Test System

Pentium 4 2.4c
ABIT IC7-MAX3
ATI Radeon X800 Pro 256 MB
160 GB SATA Seagate Barracuda (8 MB cache)
LiteOn 16X DVD-ROM
Soyo Raptor 400W Power Supply
Windows XP Professional (all the latest updates except Service Pack 2 installed)



ScienceMark 2

ScienceMark2 is a rather interesting utility which uses mathematical calculations to benchmark the CPU and memory. The ScienceMark 2 tests I used were the standard memory benchmark, Cipher, Molecular Dynamics and Primordia tests. ScienceMark 2 times how long it takes to process different scientific equations. The memory bandwidth benchmark is measured in MB/s; the higher the better. The other three tests output the time it took in seconds; lower is better.

ScienceMark 2

Memory Bandwidth

Corsair PC3200 XL Pro @ 200 MHz

Mushkin PC3200 LII V2 @ 200 MHz

Mushkin PC3200 LII V2 @ 213 MHz

Mushkin PC3200 LII V2 @ 250 MHz

4106.77

4168.32

4446.62

5064.50

0

(Seconds)

7500

 

 

ScienceMark 2
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Cipher

Moldyn

Primordia

Corsair PC3200 XL Pro @ 200 MHz

Mushkin PC3200 LII V2 @ 200 MHz

Mushkin PC3200 LII V2 @ 213 MHz

Mushkin PC3200 LII V2 @ 250 MHz

18.46

18.35

17.30

14.82

0

(Seconds)

750

 

 

Cipher

Moldyn

Primordia

Corsair PC3200 XL Pro @ 200 MHz

Mushkin PC3200 LII V2 @ 200 MHz

Mushkin PC3200 LII V2 @ 213 MHz

Mushkin PC3200 LII V2 @ 250 MHz

119.46

119.91

116.47

96.75

0

(Seconds)

750

 

 

Cipher

Moldyn

Primordia

Corsair PC3200 XL Pro @ 200 MHz

Mushkin PC3200 LII V2 @ 200 MHz

Mushkin PC3200 LII V2 @ 213 MHz

Mushkin PC3200 LII V2 @ 250 MHz

550.98

545.85

515.98

445.29

0

(Seconds)

750

 

 

The overclock to 250 MHz gives the Mushkin memory a pretty hefty 21% increase in memory bandwidth. This increase allows for a 21-23% inrease in calculation speeds throughout the ScienceMark2 tests.

Super Pi

Super Pi calculates the infamous number pi from 16 thousand all the way up to 32 million digits! For our testing purposes we decided on two million digits, which takes 20 iterations. Super Pi then spits out the time (in seconds) that it took to do the calculations. Obviously, the lower the number, the better.

Overclocking the Mushkin memory to 213 MHz yeilds an 8 second drop in calculation time while the 250 MHz overclock shaves a total of 21 seconds off the stock performance