Discussion thread for Mushkin Ascent 2x2GB DDR3 PC3-12800 Review

[3oh6]

Originally Posted by bgreer

How do these fair against the G.Skill PI's that were reviewed a little while ago, i am considering both for a new build. Also, where are these ascents available (if they even are yet), i haven't been able to find a retailer.

technically both kits are the same. they are both rated for the same operating frequency and both have solid XMP profiles. the Mushkins are slightly tighter timings but the performance gains are negligible because of it. you can't say one is better than the other based on a single set of overclocking results from each as overclocking is luck of the draw so you really can't factor that in. especially considering how new each kit is and how little amount of results we have seen.

the Mushkins do have a better heat sink IMO. the G.Skill Pi have simply re-hashed the same old heat spreader idea and the thin aluminum they use really doesn't exude a lot of cooling confidence. the Ascent heat sinks on the other hand are obviously a big step forward and really do appear to provide a much better cooling solution. whether that actually effects the performance...hard to determine.

the other factor is price, warranty service, and technical support...Mushkin is hard to argue with. G.Skill may be just as good and they do have a support forum that is active with G.Skill staff but they aren't as accessible as the Mushkin support is. a perfect example of this is... go to google.com and type in Mushkin, then try G.Skill, or GSkill, or any variation of the name. tell me which support forum you can find quicker

then when you get there, just look at the average response times in said forums. Greg or even Brian usually have an answer within hours or even minutes. not the case at the other forum.

[Supergrover]

Originally Posted by 3oh6

technically both kits are the same. they are both rated for the same operating frequency and both have solid XMP profiles. the Mushkins are slightly tighter timings but the performance gains are negligible because of it. you can't say one is better than the other based on a single set of overclocking results from each as overclocking is luck of the draw so you really can't factor that in. especially considering how new each kit is and how little amount of results we have seen.

the Mushkins do have a better heat sink IMO. the G.Skill Pi have simply re-hashed the same old heat spreader idea and the thin aluminum they use really doesn't exude a lot of cooling confidence. the Ascent heat sinks on the other hand are obviously a big step forward and really do appear to provide a much better cooling solution. whether that actually effects the performance...hard to determine.

the other factor is price, warranty service, and technical support...Mushkin is hard to argue with. G.Skill may be just as good and they do have a support forum that is active with G.Skill staff but they aren't as accessible as the Mushkin support is. a perfect example of this is... go to google.com and type in Mushkin, then try G.Skill, or GSkill, or any variation of the name. tell me which support forum you can find quicker

then when you get there, just look at the average response times in said forums. Greg or even Brian usually have an answer within hours or even minutes. not the case at the other forum.

Yup Greg helped me awhile ago getting my redlines stable over @ Mushkin's forums, I'll second the fast and awesome support.

[BALISTX]

Great Review and yes Greg is awesome, he's helped with my memory settings before on a couple of builds and he was fast. Still waiting on that Mushkin Case Badges though Greg.

[MushkinGreg]

I hear ya. Those case badges have been put on hold many times. But the ceo wants to have them included in every kit of ram before the end of the year, so it shouldn't be long at all.

[soapman72]

Did you guys have any luck overclocking these on your P5E3 Premium? On the 790i you guys were able to exceed 1800mhz with tighter timings than any current "Official" 1800mhz 2x2gb kits sold today. Impressive, to say the least! I have 1800mhz ram that will not run any timings tighter tan 8-8-8-27 regardless of voltage. They will hit around 1840mhz, but no luck tightening the timings.

I just discovered that my ram will run 1N command rate though, and that provided a small boost. Will these kits run at 1N?

[3oh6]

as mentioned a couple times, the kit runs the XMP profiles on the P5E3-Premium no problem but i won't be clocking with them at all. look at how the G.Skill Pi did on that board and you will know why. our sample was an absolute dog and i refuse to work with it anymore...i don't have enough hair to lose more trying. it really is a shame because so many people have success with it and i really would like an Intel platform for clocking memory on but since my first P5K3-Dlx, i haven't had one worth a lick. the Rampage Extreme appears to be the only alternative but if Asus thinks they are getting another $500 of money for a motherboard, they are crazy.

this Mushkin kit has no problem running 1T but my 790i doesn't like running 1T with 2x2GB kits past about 800MHz so we stuck with 2T for all testing. memory will run whatever the memory controller will let it so 1T/2T isn't really up to the memory in most cases. with that said, there is next to no difference between 1T/2T from the limited testing i did on the 790i at lower clocks.

i am also almost finished up with dual 32M SPi clocking of this kit for an OC Report and the results have literally knocked me off my chair. they continue to scale with voltage nicely past 2.0v and at 6-6-5...they have out classed my previous best CL6 kit, 2x1GB PC3-16000 Ballistixs. that's right, this Mushkin Ascent 2x2GB kit is running higher clocks/tighter secondary timings at the same voltage as my impressive 2x1GB Ballistix for dual 32M stability. as crazy as it sounds, these would be my best kit of memory for benching if i was running a quad core CPU

[soapman72]

Sorry to hear about your problems with the P5E3 Premium. I was beginning to feel that way about my board, but it turns out it was my OCZ Platinum Ram the 1600mhz ocz ram won't even POST in my board if I try 1N regardless of which strap I am on. My 1800mhz reapers not only work at 1N, but they run 100% stable as well. I was suprised to find that !N did not require any additional NB Voltage as compared to 2N. Is that strange? I am sure I was running the absolute minimum NB voltage that was stable in my system too.

I guess, I really don't have a full understanding on what determines whether or not a particular ram kit will run 1N, but I find it weird that my board will run the faster kit at 1N but not the slower kit.

[NyteOwl]

These hard hard to find in stock - I hope that's a "good" sign (popular) though the Mushkin site itself says orders may be delayed. I also seems to say you can buy direct from Canada and then the checkout says shipping only to US addresses ?? (only FedEx ?)

[MushkinGreg]

Originally Posted by NyteOwl

These hard hard to find in stock - I hope that's a "good" sign (popular) though the Mushkin site itself says orders may be delayed. I also seems to say you can buy direct from Canada and then the checkout says shipping only to US addresses ?? (only FedEx ?)

Yes we had to stop shipping direct to canada, due to outrageous fees that were happening on the customers end due to changes with how shipping companies and customs works in early 2007.

We have been trying to get some out to ncix.

[Dashock]

mmm a case badge would be awesome my Cosmos S case is a total virgin sticker free.