There are many memory brands for the PC enthusiast to choose from when building a system or upgrading. Corsair XMS, Kingston HyperX, and OCZ Enhanced Latency all come to mind when one selects memory to run in their high-performance system.

However, none of the above brands guarantee what kind of chips the end-user will get with their RAM modules, whereas Mushkin states clearly that their "222 Special" series memory runs with hand-picked Winbond BH-6 chips. Mushkin also guarantees its 222 Special will run at timings of CAS 2-2-2 at a speed of 400 MHz.

Mushkin's simple, attractive packaging is made of hard plastic and protects the memory sticks from external shock. All that is included in the package is what is shown in the picture above: 2 x 512 MB sticks of unbuffered 184-pin PC3200 (DDR400) DDR SDRAM (3.2GB/s bandwidth) with a lifetime warranty.

All 222 Special is rated to run at timings of CAS 2, tRCD 2, and RAS Precharge 2 from 2.6V to 2.8V. The sample units we received have awesome black heatspreaders, but I've seen Mushkin RAM that has purple and orange heatspreaders as well.