Review: Crucial Ballistix Elite DDR3-1866 - 16Gb Kit

Posted by Dexter K.

Thursday, 02 February 2012 00:33

Article Index
Review: Crucial Ballistix Elite DDR3-1866 - 16Gb Kit
Specifications and Features
Photo Gallery and Test Setup
Speed and Benchmarks at Default Settings
XMP and the Real World
Overclocking
Verdict and Conclusion

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Introduction

Throughout the years Crucial has always been known as a big time player in the memory field. In the DDR2 days they made the famous Ballistix sticks that completely destroyed the competition.

There was nothing like buying 800mhz ram rated to 4-4-4 that would run the same timings at 1200mhz for many people that dared to play with the voltage.

Since those days Crucial has been selling the Ballistix line but it has not had quite the overclocking potential of the Original Ballistix. Maybe things have changed with the new Ballistix Elite memory we have for review today.

The Ballistix Elite line is their top of the line sticks. This is no cheap 1333mhz 9-9-9 ram. This is 1866mhz 9-9-9, BUT as you will read later they have tons of headroom.

P1012101

Crucial has been known for its ram over the years, if you do not know about Crucial here is a bit of info taken from their site:

"At Crucial.com, we know memory. We research it. Test it. Stock it. And we'll even replace it. We're among the first ones to get a new platform, OS, motherboard, or killer game and we waste no time putting it to the test. We sit in dark rooms reading benchmark scores. We spend hours installing and uninstalling memory modules into motherboard after motherboard… We don’t get tired. We never cut corners. We break our backs to get your upgrade out the door in a flash. And we support our products—and customers—every step of the way.

Crucial.com has been serving its customers for nearly 15 years. And we use our expertise to make it easy for our customers to find the right upgrade. Our award-winning online applications—the Crucial Memory Advisor™ tool and the Crucial System Scanner—take the guesswork out of giving new life to your computer with a memory upgrade. We proudly offer a 45-day money-back guarantee that our memory will be compatible with your system, when you purchase on crucial.com using one of our compatibility tools.

The Crucial.com website carries over 250,000 upgrades for more than 50,000 desktops, notebooks, servers, printers, routers, and other electronic devices. We manufacture, sell, and support a wide range of award-winning upgrades, including memory (RAM), solid-state drives (SSD), and USB flash drives.

The Crucial brand represents high-quality memory that has been qualified and approved by all major original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), and unlike many of our competitors, we test 100 percent of the modules that head out our doors. We back our products with industry-leading warranties, and we strive to expand our offerings to meet the ever-changing needs of our customers—customers just like you.

Crucial.com is owned by Micron Technology, Inc., one of the largest DRAM and NAND manufacturers worldwide. This relationship allows us to offer our customers top-tier products, industry-leading technology, and Micron’s more than 35 years of experience.

You can trust Crucial.com with your memory upgrade.."

In this review we will be taking a look at the newest and greatest sticks that Crucial has to offer. These are 4gb sticks running at 2133mhz with 9-9-9 timings. Since they will be reviewed on the X79 platform we recieved their 4x4Gb test which means a couple of things.

1. That is a huge amount of ram 2. This is some super fast ram. No bargain 1333mhz stuff here, you are getting near the top when it comes to these speed/ timing combinations.

If the size of the sticks and speed wasn't enough, Crucial just went over the top by including sensors on the memory that will read temperatures and a few other things. Sadly I tested this feature on three different motherboards and all of them gave a "motherboard not compatible" error.

To test these we'll be using the current Funkykit X79 testing rig: