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In today's hot DDR2 memory market, manufacturers are in their own equivalent of an arms race - a memory module speed race.

Never mind that JDEC has only approved a PC2-6400 spec; people want more speed, and memory manufacturers are rushing to comply.  Unfortunately, something is lost in this race - compatibility. For the highest specification memories, the module manufacturers will often only qualify them to meet the rated speeds on certain motherboards - they will still perform well on other boards, but at times they will not be able to meet the advertised speeds.

This poses a very real problem for buyers - will the expensive high end memory modules they buy force them to change motherboards to get the best performance? And what about Microsoft trying to tie Vista to a motherboard - will Microsoft re-activate their Windows if they have changed motherboards in order to benefit from the fastest memory modules?

Today, we are looking at Mushkin's entry in the high speed memory races... the Mushkin XP2-9200.  Mushkin is well known for the quality and performance of their memory modules, and historically they are one of the best known brands for reliability.  Will these ultra high performance modules live up to their specifications?  In this review we try to find out the answer to just that question.



Above - the serious looking black modules are rated at a blistering 1150MHz!

Specifications

• 1150MHz (575MHz DDR)
• 5-5-4-12 latency
• supports EPP profiles
• Unbuffered
• 240 pin DIMM
• 2.2V-2.3V

These are great specs, but but how do they perform?  Let's continue on and find out.

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