Mushkin Blackline Ridgeback 1600 MHz 16 GB Review (Quad Kit)

1. Introduction2. Mushkin Blackline Ridgeback 1600 MHz3. BIOS and Overclocking4. Testing Methodology5. SiSoft Sandra 20126. PCMark 77. MaxxMem28. Super Pi9. WinRAR10. Closing Thoughts11. View All Pages

Today we are going to look at a quad channel memory kit from the Mushkin Blackline Ridgeback range. This kit runs at 1600 MHz with tight timings of 8-8-8-24 and is aimed at users who are looking to build a powerful X79 system without spending too much money.  It's also fully compatible with Z77 systems although it will be obviously restricted to a dual channel configuration with this platform.

Mushkin are one of the smaller memory manufacturers operating today with a primary focus at the high end of the enthusiast market.  Their memory is very popular with enthusiasts and is regarded to be some of the finest available.  They have a few different ranges of memory available for different applications as well as a small range of solid state drives.

Features

The Blackline kit is supplied in an attractively design box which features a black and green livery.  The front of the box has a window which lets us see one of the sticks inside the packaging.  Mushkin make it quite obvious that this kit is designed for quad channel X79 systems as there is a large ‘Quad Pack' badge on the front of the box.

Turning the box over reveals a list of key features which are explained in detail.

Inside the box, the four memory sticks are contained within two plastic blister packs which should do a good job of protecting them during transit.

This Blackline kit features Mushkin's Ridgeback heatspreaders which are very attractive indeed.  They feel very substantial and extend about a centimeter above the top of the PCB.  This could cause a few compatibility issues with large CPU heatsinks.

These heatspreaders are black in colour and feel very solid.  Both sides feature small Mushkin logos and one side has a sticker detailing some technical information.

Removing the heatspreaders is very simple indeed.  They are comprised of three different sections which are secured together on either side using three tiny Phillips screws.  There are large thermal pads on the side parts of the heatspreader to improve heat dissipation.  There are sixteen memory chips on each module, eight on either side.  They don't appear to be branded but carry the model number RHW990B3G-P.

This memory is rated at 1600 MHz with timings of 8-8-8-24-1T.  These are all pre-configured in the XMP profile.

For testing today we are using the excellent ASRock Fatal1ty X79 Champion motherboard which features a comprehensive UEFI interface.  This has all the options we could possibly ask for for overclocking.  We updated the BIOS to the latest version before testing.

Loading up the XMP profile sets the memory speed to 1600 MHz and the timings to 8-8-8-24-1T at 1.5V.

These are confirmed for us in CPU-Z.

The memory had no trouble reaching the 1600 MHz advertised speed so we decided to see how far we could push it.  Getting the memory to 1866 MHz was very simple as the motherboard automatically loosened the timings slightly to 10-10-10-28-2T.

We decided to use these settings for our overclocked tests.  See validation here.

We didn't have much luck pushing the memory further.  We tried upping the voltage and loosening the timings further but we couldn't get the system to boot in Windows at 2133 MHz.

For testing today we are going to use an X79 based system as it's able to utilise the performance benefits of quad channel memory.  Our test system features an Intel Core i7-3930K processor and an ASRock Fatal1ty X79 Champion motherboard.

We will be testing the memory at stock speeds and when overclocked.  The memory configurations used for testing are:

• Mushkin Blackline Stock: 1600 MHz, 8-8-8-24, 1.5V
• Mushkin Blackline Overclocked: 1866 MHz, 10-10-10-28, 1.5V
• Mushkin Redline Stock: 2133 MHz, 9-11-10-28, 1.65V

Here is the full configuration of our test system:

• Processor: Intel Core i7 3930K
• Motherboard: ASRock Fatal1ty X79 Champion
• Cooler: Corsair H100
• Graphics card: AMD Radeon HD 7950
• Power supply: Corsair HX850W
• System Drive: Crucial RealSSD M4 256 GB
• Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit)

We used the following software for testing.

• SiSoft Sandra
• PCMark 7
• MaxxMem 2
• Super Pi
• WinRar

SiSoftware Sandra (the System ANalyser, Diagnostic and Reporting Assistant) is an information & diagnostic utility. It should provide most of the information (including undocumented) you need to know about your hardware, software and other devices whether hardware or software.

Sandra is a (girl’s) name of Greek origin that means “defender”, “helper of mankind”. We think that’s quite fitting.

It works along the lines of other Windows utilities, however it tries to go beyond them and show you more of what’s really going on. Giving the user the ability to draw comparisons at both a high and low-level. You can get information about the CPU, chipset, video adapter, ports, printers, sound card, memory, network, Windows internals, AGP, PCI, PCI-X, PCIe (PCI Express), database, USB, USB2, 1394/Firewire, etc.

Native ports for all major operating systems are available:

• Windows XP, 2003/R2, Vista, 7, 2008/R2 (x86)
• Windows XP, 2003/R2, Vista, 7, 2008/R2 (x64)
• Windows 2003/R2, 2008/R2* (IA64)
• Windows Mobile 5.x (ARM CE 5.01)
• Windows Mobile 6.x (ARM CE 5.02)

All major technologies are supported and taken advantage of:

• SMP – Multi-Processor
• MC – Multi-Core
• SMT/HT – Hyper-Threading
• MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, SSE 4.1, SSE 4.2, AVX, FMA – Multi-Media instructions
• GPGPU, DirectX, OpenGL – Graphics
• NUMA – Non-Uniform Memory Access
• AMD64/EM64T/x64 – 64-bit extensions to x86
• IA64 – Intel* Itanium 64-bit

In this test we can see a boost in performance when the memory was overclocked.

PCMark 7 includes 7 PC tests for Windows 7, combining more than 25 individual workloads covering storage, computation, image and video manipulation, web browsing and gaming. Specifically designed to cover the full range of PC hardware from netbooks and tablets to notebooks and desktops, PCMark 7 offers complete PC performance testing for Windows 7 for home and business use.

This test lets us see how the real world performance of our test system is improved by overclocking the memory.

MaxxMem2 PreView is a useful, free program to rate memory performance. It can be downloaded over here.

Again we see a good boost in performance when the Blackline memory was overclocked, except in the write test.  It still can't match the performance of the 2133 MHz Redline memory, though.

Super Pi is used by a huge audience, particularly to check stability when overclocking processors and memory. If a system is able to calculate PI to the 2 millionth place after the decimal without mistake, it is considered to be stable in regards to RAM and CPU. This program will also allow us to outline performance gains created by overclocked CPU and RAM frequencies.

We see a slight reduction in the time taken to calculate Pi with the memory overclocked.

WinRar is one of the most popular archive manager programs available. It can backup your data and reduce the size of email attachments, decompress RAR, ZIP and other files downloaded from Internet and create new archives in RAR and ZIP file format. You can try WinRAR before buy, its trial version is available in downloads.  WinRar’s built in benchmark and hardware test can help us indicate performance gains experienced by overclocking our memory.

Again, we can see how overclocking the memory improves the real world performance of our test system.

We're quite impressed with this Mushkin Blackline Ridgeback memory. This particular kit is clocked at 1600 MHz with timings of 8-8-8-24-1T which isn't blazingly fast … but the timings are pretty tight.

Overclocking the memory to 1866 MHz was very easy with the timings loosened to 10-10-10-28-2T.  We saw some significant performance improvements in our benchmarks when the memory was overclocked, so it is worth the effort. That said, this kit couldn't match the performance of the impressive Mushkin Enhanced Redline Ridgeback 2133 MHz memory, however this is about £50 more expensive.

One thing that stands out about this Mushkin Blackline Ridgeback memory is the quality look and feel of the heatspreaders. They aren't massively oversized either, so compatibility is quite good, although you may still run into trouble with some heatsinks.  The black finish of the memory should compliment most other components well.

Aria stock a wide range of Mushkin memory and this Blackline Ridgeback 1600 MHz (994046) kit is available for just under £110 inc. VAT.  This is around £50 cheaper than the higher performing Mushkin Redline Ridgeback 2133 MHz kit which we would recommend to those who want the ultimate performance for their system.  They are quite reasonably priced compared to similar kits on the market, too.

Pros

• Solid Performance.
• Overclocks easily.
• Low profile heatspreaders.
• Attractive design.
• good value for money.

Cons

• Tough competition.

KitGuru says: Another good set of memory from Mushkin.

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