Looking at these two kits of memory from Mushkin shows that it has another pair of kits that deliver performance indicative of their specifications and more. First up are the distinctive good looks and functionality of the cooling solutions employed on each kit. The 32GB kit part number 994071 uses the "Ridgeback" design. This robust heatsink package uses a series of angle shaped (think Mushkin logo) fins on top of a thick body to effectively wick away the thermal load generated by these high density modules. Packing them into a four DIMM configuration like used in the testing will allow a higher heat load to be retained but is nothing to be concerned about. Using an air cooled CPU cooling solution would fix that issue as once air starts moving over the modules they cool down fast.

Memory capacities keep rising it seems with each new platform that comes out. Along with the increase in capacities comes an increase in speed that drives latency down and responsiveness higher. Intel's X79 platform has the ability to utilize up to 64GB of system memory in a quad channel configuration while the Z77 platform is still limited to dual channel configurations with four DIMM slots rather than the eight available on most X79 boards. Ivy Bridge processors like the Intel Third Generation Core i7 3770K can still take advantage of up to 32GB of system memory due to the incredible memory controllers they have for the most part and can use this capacity with all four DIMM slots populated. Content creation is one of the drivers for increasing capacities with some programs actually utilizing up to 64GB of system memory to process the work stream.