Introduction

What more does an enthusiast desire when they already have the edge with speed & performance? One might add aesthetics to the table! Today we will be focusing on Crucial with their flashy line of 1600 MHz Triple Channel Ballistix Tracer’s for the X58 platform. We opted for the blue, but Crucial provide Red and Green alternatives’ to fit best with both Nvidia and ATI fanboys no doubt. The problem these days (and in the past) is that most products that boost top specs and look flashy, tend to be over-hyped, over-exaggerated pieces of junk that are not worth their weight in gold. They may look great, but can they meet the mark and more so with the promise of great performance?

About Crucial

Crucial is a key brand in the Lexar Media family of products. As the Memory Expertsâ„¢, they are the only DRAM supplier that’s part of a major memory manufacturer.

A wholly owned subsidiary of Micron Technology, Inc., Lexar Media, Inc. boasts one of the most comprehensive offerings of memory product lines in the industry. They deliver high-quality, award-winning products in every memory category: USB flash drives, all popular form factors of memory cards and card readers, DRAM computer memory for PCs and Mac systems, and solid state drives (SSD). They back there products with outstanding customer support and industry-leading warranties, and strive to expand their offerings to meet the ever-changing needs of the customers.

The Lexar brand has long been synonymous with reliable, high-performance products, which is reflected in the award-wining memory products and USB flash drives sold under the Lexar name.

The Crucial brand reflects their status as the only consumer memory upgrade supplier that’s part of a major DRAM manufacturer. They sell high-quality memory that has been qualified and approved by most major original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). The Crucial.com website features innovative online tools and an intuitive design that makes it easy to find compatible memory and recommended upgrades.

Manufacturer’s Specifications:

Module Size: 6GB kit (2GBx3)

• PC3-12800 / DDR3-1600 MHz
• 8-8-8-24
• 1.65V
• Unbuffered
• NON-ECC

What is Ballistix Tracer memory?

Ballistix Tracer memory is specifically built for performance enthusiasts and case modders who want to push the performance envelope while adding flash appeal to their boxes. The Ballistix line of high-performance memory modules features advanced speed grades, low latencies, and integrated aluminum heat spreaders. And, Ballistix Tracer memory is available in variety of colors depending on technology.

The Tracer’s

This kit has been out for almost a year now but we felt it deserved a refresh review. This reviewer isn’t one for all out appearances, but having these in ones grasp, its easy to say that this kit is a real treat and furthermore very eye appealing. Moreover, the sleek smooth heatspreaders almost resemble that of carbon fiber on the body of a high performance Lamborghini, both in touch and looks. The sheen of the 2-tone metallic blue on both sides along with the outer edges in sparkly silver that shimmer in the light, has to be one of the most beautiful pieces of hardware one has come across.

Trapped in-between the heatspreaders are (in this particular set) bright, blinding blue lights that are regulated by the modules upon activity. The more stress and workload they are under, the faster the lights dance away up and down each module. This is very appealing to anyone looking to shine up and polish the appearance of their cases, and take full advantage of the side windows; of course this isn’t to everyone’s tastes. Each module is very light, a striking contrast to that of G.Skills Trident memory we reviewed last week. It begs the question as to how well these modules can overclock as the heatspreaders (although they look great) don’t look built for serious overclocking. That said there’s no tall heatspreaders to get in the way of heatsinks and attached fans which is a bonus!

How We Test

As most modules are designed to run at high speeds, our tests look to show off what they can do both stock and overclocked. We use a variety of software to find the maximum clocks and timings each module can run at. Today we shall be using Everest, SiSoftware Sandra, and MAXXMEM². CPU-Z shall be playing a part in denoting what results we get. All overclocking is done within the BIOS and no overclocking software used in the Windows environment.

We will be looking at Read, Write, Copy (all MB/s), and Latency (ns) with regards to the applications used to test the memory. Each test was run 10 times and only the best results are represented.

Our Test System

- Intel Core i7 930

- Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD7

- 6GB Ballistix Tracer (3x2GB) 1600 MHz 8-8-8-24

- HIS ATI Radeon HD 5850 1GB

- Cogage Arrow CPU Cooler w/ San Ace H1011

- Fractal Design Newton R2 800W

- Intel X25-M Gen2 80GB

- Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate 64-Bit

*All testing was done open bench.

Overclocking

Crucial rate this kit at 1600 MHz with 8-8-8-24 timings with 1.65v. Although this isn’t that impressive, we felt that these must be conservative timings and offer potential for tightening up at stock speeds.

We first went ahead from stock speeds of 1600 MHz at CL8 to see what it could be tightened to. We found that at stock voltage (both vDIMM & QPI/VTT), we could easily reach timings of 7-7-6-18 @ 1600 MHz fine. It seems Crucial were either playing it safe or felt compelled to offer RAM that can be pushed a lot tighter and built for the overclocker.

The next task was to see just how far we could push this RAM. Today it’s far too easy to go out and buy some 2000 MHz RAM and drop the timings and speed if needs be but still also push higher than 2000 MHz as seen by our recent Trident review. When one buys 1600 MHz or especially 1333 MHz modules, it doesn’t leave you, the overclocker, with much headroom and this is often the case, left with a lower overclock and/or score from a benchmark as a result. We applied added voltage to this kit from stock voltage, we increased it to 1.72v and increased the VTT to 1.55v. From this voltage increase, we managed to hit 2000 MHz with 9-8-7-24 timings from a kit rated 8-8-8-24 @ 1600 MHz! Well done Crucial!

The Results

Settings Used:

- 1600 MHz 8-8-8-24 w/ 1.66v vDIMM & 1.45v VTT @ 4.20 Ghz i7 930

- 1600 MHz 7-7-6-18 w/ 1.66v vDIMM & 1.45v VTT @ 4.20 Ghz i7 930

- 2000 MHz 9-8-7-24 w/ 1.72v vDIMM & 1.55v VTT @ 4.20 Ghz i7 930

Lavalys EVEREST Ultimate Edition

Lavalys EVEREST Ultimate Edition is an industry leading system diagnostics and benchmarking solution for PC enthusiasts, based on the award-winning EVEREST Technology. During system optimizations and tweaking it provides essential system and overclock information, advanced hardware monitoring and diagnostics capabilities to check the effects of the applied settings. CPU, FPU and memory benchmarks are available to measure the actual system performance and compare it to previous states or other systems.

MaxxMem²

The MaxxMem² benchmark tests your computer’s raw memory performance, combining copy, read, write and latency tests into one global score.

SiSoftware Sandra

SiSoftware Sandra is a 32- and 64-bit Windows system analyser that includes benchmarking, testing, and listing modules. It tries to go beyond other utilities to show you more of what is really going on under the hood, so you draw comparisons at both a high- and low-level in a single product.

Conclusion

Crucial have done it again! Amazing performance that can be pushed even further. They look great which is a nice feature to those looking for a bit of ‘flash’ in their system and kept cool under our overclocking sessions. With a price in the UK at around £160 Inc VAT, they are quite pricey which is the one downfall, as for £10 more, you can buy G.Skill’s 2000Mhz CAS9 kit that can be clocked to CAS 7 at stock speeds and can be run at CAS6 at Crucial’s stock speed of 1600Mhz. Never the less, aside from cost, these modules provide the end user with a means of gloss and performance in a small factor. These memory modules won’t stop you from mounting big heatsinks onto your CPU, yet can be overclocked an extra 400Mhz!

If your into overclocking and have the spare cash we would recommend this kit, however if your not we suggest you look for a cheaper set of 1600Mhz kits as they can be had for a good £40 cheaper at similar timings than our Tracer’s. In any case, Crucial have done what they set out to do with their Tracer line; they have top performance with low latency, great colour scheme to boost about, and overclock friendly!

Pro’s

- Overclocking ability

- LED show

- Small (but effective) heatspreaders

Cons

- The price

Crucial’s Ballistix Tracer kit today receives our Silver Award and 8.5/10. Its provides the end user with the means to overclock  effectivity further than its rated stock speeds. However, G.Skill’s Trident 2000Mhz memory is only £10 more and is faster still both stock and overclocked.

Thanks

Special thanks to Joan at Crucial for supplying us with the sample!