Crucial Ballistix 1600mhz & MOD Review
Test Setup, Overclocking and Software
Published: 5th July 2010 | Source: Crucial | Price: TBC |
Test Setup, Overclocking and Software
Test Setup
Intel Core i7 875K @ 3.6GHz
ASUS Maximum Extreme III
ATI HD5870
Corsair HX850
Windows 7 Ultimate 64
4GB Crucial Ballistix MOD
Overclocking
This kit is a bit more of a proof of concept or technical demonstration than something that is designed to be an overclocking beast. So it proved with our overclocking. One of the big problems with the 1.65v limit on the current generation of Intel chips is that when you have some RAM like this, which is pretty much at the limit of the chips ability for the price, you can't really eke any more out of it. It's a far cry from the MOAR VOLTS days.
Despite this we did manage to bump it from the standard 800MHz to 873MHz. We all know how well RAM responds to even the slightest increase in speed and how much difference it can make to your system, so even this mild overclock should give us good results.
Software
This is really the main event. As technical journalists and hardware reviewers we've seen dozens of programs that can give you all the information you could want, so we weren't exactly bowled over by yet another.
However the important thing isn't really this software as such, it's what is going on behind the scenes. This Ballistix comes with a built-in temperature sensor that is a royalty-free open-source addition to the JEDEC standard. In laymans terms this could be genesis for the way all chip temperature monitoring will be done in future.
Anything that helps provide easy comparisons across a wide range of hardware is something that we most definitely want.
Most Recent Comments
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Originally Posted by name='silenthill'
The On-board I2C temperature sensor is really a cool feature and now we will be able to know when our RAM is cooking, wonder if HWMonitor utility will detect it too.
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Originally Posted by name='tinytomlogan'
HWmonitor didnt with the latest version available. I have heard corsair have sneaked out a lot of ram with thermal probes built in.
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Originally Posted by name='I Hunta x'
If your the kind of person that builds for looks and not all out raw power/the best bang for buck these wouldnt be a bad kit kit at all, one of the few i can recall recently with black pcb's little details like that can mean alot to some people who would be happy not to overclock it and get a few % lower performance for that well finished look. IMO aslong as it is priced around the same as equivilent stock speeded kits its not to bad at all.
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Good review and really honest too. It's nice to read unbiased reviews where there hasn't been any buttering up. Very rare in this day and age that.
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