Test Results: Crucial Ballistix PC3200

To be considered stable for test purposes, Quake3 benchmark, UT2003 Demo, Super PI, Aquamark 3, and Comanche 4 had to complete without incident. Any of these, and in particular Super PI, will crash a less-than stable memory configuration. We have included results for RCW-ET using the Radar benchmark.

Crucial PC3200 Ballistix (DDR400) - 2 x 512Mb Double-Bank
Speed Memory Timings & Voltage Quake3 fps Sandra UNBuffered Sandra Standard Buffered Super PI 2M places
(time in sec)
Wolfenstein - Radar - Enemy Territory
fps
400DDR
800FSB
2-2-2-5
2.5V
329.6 INT 2906
FLT 2919
INT 4511
FLT 4511
129 70.5
433DDR
866FSB
2-2-2-5
2.65V
358.7 INT 3167
FLT 3193
INT 4923
FLT 4917
119 76.7
466DDR
933FSB
2.5-2-2-5
2.65V
384.3 INT 3287
FLT 3332
INT 5237
FLT 5251
111 82.4
500DDR
1000FSB
2.5-2-2-5
2.65V
410.2 INT 3481
FLT 3557
INT 5623
FLT 5638
104 88.4
514DDR
1028FSB
2.5-2-2-5
2.85V
419.3 INT 3600
FLT 3638
INT 5752
FLT 5779
100 90.7

It wasn't even a year ago that we considered 3-4-4 timings to be pretty good at DDR500, so what can we say about Crucial's Ballistix that does DDR500 at 2.5-2-2-5? The only word that comes to mind is "astounding"! Crucial is the only memory in the DDR400 2-2-2 roundup using Micron chips, and the performance across the effective range of DDR400 to DDR514 is incredible. Even the highest speed of 514 is achieved at 2.5-2-2-5 timings. What's more, nothing even came close to the 2-2-2 headroom of the Crucial Ballistix, as 2-2-2 timings were possible all the way to DDR460!

It is very interesting that the Micron chips do not really respond well to higher timings, and that is not necessarily a bad thing. Seeing how these Micron chips perform, we understand why OCZ EB, based on the same family Micron chips, performs so well. 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.

It looks like Crucial has a winner with their new Ballistix PC3200. What's more, Ballistix 3200 is also one of the more reasonable DDR400 memories in the roundup, which spells value in capital letters.

Test Results: Corsair 3200XL PRO Test Results: Kingston HyperX PC3200 Low-Latency
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  • Wesley Fink - Thursday, August 5, 2004 - link

    #26 - DDR460 2-2-2 at 2.75V according to my review notes
  • babyelf - Thursday, August 5, 2004 - link

    Hi

    It'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

    vie2233hil

    You 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

    #18

    As 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?

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