Hey guys. As someone who doesn't overclock, is the Ballistix range by
Crucial worth spending an extra £20 on compared to the standard
Crucial memory (both in a 2x2GB set)?
Matt wrote:
> Hey guys. As someone who doesn't overclock, is the Ballistix range by
> Crucial worth spending an extra £20 on compared to the standard
> Crucial memory (both in a 2x2GB set)?
>
> Kind Regards,
>
> Matt
There are a few articles around, which test the effects of
memory clock and CAS setting. There was one article that compared
Intel Core2 and AMD on the same chart, to show how much each
architecture is affected by the memory subsystem. This is
just the first article I ran into.
>"Matt" <mattb95@hotmail.com> wrote in message
>news:85c5f369-9816-4b55-9771-309599385e3c@m73g2000hsh.googlegroups.com...
>Hey guys. As someone who doesn't overclock, is the Ballistix range by
>Crucial worth spending an extra £20 on compared to the standard
>Crucial memory (both in a 2x2GB set)?
>
>Kind Regards,
>
>Matt
In general paying extra for special RAM is a poor use of your hard earned
money. The difference between standard and top end RAM is 5% at best... If
you are wanted every last gram of performance out of your system, then go
for it. But if you aren't even overclocking your CPU, don't bother!
I have my CPU (Q6600) overclocked from 2.4GHz to 3.25GHz which gives me a
measurable 30% increase in performance... Clocking my DDR2-PC6400 RAM
(AData) from from 750MHz to 850MHz made less than 2% difference in overall
system performance!
Rarius
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"Matt" <mattb95@hotmail.com> wrote...
> Hey guys. As someone who doesn't overclock, is the Ballistix range by Crucial
> worth spending an extra £20 on compared to the standard Crucial memory (both
> in a 2x2GB set)?
If you are running a high-end machine, the case interior may be a bit warm. I
would consider the improved heat sinks on the high-end RAM as more of a benefit
than any actual performance gain...
If you can afford it, go for the Ballistix. If it means skimping on something
else, go for the something else...
>"Matt" <mattb95@hotmail.com> wrote...
>> Hey guys. As someone who doesn't overclock, is the Ballistix range by Crucial
>> worth spending an extra £20 on compared to the standard Crucial memory (both
>> in a 2x2GB set)?
>
>If you are running a high-end machine, the case interior may be a bit warm. I
>would consider the improved heat sinks on the high-end RAM as more of a benefit
>than any actual performance gain...
>
>If you can afford it, go for the Ballistix. If it means skimping on something
>else, go for the something else...
>
If one is not overclocking, no voltage increase, even in a
very warm system the ram will not have overheated by the
time something else did. Even so I would tend to agree that
the criteria of higher end system might be significant, that
if one is spending the money in other areas then the cost
difference from the memory as a % of total system cost is
not as high, making it not seem as relevant anymore.
> Hey guys. As someone who doesn't overclock, is the Ballistix range by
> Crucial worth spending an extra £20 on compared to the standard
> Crucial memory (both in a 2x2GB set)?
A lot of people have reported total failure with Ballistix modules.
Here's one thread about it at Overclockers.com (and it points to many
other threads about the same subject):
You'll also get a lot of hits if you Google "ballistix failure".
I haven't found any credible explanations for the Ballistix failures,
so I don' t know if the cause is bad chips, bad soldering, the
heatsinks (excuse me, "heat spreaders") expanding at a different rate
than the circuit board and ripping apart the solder joints of the
chips, inadequate bypassing of the power supply (capacitors), the use
of 2.2V rather than the standard 1.8V (causes 49% more heat, and I
believe Ballistix modules, at least those faster than PC6400, aren't
rated for their speeds except at the higher voltage), or merely mass
hysteria.
CPUs depend so heavily on the L2 cache for memory access that the
speed of the main memory doesn't really matter much. Also many
standard Crucial modules are made by Samsung or Elpida (not just with
those brands of chips but the whole modules are by those companies),
so they should be very reliable.
Crucial Memory (Normal vs. Ballistix) 
Linear Mode
