Mushkin special 222 or Mushkin level 1?

OK I am most likely going to buy some RAM this week. I have narrowed my choice down to the two products in the thread title. As many of you know already, the 222 special is made with picked BH6 chips that are supposed to go down to 2-2-2. However, the pack that I am looking at is going to cost $100 more than the level 1 product that will do 2-3-2.

If there is any real difference, I will not see it until I get my new mobo and proc probably next month but I am wondering if the difference will be worth the c-note when I get to that point. Of course I did some searching and to no great surprise what I found was people who are having issues with the 222 product.

The closest that I got to a positive comment was one guy who had paid for the 222 product and received a stick with BH5 chips. That is good news for him but this late in the BH5 game my c-note would probably be better spent at a casino. I would assume that if I buy 222 special at this point I would get BH6 chips.

I am not overly worried about the c-note if the 222 special actually is a better product but I would rather save it if it will not make that much difference after I am done with this round of upgrading. It is true that I can buy the cheaper RAM and up my voltage but that is not what I am asking. What I am after is how the 222 special product performs at stock compared to the level 1 product.

Fire away...

i would get the ch5, and save the bux. another thing to remember, is that the bh6 runs tight timings but doesnt oc as well on standard voltage.. my bh6 runs around 210-215 at 2.8 and around 240 at 3.2

I'd possibly look at other CH5 brands. Mushkin's CH5 is iffy with voltage and thus cripples it.

Ive had both sticks personally, and I can honestly say that:
CH5 (2-2-3-11)
BH5 (2-2-2-11)

Come within 5-10% of each other in bandwith. I dont see any real benefit to goin BH5 other than the ability of goin to DDR500 with those timings

CH5 will do perfectally fine. However I'd stay away from Mushkin's Level1. It gave me alot of problems with voltage. Beyond 2.6v the stick became so horribly unstable that it killed my OC, thus I searched for BH5.

I'd look at either OCz, TwinMOS, or Geil for CH5 that dosnt have the power-regulation feature/problem on it

Beyond 2.6v the stick became so horribly unstable that it killed my OC

Click to expand...

That can be a problem of all CH-5. Some of it just doesn't like voltage - it has to do with voltage regulator chips or something onboard the module that just screw everything up.

If you were to buy memory right now, I'd save the bucks, get the CH-5, and spend them on something else. The difference in bandwidth isn't really evident outside benchmarks. FYI, if you were to get 222 Special right now, it's guaranteed to have BH-6. They're not going to shortchange you there.

In my opinion, if you're not buying the system now, don't buy memory now either. Memory prices are at a two year high, and you might as well wait until you buy the rest of your system to buy your memory. Prices should fall while you wait.

johan851 said:

In my opinion, if you're not buying the system now, don't buy memory now either. Memory prices are at a two year high, and you might as well wait until you buy the rest of your system to buy your memory. Prices should fall while you wait.

Click to expand...

That and Low-Latency RAM is a thing of the past. Both AMD and Intel are switching over to high speed RAM. Your next machine will not use PC3200

Well, I am sitting on two year old hardware and it is getting to be about time to do an upgrade just on principal. However, I am looking to get memory now due to the fact that I have a RAM dependent game. The ultimate cash saver for me would be to buy PC 2700 RAM. Yet, if I go that route, that does not leave me in a very good place when I go into the next round of upgrades.

Given that I am going to get a new mobo and proc relatively soon, PC 3200 makes some sense on this end. True it will under perform in this mobo but PC 2700 would hold me back in my next one. So my idea is to start upgrading now, be done by June or July and ride on what will be my last socket A system until the future is really here.

True, my next+1 system will most likely use fast RAM but for now, low latency is the way to go for me. When I got the game, I was running on max FSB but since the game is so dam ram hungry, I dropped my FSB a bit to tighten my timings and made a noticeable difference.

Looking at newegg, I see Mushkin as having the tightest timings. So what other brands are going to have tight timings?

if u want to take the time and comb over the memory at cc or bb, u might get lucky and find some pc2700 valurram with the bh6 chips. i did this about 5-6 weeks ago and found a nice 2x256 set of bh6 for 50.00 with rebate.. toasteroven went to like 10 stores one sunday about a week later and found 5 2x256 stix.. that would be a nice upgrade for minimum investment...

Um, I just said that I am not looking for PC 2700. The savings would be minimal and it would hold me back when I get the new mobo and processor. But thatnks for the tip.

I got a question for you.. what is your target FSB speed?

This may work out very well in both respects. AFAIK the high grade Hynix (found in PC4000) will run @ 2-3-3-11 @ low speeds.

I have a stick of Hynix as we speak.... Ill give it a go for you.

If you get PC4k that may kill 2 birds with one stone...

Ill post my results tommorow

Go with these...

or these...

Not knowing what your board is I would say 222 special running 5:4 or even better with vdimm mod.

Well, that hits on one of my issues NoteUser.

I don't want to buy RAM for this mobo but rather for my next mobo. Right now, the issue that I am dealing with is that I simply do not have enough RAM for the game that I am playing.

To be honest, I have not looked at mobos recently but from what I recall the N-force chipset is the big thing for socket A. this round of upgrading is going to be my last socket A system. After that, I am going to have to do a whole new system.

My plan is to upgrade in three steps and get a reasonably current box that I can deal with for a couple of years. Basically what I am asking is does the 222 product make any sense for me or can I save the cash?

If its just for ram it's not that big of a deal but the BH6 can also do tight timing other than BH5 at high speeds.

A couple hundreds isn't that big a deal since your willing to hang on for a couple of years atleast.

We all know PCI Express will be a new format and all current existing hardware won't work, most anyway. This is happening around the corner under 3 years.

I was pretty much in the same situation as you. Some guy offered to sell me 1GB BH-5 for $310 and I almost bought it. But then I saw this thread about the new OCZ EB ram. If you want confirmation that it is good ram, check out Anandtech's review. Running 2.5-2-2-5 instead of 2-2-2-5 isn't that bad of a loss . Plus, we must all move on from Winbond.