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Introduction
Whatever happened to memory being synonymous with high price? I don't really want to get into that but I do want to say that it's a great time to be in the market for some new RAM for that system. Why do you need SDRAM? RAM is the life juice of computers, making them faster in terms of response time and cutting down their swap file use that translates to faster performance. Throughout it all, we have always called RAM in 3 classes: generic, and premium. Generic RAM is what you always see in Fry's ad's being sold for around 40% less than normal price. They are the run of the mill ram fresh off the production line. They compromise quality for price: cheaper manufacturing processes and cheaper materials. Then there are premium RAM's, like premium wine, they have more expensive components and more time dedicated to making sure they will fir even the most stringent requirements. Premium RAM often run at higher than normal bus speeds at lower latencies. Today we will be looking at a premium stick of RAM from Mushkin, a computer component reseller famous for their quality SDRAM and now DDR RAM. The Mushkin Revision 3 PC133 SDRAM we will look at today is the cream of the crop, RAM selected for its high tolerance of high bus speeds.
Specs
- Rated 2-2-2 @ 150+
- 128-Megabit Chips
- 16Mx64 Module
- 16Mx8 chip density
- Unbuffered
- 6-Layer PCB
- Gold Contacts
- 168pin 3.3v DIMM
- Lifetime Warranty
Impressive specs to say the least, guaranteeing a PC133 stick to run at 150 or over at 2-2-2 is great but why not call it just PC150 memory? Beats me. We are at a time right now where overclocking isn't just raising the FSB a little but, we are in an era where people are unlocking their T-Birds to a lower multiplier and cracking up the FSB for a higher memory bandwidth. People with 1ghz T-Birds (10x at 100MHz) are lowering their multiplier to 7.5x and raising their FSB to 150MHz, making a good improvement in memory bandwidth. A short time ago, this wasn't feasible because the RAM couldn't handle these speeds, especially at CAS 2 latency. Some manufacturers have made a reputation for themselves and also gained a following with their high quality chips. These companies, such as Infineon/Siemens, Mosel, etc… have their chips mounted on PCB's by companies such as Mushkin and Memman and sold as their own. Mushkin uses Infineon chips on their RAM, probably the best chips out they're in my opinion and it's great they picked such a great manufacturer.
>> Cas Latency & You/Installation/Benchmarks/Conlusion
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