Crucial's Ballistix SLI-Ready 2Gb Kits surprises us with good performance and great overclockability

Introduction

When it comes to memory products, Crucial Technology is brand name that everyone knows. They have been producing memory products as far as I can remember. Quality, performance and price have always been their good selling points. And I always find Crucial's memory to perform better than I expected. It's not surprising as their parent company is Micron ... one of the largest memory producing companies in the world. You'll find Micro memory chips in some of the high-end memory modules from Corsair, OCZ and of course Crucial.

       

 This year, we saw the release of Microsoft's latest operating system ... Windows Vista. Unlike Windows XP, Vista needs a significantly large amounts of ram, if you want to take advantage of the new features. With this in mind, we are now seeing more and more memory manufacturers offering not only 1Gb kits, but also 2Gb Kits and even 4Gb Kits.

As the demand for high performance increases, so will the demand for hardware and components to support it. This is evident as both Nvidia and ATI have encouraged manufacturers to adopt a more universal standard for certification. With Nvidia, it's "SLI-Ready" ... while ATI uses "Crossfire Ready".

So what so special about all this certification? Some might think it's all a marketing ploy. Well, you could say that ... but we've found otherwise. Just take a look at out our review of the OCZ PC2-6400 ATI Certified 2Gb Kit. Now tell me what you see ...

When I first heard about DDR2 memory, I was pretty confused how they class and labelled them. OK, I'll try and give you some DDR2 terminology ...

• PC2-4200 : DDR2-533 : 133FSB : 266Mhz
• PC2-5300 : DDR2-667 : 166FSB : 333Mhz
• PC2-6400 : DDR2-800 : 200FSB : 400Mhz
• PC2-8000 : DDR2-1000 : 250FSB : 500Mhz
• PC2-8500 : DDR2-1066 : 266FSB : 533Mhz
• PC2-10000 : DDR2-1200 : 300FSB : 600Mhz 

In this review we'll be taking a look at the Ballistix PC2-6400 SLI-Ready 2Gb Kit from Crucial. Rated at PC2-6400 (DDR2-800 that's 400Mhz) with memory timings of 4-4-4-12, these memory modules are certified SLI-Ready and offers EPP (Enhanced Performance Profiles). EPP is an ingenious way for users to increase performance without manually adjusting the BIOS settings. If a motherboard is equipped with EPP, and by using EPP memory modules ... the system will automatically adjust voltages and memory timings to give the best possible settings for increased performance. Excellent.

More information about EPP can be found HERE.

Crucial have recently announced their highest performing memory proudct ... the Ballistix PC2-8500 (DDR2-1066) SLI-Ready modules. I'm sure these modules will be really exceptional. We'll have to wait and see.

But right now, we have the Ballistix PC2-6400 in our labs. Rated at PC2-6400 (DDR2-800 that's 400Mhz) with memory timings of 4-4-4-12 ... these modules look great and I expect to see them performing quite well. 

OK, let's not waste anymore time and see what these Crucial modules can do for us ...

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