Mushkin Redline PC4-3200 FrostByte Memory Review

MSI Z170A Gaming M7 – Z170 Chipset
Intel Core i5 6600K (3.5Ghz) Quad Core 4 x 256KB L2 Cache 6MB L3 Cache
Thermaltake Water 2.0 Performer
1x nVidia GTX 980Ti
Micron C300 128GB SSD
HP dvd1260i Multiformat 24x Writer
Thermaltake Toughpower Grand 1050 Watt PSU
Windows 10 Pro 64bit

Memory Tested
2x Mushkin Redline PC4-25600 16GB DDR4 (20-20-20-40)
- JEDEC vs XMP

Sandra is a software collection of synthetic benchmarks that will give us a basic idea as to what a system is capable of. It should be noted that SiSoft numbers can change depending on what hardware is being tested.  These were recorded using Sandra Professional Version 21.15.2015.1

AIDA64 Extreme Edition is a streamlined diagnostic and benchmarking software package designed to assist with overclocking and general system tuning.  The package also contains modules to assess the performance of the processor, system memory, and disk drives in addition to normal stuff like stress testing and troubleshooting. 

Unigine is a synthetic benchmark much like 3DMark Vantage, but supports the newest of DirectX 11 technologies. The benchmark comes with lots of heavy tessellation and soft shadows to work the more flexible shaders found on DirectX 11 graphic cards. This makes this benchmark ideal for seeing exactly what a best case scenario might look like for a DirectX 11 capable GPU.

Benchmark Settings
HWBot Benchmark
DirectX 11 Presets
DirectX 9 Presets

PCMark 8 is an overall system benchmark to measure and compare PC performance using real-world tasks and applications. There are six individual testing scenarios using applications that reflect typical PC use in the home and at the office.  This approach ensures that PCMark measures the things that matter, highlighting performance differences that will be apparent to end users and consumers.

When you are dealing with performance memory modules you basically have two modes to choose from.  You have the JEDEC mode which is the default and you get this without any BIOS modifications.  This will offer stable performance and is the way just about every OEM computer system is configured.  With certain custom PC builders like CyberPowerPC you have the option to use performance memory with XMP profiles and is how you unlock speeds higher than 2133Mhz (or the default your processor supports).

Enabling XMP is by far the fastest way to increase system performance and was the basis of this review.  There was a little overclocking headroom with these modules however the differences were not that dramatic and wouldn't be why you are looking at the Mushkin Redline modules to begin with.