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Comment [8] Email to Friend Printable Version

Crucial Ballistix Elite 8GB 1866MHz Kit Review

Conclusion

Published: 7th March 2012 | Source: Crucial | Price: £52 | Author: Bryan Waters

Conclusion

The balance between low timings and fast speed is always a delicate one with various memory kits giving us different takes upon the old question of which is better.

The Crucial Ballistix Elite demonstrates clearly that with good quality memory chips and low timings you aren't crippled in performance by only running at 1866MHz. In fact given our knowledge of how Sandy Bridge just loves lots of memory speed we were amazed at how close a lot of the results were.

Although the pure synthetic tests of AIDA64 and Sisoft Sandra show that the Ballistix Elite hasn't got the absolute performance of the 2133MHz brigade, actually when we tested the more real-world applications of CineBench and PC Mark Vantage the gap all but disappeared.

Of course the big disappointment is that our MSI board absolutely refused to overclock. We know from other results around how a bump up to 1.65v can allow the Ballistix Elite to run at 2133MHz and retain the CAS9 timings. However as that's something that we know should be possible but couldn't demonstrate ourselves we have to score based on what we found.

Out of the box the Crucial Ballistix Elite performance was excellent. It was outstandingly close to a lot of pricier memory kits and just looking at the results you'd assume it was a 2133MHz kit. It looks the business too with the matte black heatspreader on a black PCB. You're getting a lot of memory and a lot of performance for a very reasonable £50, and for that we're happy to award it our Gold Award.

Thanks to Crucial for supplying the Crucial Ballistix Elite for review. Discuss in our forums.

Most Recent Comments

07-03-2012, 07:43:22

tinytomlogan

Today we take a look at a nicely balanced kit from Crucial, the Ballistix Elite.

Continue Reading

07-03-2012, 09:42:14

MaXiMiZe

Great review Bryan. Looks a really good 8gb kit

07-03-2012, 09:47:00

murphy7801

Quote:

Originally Posted by MaXiMiZe Great review Tom. Looks a really good 8gb kit

The review was done by Bryan but yes it was good review.

07-03-2012, 11:46:09

MaXiMiZe

Quote:

Originally Posted by murphy7801 The review was done by Bryan but yes it was good review.

Oh crap. Didn't even realise I wrote Tom

07-03-2012, 11:49:43

yassarikhan786

Quote:

Originally Posted by MaXiMiZe Oh crap. Didn't even realise I wrote Tom

You wrote Bryan looking at your post now. I think murphy7801 just edited the quote to trick you into thinking you wrote Tom .

P.S. Nice review Bryan.

07-03-2012, 14:18:02

B NEGATIVE

This is relevant to my interests.

11-03-2012, 09:51:57

gs941

got some of this stuff, i think that your review of it was spot on as per usual.

24-04-2012, 19:59:45

D3FiANC3

Crucial states that the Ballistic w/ the tall heatspreaders won't fit with the NH-D14, but I see you used the NH-D14 for your test setup. No issues with the clearance?

* Edit: This review confirms that the Crucial Ballistix Elite will not fit with the NH-D14, so I'm curious as to how you managed it.

24-04-2012, 20:15:27

I Hunta x

Quote:

Originally Posted by D3FiANC3 Crucial states that the Ballistic w/ the tall heatspreaders won't fit with the NH-D14, but I see you used the NH-D14 for your test setup. No issues with the clearance? * Edit: This review confirms that the Crucial Ballistix Elite will not fit with the NH-D14, so I'm curious as to how you managed it.

Just raise the front fan up higher on the tower, that usualy works on 99% motherboards but some boards may have the cpu socket closer to the memory slots than others and may cause fouling with the actually tower part of the d14 rather than the fan.

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