Mushkin Redline Ridgeback 16GB DDR4-3200 C20 Dual-Channel Kit Review

[Crashman]

Mushkin’s latest Redline Ridgeback modules look great in red. Does its MRB4U320LLLM8GX2 kit look equally good in our performance and value charts?

Mushkin Redline Ridgeback 16GB DDR4-3200 C20 Dual-Channel Kit Review : Read more

 

[InvalidError]

It would be nice to see timing and clock results on Ryzen's quirky memory controller. With Ryzen's fabric bandwidth and latency tied to the memory clock, performance scaling with memory should also be more interesting.

I'm guessing something like that is already in the works but there is no rush to get it done while board manufacturers are still releasing BIOS updates every week to tweak things.

 

[hannibal]

Yep. Ryzen test requires quite some bios upgrades, so that more different memories gets supported. It is still very young platform.

 

[max0x7ba]

Other memory reviews use different methodology and their results are more dramatic: http://www.techspot.com/article/1171-ddr4-4000-mhz-performance/

 

[Crashman]

Other memory reviews use different methodology and their results are more dramatic: http://www.techspot.com/article/1171-ddr4-4000-mhz-performance/

Obviously, if you add enough graphics power you can find your bottleneck elsewhere in applications that lean heavily on the GPU (games, some encoders, etc). And if you put in a fast enough processor, the lightly threaded processor-heavy apps will again be limited by something else, likely the RAM. And then, if you use a heavily threaded processor-heavy app, good luck finding a processor with enough cores and overclocking capability to make the RAM appear the bottleneck...but it's still possible.

I try to present a graphics and CPU performance level that people without that kind of money and tenacity could realistically expect to use, and not limit my application selection to best case scenarios. But thanks for pointing out the Handbrake and Adobe benchmarks, I might add those at a future date

 

[JackNaylorPE]

Crash:

Very mush welcome the comments about bottlenecking. This is my biggest beef with memory reviews as blanket conclusions are drawn that "faster RAM has no impact" when a) they never look at minimum frame rates b) they only use a small subset of games usually ignoring ones that are impacted by memory performance (STALKER, F1, etc) and c) use a test bed where the system is bottle necked by something else. The reviews I am looking for would include:

a) Typical gaming enthusiast system w/ 1080 Ti
b) Typical gaming enthusiast system w/ 1080 Ti in SLI
c) Typical moderate system w/ 1060
d) Typical moderate system w/ 480
e) Wide spectrum of games including ones generally viewed as GFX bound, CPU bound and memory bound

If the article is extended to the realm of workstation performance, then of course Adobe premiere, AutoCADm handbrake would be welcome additions and, to cover all bases both an i7 and a workstation class CPU say 6850k

As for the product being reviewed, well this is certainly disappointing ... Always look to Mushkin 1st when looking for RAM but that won't continue w/o options better than CAS 20 .. and at more attractive pricing. A $170 product in a price / performance niche that delivers faster products (CAS 16) for $50 less I don't need to hear about, and if I do, I think the critical fact to be delivered is that the product, at present, is greatly overpriced and that you could do better for $50 less.

As to the approach, while I don't want to be critical, I gotta say that ... for me ... I wish a different approach has been taken. With 3200 being the point above which the price / performance curve heads sharply towards the sky, the reader I think would have been better served comparing it with other options in the same speed range. At 3200, CAS 16 starts at about $120 .... At 3600, it's $150 more ... and at 3866, we're talking $230 (All pricing per pcparttpicker, this date).

So I don' see the value in comparing product categories where the going rate is twice that of the other, even if the subject of the review is vastly overpriced. After noting that 4 sticks have an inherent advantage on this platform, I don't quite why the article doubled down on the the "apples and oranges" means of comparison.

I think it also shuda been noted that the price was rather extreme for a 16GB set @ 3200. I expect to pay more for Mushkin, I expect to pay more for better timings .... but this set is certainly not worthy of the Redline designation ... shuda been a blackline and at a lower price.

 

[Crashman]

Crash:

Very mush welcome the comments about bottlenecking. This is my biggest beef with memory reviews as blanket conclusions are drawn that "faster RAM has no impact" when a) they never look at minimum frame rates b) they only use a small subset of games usually ignoring ones that are impacted by memory performance (STALKER, F1, etc) and c) use a test bed where the system is bottle necked by something else. The reviews I am looking for would include:

a) Typical gaming enthusiast system w/ 1080 Ti
b) Typical gaming enthusiast system w/ 1080 Ti in SLI
c) Typical moderate system w/ 1060
d) Typical moderate system w/ 480
e) Wide spectrum of games including ones generally viewed as GFX bound, CPU bound and memory bound

If the article is extended to the realm of workstation performance, then of course Adobe premiere, AutoCADm handbrake would be welcome additions and, to cover all bases both an i7 and a workstation class CPU say 6850k

As for the product being reviewed, well this is certainly disappointing ... Always look to Mushkin 1st when looking for RAM but that won't continue w/o options better than CAS 20 .. and at more attractive pricing. A $170 product in a price / performance niche that delivers faster products (CAS 16) for $50 less I don't need to hear about, and if I do, I think the critical fact to be delivered is that the product, at present, is greatly overpriced and that you could do better for $50 less.

As to the approach, while I don't want to be critical, I gotta say that ... for me ... I wish a different approach has been taken. With 3200 being the point above which the price / performance curve heads sharply towards the sky, the reader I think would have been better served comparing it with other options in the same speed range. At 3200, CAS 16 starts at about $120 .... At 3600, it's $150 more ... and at 3866, we're talking $230 (All pricing per pcparttpicker, this date).

So I don' see the value in comparing product categories where the going rate is twice that of the other, even if the subject of the review is vastly overpriced. After noting that 4 sticks have an inherent advantage on this platform, I don't quite why the article doubled down on the the "apples and oranges" means of comparison.

I think it also shuda been noted that the price was rather extreme for a 16GB set @ 3200. I expect to pay more for Mushkin, I expect to pay more for better timings .... but this set is certainly not worthy of the Redline designation ... shuda been a blackline and at a lower price.

First of all, when we were using the old system with the GTX 970, the only way to get past the GPU bottleneck in games was to set a lower setting. We saw gains from 170 to 190 FPS or more at the lower setting, but those settings were irrelevant to real-world game play. So, it really took the GTX 1080 to get us at a point where the difference mattered.
Now, we've known about the four-banks of RAM thing for a while, but ever since 8Gb chips came out most manufacturers have been making 8GB modules with them. Of course this causes confusion when comparing 8GB to 16GB modules, because the 16GB modules will have two banks of RAM while the 8GB modules have only one.
And that's the direction we're going with this. We're working our way back to dual-rank modules that use sixteen 4Gb chips. You'd be surprised..except that your keen analysis shows that you really won't be.
BTW, I forgot to add, we really should have tested the 3866 as a half set as well as a full set to show that difference. I just didn't know how to handle it in the value assessment.

 

[max0x7ba]

Other memory reviews use different methodology and their results are more dramatic: http://www.techspot.com/article/1171-ddr4-4000-mhz-performance/

Obviously, if you add enough graphics power you can find your bottleneck elsewhere in applications that lean heavily on the GPU (games, some encoders, etc). And if you put in a fast enough processor, the lightly threaded processor-heavy apps will again be limited by something else, likely the RAM. And then, if you use a heavily threaded processor-heavy app, good luck finding a processor with enough cores and overclocking capability to make the RAM appear the bottleneck...but it's still possible.

I try to present a graphics and CPU performance level that people without that kind of money and tenacity could realistically expect to use, and not limit my application selection to best case scenarios. But thanks for pointing out the Handbrake and Adobe benchmarks, I might add those at a future date

Your benchmarks show what fast memory is not good for. I would rather prefer seeing what it is good for.

You could as well benchmark Tetris on 386 and 7700K and conclude that 386 is good enough.

 

[Crashman]

I try to present a graphics and CPU performance level that people without that kind of money and tenacity could realistically expect to use, and not limit my application selection to best case scenarios. But thanks for pointing out the Handbrake and Adobe benchmarks, I might add those at a future date

Your benchmarks show what fast memory is not good for. I would rather prefer seeing what it is good for.

You could as well benchmark Tetris on 386 and 7700K and conclude that 386 is good enough.

Not true. It shows both. Now you show me a 386 with DDR4 and we'll talk.

 

[InvalidError]

Now you show me a 386 with DDR4 and we'll talk.

Give me some suitably large and fast FPGAs, a few hundred dollars for PCB prototypes and compensation for a few hundred man-hours to write the bare minimum firmware, I could probably make a 386 boot DOS on DDR4