Crucial Ballistix 2GB DDR2-800 (PC2-6400) Memory Review

**Capper** · January 19th, 2007

Far be it for us as a review site to pick favorites, but one thing we can do is point out that Crucial's offerings have performed exceptionally well on our test benches in the past. Today's sample marks the third Ballistix product we've looked at in the past year, and fourth Crucial memory kit overall. Most recently we put their 10th Anniversary DDR2-667 kit under scrutiny and were blown away by the overclocking headroom. In fact, our only real gripe was we felt that it could (and should) have been marketed as a faster kit, so when we received Crucial's Ballistix DDR2-800 with respectable timings (4-4-4-12), we were eager to throw our gauntlet of benchmarks at 'em and see what kind of overclocking performance we could squeeze out of a higher clocked kit.
Crucial Ballistix 2GB DDR2-800 (PC2-6400) Memory Review

fps justin · January 19th, 2007

Nice Review!

Too bad that kit couldn't run DDR2-1066 with the overclock.

RangerXLT8 · January 19th, 2007

I am really digging the heatspreaders.
EDIt: I just realized what MB was used. The damn P5W DH is crippled memory wise past 400FSB 1:1. Believe it or not, my P5W DH can do about DDR820 1:1. My D9 fatties can do DDR1000 in my 965mb, but can't break 820 in P5W DH. It's known that the P5W DH is weak 1:1 memory past 400FSB. PErhaps in a 965 board these sticks would shine....
@ jsutin: Many DDR2-800 kits don't hit 1066 or chances are the ICs would have been binned for 1066. Some sticks respond to voltage and some don't.....

Heck Corsair has had DDR667 kits hit 1000M HZ!

Quakindude · January 19th, 2007

Great review Paul. Was very informative.

My OCZ DDR2-800 kit hits a respectable 856Mhz with my E6600's nuts overclocked right off to 3.4Ghz. With a stock CPU speed, I was able to push this kit to 950Mhz. But I didn't try it at the 2.1v that OCZ recommends. I know with a voltage bump to 2.2v from the 1.9v it defaults to, I could get it higher. OCZ covers this kit to 2.3v and they will replace it if you burn it up. And my kit streets for about $50-60 less. Maybe I should do some more testing on it.

RangerXLT8 · January 19th, 2007

Quote:

Originally Posted by Quakindude

Great review Rich. Was very informative.

My OCZ DDR2-800 kit hits a respectable 856Mhz with my E6600's nuts overclocked right off to 3.4Ghz. With a stock CPU speed, I was able to push this kit to 950Mhz. But I didn't try it at the 2.1v that OCZ recommends. I know with a voltage bump to 2.2v from the 1.9v it defaults to, I could get it higher. OCZ covers this kit to 2.3v and they will replace it if you burn it up. And my kit streets for about $50-60 less. Maybe I should do some more testing on it.

cmon dooooo it!!! 2.3v will not hurt....

**simple_inhibition** · January 19th, 2007

thats what i said about my OCZ Gold VX DDR400 which was warrantied up to 3.5v..... they burnt up taking my mobo with it. OCZ covered the ram however

nice review paul. i may consider those sticks if i ever jump on the DDR2 Bandwagon

**One4yu2c** · January 20th, 2007

Quote:

Originally Posted by simple_inhibition

thats what i said about my OCZ Gold VX DDR400 which was warrantied up to 3.5v.....

Those VX sticks along with Mushkin's Redline series back in the day would have been ideal candidates for watercooling heatspreaders. That's a lot of volts, and even with their active air cooling requirement, they should have had the foresight to predict a lot of dead kits. I remember back when you went through that whole ordeal.

Quote:

Originally Posted by fps justin

Too bad that kit couldn't run DDR2-1066 with the overclock.

As Ranger pointed out, you have to take into consideration the motherboard when dissecting overclocking results. These sticks ran fine at DDR2-1066 (with relaxed timings), and had no trouble holding a 1+GHz overclock closer to it's rated spec of DDR2-800 on the board used. OCing is a sum of all parts, but at the end of the day, this kit essentially ran above advertised.

RangerXLT8 · January 20th, 2007

Quote:

Originally Posted by One4yu2c

Those VX sticks along with Mushkin's Redline series back in the day would have been ideal candidates for watercooling heatspreaders. That's a lot of volts, and even with their active air cooling requirement, they should have had the foresight to predict a lot of dead kits. I remember back when you went through that whole ordeal.

As Ranger pointed out, you have to take into consideration the motherboard when dissecting overclocking results. These sticks ran fine at DDR2-1066 (with relaxed timings), and had no trouble holding a 1+GHz overclock closer to it's rated spec of DDR2-800 on the board used. OCing is a sum of all parts, but at the end of the day, this kit essentially ran above advertised.

And running in the range of 400FSB, that is 1:1 so it translates into sick performance. Running memory 1:1 is the way to go.

So a 1066kit means you can do 533 FSB 1:1 bone stock on the memory. :)

January 19th, 2007	#1
Capper I'm Evil Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Las Vegas, NV Posts: 5,665 Blog Entries: 6	Crucial Ballistix 2GB DDR2-800 (PC2-6400) Memory Review Far be it for us as a review site to pick favorites, but one thing we can do is point out that Crucial's offerings have performed exceptionally well on our test benches in the past. Today's sample marks the third Ballistix product we've looked at in the past year, and fourth Crucial memory kit overall. Most recently we put their 10th Anniversary DDR2-667 kit under scrutiny and were blown away by the overclocking headroom. In fact, our only real gripe was we felt that it could (and should) have been marketed as a faster kit, so when we received Crucial's Ballistix DDR2-800 with respectable timings (4-4-4-12), we were eager to throw our gauntlet of benchmarks at 'em and see what kind of overclocking performance we could squeeze out of a higher clocked kit. Crucial Ballistix 2GB DDR2-800 (PC2-6400) Memory Review INTEL QX9650 ASUS P5E3 Premium 4GB DDR3-1600 Sapphire HD 3870X2 Danger Den Tower-26 (Custom W/C) 5 x Seagate 250GB HDD in RAID5 BFG ES 800W PSU

January 19th, 2007	#2
fps justin Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Vancouver, BC Posts: 1,199	Re: Crucial Ballistix 2GB DDR2-800 (PC2-6400) Memory Review Nice Review! Too bad that kit couldn't run DDR2-1066 with the overclock. E2140 @ 375 x 8 = 3.0ghz 2x1 ocz system 1337s pc2-6400 5-5-5-15 @ 450mhz gigabyte P35 S3L eVGA 7600GT Stock 120 gig seagate ULTRA X-Finity 600w Sonata 2 w/ top fan G5 Lazer Mouse

January 19th, 2007	#3
RangerXLT8 Worker Ant Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: New Jersey Posts: 945	Re: Crucial Ballistix 2GB DDR2-800 (PC2-6400) Memory Review I am really digging the heatspreaders. EDIt: I just realized what MB was used. The damn P5W DH is crippled memory wise past 400FSB 1:1. Believe it or not, my P5W DH can do about DDR820 1:1. My D9 fatties can do DDR1000 in my 965mb, but can't break 820 in P5W DH. It's known that the P5W DH is weak 1:1 memory past 400FSB. PErhaps in a 965 board these sticks would shine.... @ jsutin: Many DDR2-800 kits don't hit 1066 or chances are the ICs would have been binned for 1066. Some sticks respond to voltage and some don't..... Heck Corsair has had DDR667 kits hit 1000M HZ! Quad Core Xeon 3210@3.22ghz GA-EP35C-DS3R 460FSB x 7 -- 60mm Delta fan on NB 2x1gb OCZ3-1333@1380MHZ Sapphire 4870 512mb GDDR5 2x Raptor 150 ADFD RAID 0--WD320YS RE 16mb Storage Samsung Super WriteMaster 20x DVDRW X-Fi eXtremeGamer w\Logitech Z-2300 Silverstone OP650 54A 12v Rail @50C DamgerDen Torture Rack--MC-TDX--Black Ice GTX240--MCP355 Rev 2--Swiftech MicroRes-- Tygon 3603 3/8"ID Logitech G5 - Logitech LX-710 wireless KB Vista Ultimate 64 Last edited by RangerXLT8; January 19th, 2007 at 19:44.

January 19th, 2007	#4
Quakindude I'm Diggin it! Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Fort Rucker, AL. Posts: 2,737 Blog Entries: 7	Re: Crucial Ballistix 2GB DDR2-800 (PC2-6400) Memory Review Great review Paul. Was very informative. My OCZ DDR2-800 kit hits a respectable 856Mhz with my E6600's nuts overclocked right off to 3.4Ghz. With a stock CPU speed, I was able to push this kit to 950Mhz. But I didn't try it at the 2.1v that OCZ recommends. I know with a voltage bump to 2.2v from the 1.9v it defaults to, I could get it higher. OCZ covers this kit to 2.3v and they will replace it if you burn it up. And my kit streets for about $50-60 less. Maybe I should do some more testing on it. Q6600@ 3.2GHz w/ CNPS9700 \| EVGA 780i \| 2Gb Corsair DDR2-800 \| EVGA GTX 280 1Gb Video \| 1x WD 640Gb HDD, 2x Seagate 400Gb HDD, 1x250Gb WD \| 2x Samsung SH-203B Opticals \| Antec 900 \| ABS/Tagan BZ700 700W PSU

January 19th, 2007	#6
simple_inhibition socket 939 junkie Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: In front of my pc in Ft Bragg XD Posts: 1,436 Blog Entries: 1	Re: Crucial Ballistix 2GB DDR2-800 (PC2-6400) Memory Review thats what i said about my OCZ Gold VX DDR400 which was warrantied up to 3.5v..... they burnt up taking my mobo with it. OCZ covered the ram however nice review paul. i may consider those sticks if i ever jump on the DDR2 Bandwagon Q6600 @ 3.6ghz (400x9 @ 1.408v) Gigabyte X38-DQ6 2x2GB G-Skill DDR2 1000 @ DDR2 1066 5-5-5-15 2T 2.1v Visiontek HD4870 Seagate 7200.11 500GB 32MB Cache HDD Razer Barracuda AC1 Silverstone DA750 Samsung Dual Layer DVD Burner Lian Li G70WB Thermochill PA120.3\|Swiftech Storm Rev.2\|Swiftech MCP 655

Similar Threads
Thread	Thread Starter	Forum	Replies	Last Post
Ballistix 2GB PC-6400 DDR2 Memory Kit $23	Carl Martin	HL Marketplace	0	June 16th, 2008 04:21
$25.99 - Crucial Ballistix 2gb pc2-8500 memory	NoctisReitop	HL Marketplace	0	June 11th, 2008 22:09
Crucial Ballistix PC3-12800 2GB Memory Kit Review	Capper	Memory	9	April 6th, 2008 16:42
Crucial Ballistix DDR2 667	jph1589	Memory	5	October 3rd, 2006 21:51
The Crucial Ballistix PC25300 2GB memory kit	Capper	Memory	0	February 8th, 2006 23:44