2GB Crucial Ballistix Tracers PC4000/DDR500 Review

[One4yu2c]

With AMD preparing a jump to DDR2 on their upcoming socket change, is there anything left in the DDR1 world worth getting excited over? Join HardwareLogic as we look to answer this question by putting Crucial's PC4000 Ballistix Tracers through the wringer.

http://hardwarelogic.com/news/60/ART...006-03-19.html

[gwhea38411]

Hey 1, how would you campre these against the OCZ gold 2Gb kit?

[One4yu2c]

Performance - With both kits rated at DDR500/PC4000, neither one is going to blow away the other. With that being the case, let's look at the costs.

Price/Availability - You'd simply be hard pressed to argue against the bang/buck factor of the OCZ Gold, especially with the rebates that are seemingly always being offered. The Ballistix Tracers are good stuff, but they're hard to find these days and when they were available, they carried a premium pricetag. I've seen them used on For Sale forums for decent prices, but the OCZ Gold is still less expensive. Personally though, I'm willing to pay extra for customer service, so let's look at that next.

Customer Support - Performance aside, I'm a big OCZ fan. Their reps are great to work with if you have an issue and usually resolve the situation very quickly. It's not uncommon to see them posting in enthusiast oriented forums such as XtremeSystems, and that's pretty cool. Crucial's reputation for customer service is positive as well, though I can't common on personal experience just yet. I'm currently working with them though, so we'll see how that goes.

[gvblake22]

Great review, thanks Paul!
I have a question though, about the LED lights. Do they flash in accordance with how much activity or useage they are recieving? Like, do more or less LED's light up depending on how active they are? I'm kindof comparing them to the Corsair memory that has the LED indicators showing the level of activity/useage on the memory, are the Crucial Tracers the same sorta thing or just more of a "pretty light show"? Are the lights prettymuch going all the time?

[One4yu2c]

They flash according to activity, or in Crucial's words, "two rows of eight "chasing" red and green LEDs atop the module, circulating at varying speeds proportional to usage." Here are couple of badly lit videos:

Activity
Idle

[gvblake22]

Originally Posted by One4yu2c

They flash according to activity, or in Crucial's words, "two rows of eight "chasing" red and green LEDs atop the module, circulating at varying speeds proportional to usage." Here are couple of badly lit videos:

Activity
Idle

AAAHHHH, ok, I get it now. Thanks :)

[Captain Crunch]

Nice review Paul..................great job PDT_Armataz_07 PDT_Armataz_23