of three modules with 2GB each, rated at 1600MHz and 8-8-8-24 timings at 1.65V. Because this kit does not support XMP for 1366, it also works well with the 1156 platform. On our AM3 board it struggled and reached only 1440MHz, but that seems to be a problem with the BIOS. Of course similar kits are sold with only 4GB in Lynnfield and AM3 flavours.

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The uniqueness of this kit, it comes in a nice aluminium box which sets Mushkin apart from any other vendor. This box keeps the modules save and sound, it works fine as gift box too. Inside you find three modules.

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Testbed:

Motherboard:
Intel DX58SO "Smackover" (provided by Intel)
Intel X58/iCH10R
MSI X58 Eclipse SLI (provided by MSI)
Intel X58

CPU:
Intel Core i7 920  (provided by Intel)
Intel Core i7 975XE  (provided by Intel)
Intel Core i5 750  (provided by Intel)

CPU-Cooler:
Scythe Kama Angle (provided by Scythe-Europe)

Memory:
Mushkin 6GB Kit PC3-12800 (provided by Mushkin)
1600MHz CL8-8-8-24 CR1T 1.65V

Graphics Cards:
MSI R4850-2D1G-OC (provided by MSI)

Power supply:
PC Power & Cooling Silencer 500W (provided by PC Power & Cooling)

Hard disk:
Samsung F1 1000GB (provided by Ditech)

Case fans:
SilenX iXtrema Pro 14dB(A) (provided by PC-Cooling.at)
Scythe DFS122512LS (provided by Scythe-Europe)

Case:
Cooler Master Stacker 831 Lite (provided by Cooler Master)






This time we won't bore you with regular benchmarks, because an upcoming article will look closely compare 1366 and 1156 platforms. So we just have some Everest scores for you:


Running at 1067MHz and CL7:
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Running at 1333MHz and CL7:
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With the Intel DX58SO board, it won't boot up at stock speeds, but with an increased BCLK we run 1600MHz at CL9:
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The MSI X58 Eclipse SLI did well with 1600MHz at CL8:
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The MSI X58 Eclipse SLI at stock speeds with 1600MHz also at CL8:
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Conclusion:  

We had no problems with the modules at any 1366 and 1156 platform. We tried them also on the AMD platform but could manage only 1440MHz properbly because of a BIOS bug. Of course a 6GB kit is not meant to be used in platforms other than the 1366. Mushkin proved to be a worthy competitor in the memory market. Don't expect miracles with higher memory speeds, it will result in only 1-3% performance increases. Most of the speed increase comes from overclocking the QPI/Uncore clock.

The modules are available for $181,99 in U.S. which is quite competitive, but for some reason we were left out here in Europe, where the modules now ship for €174,90 which is too expensive for our taste. But recently Mushkin has released new memory kits, so we guess this one will be phased out soon. With the same timings you get the Copperheads for about €150,- and with even faster timings you can buy the Essential modules for under €140,- which will not include the aluminium case. All offers can be found here.

If you are interested in the benchmark results, just wait for the upcoming article which will compare the 1366 and 1156 platforms using this kit.

 


Last modified on 09 December 2009
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