Introduction

In Today's world, let's face it, you simply need more ram capacity to allocate to the every increasing resource eating applications and game titles in the current market's. Today's game titles often publish minimum system requirements and or in some cases "recommended" system requirements for a given game title and these recommendations are often very conservative and in some cases simply don't jive up to specification requirements. While we often think the mighty 1024 MB dual channel ram is more than enough, the reality of the story is, if your PC is used as a family entertainment system, then chances are you would benefit from larger capacity memory storage.

For example, if you have a machine that is just a gaming rig and used for nothing else, then you might get away with acceptible performance from a gig of ram. Now if you are family orientated and the PC is used by son's and daughter's, mother's & father's, for business, pleasure, surfing, scanning, printing, chatting, checking monthly stocks and bonds and a multitude of other task's then chance's are your 1024MB is on the ragged edge, especially if you run two and three or more USB devices and have the system configured to do everything short of cooking and cleaning then your system performance might very well be limited to its extended ram capacity.

This is where 2048 MB large capacity modules will free up unwanted swap hits and bottlenecking caused by highly used and multi-configured family systems. Take the smash hit game title Battlefield 2 for instance, this game simply runs better with 2048 MB of ram, no ifs ands or buts - case closed. If you are a big fan of this game title and want the absolute premium performance then invest in at least another gig of ram or simply purchase a dual channel 2 GB kit such as the Mushkin eXtreme Performance 2GB XP4000 dual channel pack. Let's take a look...

Mushkin eXtreme Performance 2GB XP4000 3-4-3-8

To reiterate the Mushkin Homepage: The Mushkin Extreme Performance Black Series (XP)- This line of modules delivers superlative performance for the hardcore PC enthusiast, and has been THE essential ingredient in extreme rigs for over a decade. Whether you are looking for low latencies to pull the highest frame-rates from the most challenging games or overclocking your machine well past industry standards - the Mushkin Extreme Performance Black is your module! All Mushkin Extreme Performance memory modules come with an installed heat spreader to eliminate localized hotspots, further enhancing lifetime and overclockability. Mushkin modules are tested and carry a limited lifetime warranty.

These 128Mx64 XP4000 modules are unbuffered 184-Pin Double Data Rate (DDR) Synchronous DRAM Dual In-Line Memory Modules (DIMM), organized as a dual-bank high-speed memory array. 64Mx8 chip density. These DIMM's achieve high-speed data transfer rates of up to 500MHz. Rated 3-4-3-8 at 500MHz. These modules have been validated for the following motherboards: DFI Lan Party nF4 Ultra-D/SLI, EPox 9NPA+, ASUS P5P800, and the ASUS P4C800. 

The Mushkin eXtreme Performance 2GB XP4000 sports the new heat sink design we brought to you're attention a couple of months ago and today we have the final product in hand. I must say these are very nice modules packed in a very slender and thin design package. These spreaders offer superior cooling over previous heat sink's and are specific to Mushkin.

The backside of the Mushkin eXtreme Performance 2GB XP4000 are endowed with a printed Mushkin label, which looks very attractive when used the black and gold color scheme. The PCB is black, the heat spreader is black and the PCB tins are in gold, so this looks very classy and with excellent performance, these module will fit just about anyone's needs who would like to elevate their system's to 2048 MB.

Showing off the topside of the modules we can see why the cooling performance has increased. For one the large open air design allows heat to quickly dissipate through the large channel shaped speaders. Not to mention increased surface area and design makes the spreaders look awesome. I really dig the way they look and perform, speaking of performance let's not drag this out, let's get right to the point and stuff these into our test bed.