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Mushkin 3500 Black Level 1 or 2?

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pik4chu

pik4chu

Senior Yellow Forum Rat
​
Joined
Jan 17, 2003
Location
Centennial, Colorado
I'm in the market for memory (have made various threads recently) and I'm definately going to get Mushkin black PC2500 dual pack 2x256 RAM. I'm not going for the highest OC possible just a decent one and I want some good RAM (running PC 2100 right now) And my question is, is there much of a noticable difference between the mushkin black level 1 (CAS 2-3-3) and the level 2 (CAS 2-2-2) since the L2 is $175 and thats a little high. and the Level 1 is 30 bucks less. Is it still really good RAM? or should I bite the bullet for 175 and get the Level 2, thanks.

Mobo will soon be an Abit NF7-S from newegg. when I decide whether to get the refurb or new (suggestions on that welcome too) ;)
 
I'd go for the level 2... timings are important for real-world applications and help bandwidth some too. Newegg has the RAM cheaper than mushkin.com if you didn't think of looking there for it (I know you did for your mobo).
 
but if Im not treally going to be overclocking much does it make that much of a difference? really dont wanna spend 170 bucks for 512 megs :(
 
Its worth it, you have to think of the future, DDR is Hot now, so it will be around for awhile, and the Level 2 is superb.
 
Silversinksam said:
Newegg sells a 512 stick of pc3200 Level II for $165 :rolleyes:

Its $199 at Mushkin
Click to expand...
heh, ya I know. Im shopping at newegg. and Im looking at twin packs... which are 175 :) ok, I guess Ill get the level 2.. just need someone to buy my RAM off me so I can afford it :) classifieds...hehe ;)
 
ok, then I have a second question. is dual channel that much more beneficial? seeing as how the regular L2 blacks 512M are 10-15 less than the twin pack. is one better than the other? Cause I hear that they run faster but have lower top "speeds" would it be better to just get a single 512 stick rather than 2*256? I really want to be sure before I buy anything, since Im on a tight budget sorta for this upgrade.
 
DCDDR will yield gains from 5-10% on an AMD platform; it's not nearly as earth shaking as on an Intel platform. As you're not doing any major overclocking, I'd suggest going with two sticks as it won't hinder your plans. For those who want the higest FSB possible, the fewer the sticks the better, or so it's been in my experience.

~THT
 
Gain for DC is dependent of FSB, the higher the FSB the less gain you'll see. At around a 200 FSB you'll see ~3 to 5%. You lose effectiveness of DC at the higher FSB because the CPU is limiting the system.
 
this ram will most likely not be running at stock speed, most likely will be run at 2700 or 3000, until I upgrade processor.
 
If you're interested in the details, look here. The results there will give you an idea but things will vary depending on your hardware. Some tests are synthetic but Prime95 is also used.
 
I would recommend getting the Level 1 RAM. I've been looking into buying a 512meg stick of Mushkin and I see the difference between Level 1 and Level 2 is one timing. To me that doesn't justify a $40 premium over the other. Especially when that $40 can go towards something else, such as a computer book, food, or rent. But that's just my 2 cents worth.
 
pik4chu said:
i.e. Level 2 has better chips to begin with :)
Click to expand...

The BH5 (used in level 2) OC with tighter settings and will take more voltage, thus most of the folks here will look for them if they have a choice. The newer CH5 chips are reported to OC but with looser timings and won't take as much voltage to try to get higher speeds (my memory uses the BH5 chips so I don't have any experience with these).
 
I think Im still gonna go with L2 because it has better timings and will not be OCed much, I ont think. And will not be the bottleneck in my system for quite a while. Thanks for all the replies btw.
 
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