Mushkin Enhanced Redline Ridgeback 2133mhz 16GB Review (Quad)

1. Introduction2. Mushkin Enhanced Redline 2133mhz3. Mushkin Enhanced Redline 2133mhz (Super High Res Gallery)4. Pushing the Redline to 2400mhz5. Overclocking past 2400mhz6. System Configuration7. SiSoft Sandra8. PCMark 79. 3DStudioMax 201110. MaxxMem211. Closing Thoughts12. View All Pages

Over the years Mushkin earned a reputation as being one of the primary choices for the enthusiast overclocking audience. Today we are taking a look at their brand new 2133mhz Enhanced Redline memory with relatively tight 9-10-11 timings. We will partner the memory with the number one X79 motherboard, the Asus Rampage IV Extreme. How far can we push this memory in a Quad Channel configuration?

Mushkin are planning to target the UK this year and while ARIA have been stocking a selection of their memory now for some time, they will be available shortly in other leading stores online. The 2133mhz kit is the new flagship product, enhancing their current 1600mhz and 1866mhz Redline ‘Ridgeback' kits.

This kit is specifically designed for X79 and the Quad Channel memory architecture – ‘QUAD PACK' is highlighted at the top of the front of the box. There is a small window cut into the packaging to highlight the eye catching, red heat spreaders.

Inside, the four memory sticks are separated into two tough blister packs, in pairs.

I love the heatspreaders, they are heavy duty and only slightly extended above the size of the actual PCB underneath. One side has the ‘Redline' branding highlighted, while the other has the technical data listed.

This Mushkin Redline has an XMP profile set at 2,133mhz with 9-11-10-28 2T timings. This is quite tight for the speed.

On closer inspection we can see that the thick heatspreaders are actually composed of three separate sections. The top ‘Ridgeback' beam attached to the two side panels with two small Philips screws on either side.

Easily one of the best heatspreader implementations we have seen and very easy to remove without damaging the modules underneath. The Enhanced Redline Ridgeback 2133mhz memory uses high grade HYNIX memory, one of the best memory suppliers on the market. The two red heatshields on either side of the PCB are covered in a layer of thin thermal material.

On this page we present some super high resolution images of the product taken with the 24.5MP Nikon D3X camera and 24-70mm ED lens. These will take much longer to open due to the dimensions, especially on slower connections. If you use these pictures on another site or publication, please credit Kitguru.net as the owner/source.

To test today we are turning to our favourite X79 board, the Asus Rampage IV Extreme, the current cream of the crop. The bios allows for a plethora of tweaking options, especially when it comes to pushing the hardware to the absolute limits.

The Asus Rampage IV Extreme immediately detected the Mushkin Redline memory and configured to 2,133mhz.

We selected the XMP profile anyway, and it highlighted the correct speeds of 9-11-10-28 @ 1.65 volts.

System Validation at 2,133mhz is available over here.

We overrode the XMP profile to select 2,400mhz, but the system would not post at the default timings.

We relaxed the memory timings to 10-12-11-32 and the system posted first time.

System validation at 2,400mhz is available over here.

We haven't been able to get any of our Quad channel kits past 2500mhz to date and we had high hopes this might be the first kit to exceed the 2500mhz landmark for us.

We increased the voltage to 1.66 for stability.

We tried the Asus Rampage IV Extreme 2,600mhz profile, but the system was not stable, regardless of how relaxed we made the timings. We therefore opted for a fully manual mode and overclocked via BCLK.

We managed to get the system stable to 2,544mhz at the same timings as the 2,400mhz settings. 10-12-11-32 @ 1.66 volts. We lowered the multiplier to maintain a very similar 3960X Extreme Edition clock speed, close to 4,400mhz.

System validation at 2,544mhz is available over here.

Today we will test the Mushkin Redline Ridgeback 2,133mhz memory at:

2133mhz @ 9-11-10-28 2T
2400mhz @ 10-12-11-32 2T
2544mhz @ 10-12-11-32 2T (SiSoft Sandra / 3DStudio Max 2011)

Processor: Intel i7 3960X EE @ 4.4ghz
Motherboard: Asus Rampage IV Extreme
Cooler: Antec H20 920
Memory: 16GB Mushkin Enhanced Redline Ridgeback
Graphics Card: Nvidia GTX590
Power Supply: Enermax Platimax 1200W
Optical Drive: Asus BluRay Drive
Chassis: Lian Li PC-A77FR Aluminium Red Full Tower Case
Monitors: Dell U3011, 3x Ilyama ProLite E2472HDD
Boot Drive: Patriot WildFire 120GB
Secondary Drive: 1TB Samsung

Comparison memory:
16GB G.Skill ARES 2133mhz
8GB Kingston HyperX 2,400mhz
16GB G.Skill 2400mhz
8GB Corsair Dominator GT 2400mhz
16GB GSkill Ripjaws Z 2133mhz
32GB Corsair Vengeance 1600mhz

Software:
SiSoft Sandra
PcMark 7
3D Studio Max 2011
MaxxMem 2

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

The Mushkin Redline at 2,133mhz is closely matched to the 16GB G.Skill ARES memory which we reviewed in March this year. When overclocked to 2,400mhz it performs again on the similar level to the G.Skill ARES at the same speeds.

The Mushkin Redline can be pushed slightly higher however, to 2,544mhz and this translates into our highest score yet of almost 53 GB/s of memory bandwidth. Incredible results.

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.

PCMark 7 doesn't showcase much of an overall increase when pushing the memory from 2,133mhz to 2,400mhz, around a 24 point differential overall.

V2011 is the first release of 3DStudio Max to fully support the Windows 7 operating system. This is a professional level tool that many people use for work purposes and our test will show any possible differences between board design today.

Autodesk 3ds Max Design 2011 software offers compelling new techniques to help bring designs to life by aggregating data, iterating ideas, and presenting the results.

Streamlined, more intelligent data exchange workflows and innovative new modeling and visualization tools help significantly increase designers’ creativity and productivity, enabling them to better explore, validate, and communicate the stories behind their designs.

Major new features:

• Slate: A node based material editor.
• Quicksilver: Hardware renderer with multithreaded rendering engine that utilizes both CPU and GPU.
• Extended Graphite Modeling Toolset
• 3ds Max Composite: A HDRI-capable compositor based on Autodesk Toxik.
• Viewport Canvas toolset for 3D and 2D texture painting directly in the viewport
• Object Painting: use 3D geometry as ‘brushes’ on other geometry
• Character Animation Toolkit (CAT): now integrated as part of the base package
• Autodesk Material Library: Over 1200 new photometrically accurate shaders
• Additional file format support: includes native support for Sketchup, Inventor
• FBX file linking
• Save to Previous Release (2010)

We created a new 8200×3200 scene and recorded the time for the hardware to finalise the render.

The Mushkin Redline slots in beside the G.Skill ARES at the same speeds. It claims the top spot by one second however when the memory is overclocked to 2,544mhz.

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

Again, very similar results to the 16GB G.Skill Ares kit when configured to 2,133mhz and 2,400mhz. The Mushkin Redline manages to slightly outperform the ARES memory at 2,400mhz, claiming the top spot.

The Mushkin Enhanced Redline Ridgeback 2,133mhz is one of the finest memory kits we have tested in our history. The attention to detail is noticeable, and I love the headspreader design. It is only slightly larger than the PCB of the sticks, and each side panel can be easily removed by screws as they bolt into the primary top ‘spine'.

Although this memory is supplied at 2,133mhz, it is easily overclocked to 2,400mhz by slightly loosening the timings from 9-11-10-28 to 10-12-11-32 @ 1.65v. This increases memory bandwidth from just under 49 GB/s to just under 52 GB/s. It is important to point out that not all X79 boards will achieve the same result, however the ASUS Rampage IV Extreme had no problems.

By manually tweaking the motherboard further, we were able to overclock the memory to 2,544mhz at the same timings of 10-12-11-32. All we needed was a very minor voltage bump, to 1.66v. The system would post at 2,600mhz however we couldn't get it completely solid with our intensive 2 hour loop run, with several data errors being flagged during the stability test.

It is closely matched with the 16GB G.Skill ARES we reviewed in March, although the Mushkin Enhanced Redline kit can be overclocked a little more, in the right hands. If this is important to you, then it is the best memory you can buy right now.

ARIA stock a wide range of Mushkin memory, including the Blackline and Silverline range. The Redline is awaiting stock, but you can find it over here for preorder. The 1600mhz and 1866mhz kits are retailing around the £120 mark. Overclockers are also stocking the kits, further information available here.

The 2,133mhz Redline kit demands a premium – at £189.95 inc vat. That said, it is significantly less than the price of the 16GB Team Xtreem 2600mhz memory (£299.99 inc vat). Remember, we managed to almost achieve that speed via manual overclocking with this Mushkin Redline kit.

With a lifetime warranty for added peace of mind, this is one of the best memory kits on the market today.

Above, we installed two 16GB kits, totaling 32GB and we were still able to achieve 2,400mhz @ 10-12-11-32.

Pros:

• Fantastic heatspreader design.
• Sexy appearance, perfect match for the red ASUS Rampage IV Extreme.
• Overclocks to 2,500mhz+ with manual tweaks.
• competitively priced.
• Lifetime Warranty.

Cons:

• It is a tough market to be seen.

Kitguru says: If you want ultimate performance memory that you can overclock past the XMP profile, then this should be right at the top of the list.

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