=<em>F-A-S-T</em>= DDR Memory: 2-2-2 Roars on the Scene
by Wesley Fink on August 5, 2004 12:05 AM EST- Posted in
- Memory
Crucial Ballistix PC3200
Crucial recently introduced their Ballistix line of memory, a name they will use for memory aimed at the Enthusiast market. This is Crucial's first foray into this specialty market, and their first offerings are these DDR400 2-2-2 and DDR2 667. Ballistix is intended to compete with the best from Corsair, OCZ and other Enthusiast memory manufacturers. Kingston, another memory giant, has a similar Enthusiast line, which they call HyperX. Crucial supplies Ballistix PC3200 in both 256MB and 512MB DIMMs. While we had both DIMMs for testing, we used the 512MB DIMMs for comparison testing.Test DIMMs were a pair of Crucial Ballistix PC3200 512MB modules.
Crucial uses distinctive orange-gold Ballistix aluminum heatspreaders with black lettering. Some will love the stand-out color of Ballistix modules, while others will hate them. Let's just say that they stand out from the crowd. At first, we assumed that the Ballistix were also using Samsung chips, but after testing, we realized from the performance data that these were likely a different memory chip. Crucial told us that their new Ballistix 3200 was based on Micron chips, and not the Samsung chips that others in this roundup are using.
We confirmed that Crucial is indeed using a new Micron "G" die chip for Ballistix 3200. This is the first time that we have seen this die in a production memory, but we have seen the "C" die version of this same memory chip in the excellent OCZ 3500EB and 3700EB. Since EB has also shown excellent performance and timings to over DDR500, it is no real surprise to see Crucial using a later version of the same chip in their Ballistix 3200.
Crucial Ballistix PC3200 Specifications
| Crucial Ballistix PC3200 Memory Specifications | |
| Number of DIMMs & Banks | 2 DS |
| DIMM Size Total Memory |
512 MB 1 GB |
| Rated Timings | 2-2-2 at DDR400 |
| SPD (Auto) Timings | 2-2-2-8 |
| Rated Voltage | 2.8V |
As seen with the other very high speed DDR400 in this roundup, Crucial rates the Ballistix at a very high 2.8V. 2.8V is higher than the 2.5V to 2.6V that is standard for memory on most motherboards, but it should be available on most of the high-end boards that would likely be used with this memory. You should check your specifications to make sure that you can support the voltage needs of the new PC3200 modules. We should also mention that we had no problem whatsoever at DDR400 with 2-2-2 memory timings and a stock 2.5V memory voltage, so this may or may not be an important issue with your Ballistix PC3200.
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Wesley Fink - Thursday, August 5, 2004 - link
#26 - DDR460 2-2-2 at 2.75V according to my review notesbabyelf - Thursday, August 5, 2004 - link
HiIt's said that the crucial did 2-2-2 up till DDR460. At what voltage is that?
DreamInBlue - Thursday, August 5, 2004 - link
crucial has always been highly overclockable. my regular cas3 ddr400 crucial does cas 2.5 at 250fsb.bigtoe33 - Thursday, August 5, 2004 - link
vie2233hilYou quoting performance series and not Platinum rev2
Platinum rev2 uses TCCD and was used for this roundup.
vie2233hil - Thursday, August 5, 2004 - link
OCZ would like to to announce a revision change in our PC-3200 Performance Series line of memory. PC-3200 Revision 2 has been discontinued and replaced by OCZ PC-3200 Revision 3 DDR.OCZ PC-3200 Revision 3 DDR is specified for CL2-3-3-6 timings on Intel-based systems and CL2.5-3-3-6 timings on AMD based systems. The lifetime warranty of existing PC-3200 Revision 2 modules will not be invalidated by this change.
Pumpkinierre - Thursday, August 5, 2004 - link
Nice article, nice charts and nice memory. With all the extra work from the new components let's hope you're still having fun, Wesley. Keep the i875 going. I'm not sure about the nf3 if the tRAS has to be set to >10. Any chance OCZ might be releasing a CAS2 DDR500 in the near future with that new batch of Samsung chips?Potem - Thursday, August 5, 2004 - link
#19 - From page 9: "We have seen reports of some variability in the performance of the Ballistix memory, and overclocking results are never guaranteed. However, our results with another pair of Ballistix DIMMs were very similar."JustAnAverageGuy - Thursday, August 5, 2004 - link
#18As long as it is a reputable vender, quantity is often better than quality. :)
i.e. 256MB of 3500 level 2 mushkin extreme blah blah is probably going to perform worse than 1GB of corsair value ram.
Lazzydog - Thursday, August 5, 2004 - link
Wesley you have still yet to comment on the question of whether or not the crucial sticks were cherry picked or not. I know in a lot of reviews you try and get your products as anonymously as possible is this true with the crucial ram or not? If not these could hardly be indicative of ram that the rest of us could get and should be known for people who plan on purchasing ballistix ram.GabeyD - Thursday, August 5, 2004 - link
Is there a comparison anywhare of "Value" memory against this high end, high $ stuff. For example, I cag get 1G of Coorsair Value for $180 and the lest expensive high end memory is about $280, a $100 difference. How much real performance is this $100 getting me?