Crucial Ballistix PC3200 2x512MB Memory Review - Conclusion
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Crucial has made a strong statement with the Ballistix PC3200. These memory modules showed excellent performance with great overclocking ability. However, this shouldn't come as a surprise. The Ballistix uses Micron 'G' chips. These chips are a newer revision of the Micron 'C' chips with which OCZ has been so successful. This is in contrast to what Crucial's competitors are using. Most of their competitors, including Corsair, Kingston, and others, utilize Samsung's TCCD memory chips.
When looking to purchase memory modules, common to things to want are tight timings, strong overclocking ability, and favorable prices compared to competitors. The Crucial Ballistix has all this and comes with a great warranty from a reputable company with a solid history. The strongest statement that can be made about these memory modules is that they are the ones I'm using in my system, even with the competitior's modules sitting right here on my desk.
Highs
- Can easily run tight timings of 2-2-2-5, only officially rated for 2-3-2-6
- Can reach PC4000+ speeds
- Doesn't require ridiculously high voltage, >2.8V
- Price, slightly less than competitor's low latency memory
- A company with a great reputation backing up these memory modules
- Does not need to be bought as a matched pair
Lows
The only foreseeable issue with the Crucial Ballistix PC3200 is possibly the price. Significantly cheaper PC3200 memory can be found. However, the cheaper memory is just that...cheap memory. Keep in mind when thinking of the price of the Ballistix that is favorably priced compared to the other high quality low latency memory on the market.
Generic, high latency memory does offer more bang (capacity) for your buck but in the process will hamstring the performance of the system with it's high latencies and limit the system's overclocking ability. With memory hungry applications and new games like Doom 3, memory performance becomes very significant. The lower latency and potentially higher bandwidth through overclocking of the Ballistix memory modules offers real world performance increases.
Thanks for stopping by and checking out the review. Stop by our forums or shoot me an email if you have any questions.
Thanks to Crucial for providing the memory modules for this review.
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