Verdict: At £142, you'd better buy it quick, before it all goes

Mushkin's main focus is on high-performance RAM, such as the excellent Mushkin Redline XP2-8000, but the company also produces the EM2 series, which is targeted at the more budget-conscious buyer on the lookout for a bargain.

The EM2-6400 is rated to run at speeds of up to 800MHz, which, at just £142.12, makes it the cheapest PC2-6400 memory in this Labs test. Mushkin has managed to produce 800MHz memory at this price because it has cut back on the latency timings, which are just 5 - 5 - 5 - 12, considerably slower than those of its more expensive sibling, the XP2-6400.

However, as lower latency timings have little impact on performance in Core 2 systems, the EM2-6400 performed almost identically to the much more expensive XP2-6400. In contrast, lower latency timings provide more of a performance benefit in Athlon 64 systems, which allowed the XP2-6400 to slip ahead of the EM2-6400.

At its default latency timings, we couldn't overclock the EM-6400 above 800MHz, although by dropping its latency timings to 6 - 6 - 6 - 18, and raising its voltage from 1.9V to 2.15V, it benchmarked stably at 852MHz.

The EM2-6400 may not be particularly overclockable but, at £142.12, it's great value for money, especially for a Core 2 system, in which the comparatively high latency timings don't affect performance.

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