Crucial Ballistix PC4000 2GB Memory Review

Final Thoughts

Final Thoughts

I have to say that after a week of playing with these modules under every conceivable setting I am quite impressed. My initial impression of 2GB kits were as I explained in the introduction, tight timings and no overclocking or decent overclock with loose timings…in my mind a fairly large trade off. Because of this, I had reservations about switching from a very solid 1GB kit to a 2GB kit (I know, I have heard about the performance benefits while playing certain games). We’ll cover more on the performance differences between a 1GB and a 2GB kit soon, but is the performance with a 2GB actually worth the price?

To answer this question all you have to do is look at the numbers. The Crucial Ballistix PC4000 kit ran incredibly well regardless of what I threw at it. From 2-2-2-5 at 200FSB all the way up to 292 at 3-4-4-8 this kit kicked ass while at or very near its rated voltage. To compare, there is only a handful of kits that I have personally used that even come close to achieving this, and most of those are the types that require 3.3V at a minimum. When it came to benchmarking, the Crucial Ballistix PC4000 displayed very solid to outstanding numbers across the board. My goal in regards to the benchmarking of this kit was not only to show its performance, but also show what makes it a great kit in my eyes….its versatility.

In terms of pricing we will take a look at the price versus MHz ratio on some of the memory modules we used during testing. To be fair to all the modules we are pricing a 2GB memory kits for each company to see how the price versus performance is.

2048MB (2 x 1024) PC-4000 Pricing Comparison
Brand	Consumer Price	Price Per MHz	Live Pricing
Corsair XMS	$283.83	57 Cents	Click Here
Crucial Ballistix	$299.83	60 Cents	Click Here

Looks like the Crucial Ballistix modules are just a tad more then the Corsair kit. At $300 a kit these are out of the price range of many enthusiasts, but still a bargin since memory pricing has dropped so much in 2005.

For those of you that dismiss the numbers as a “cherry picked” review sample, all you need do is look around the net. Different forums rave about the performance of this kit, trust me, the Z503 is developing quite a reputation among the overclocking and high end gaming crowd.

Legit Bottom Line

The Crucial Ballistix PC4000 showed itself to be a monster, performing well above its rated speed of DDR500 at 3-4-4-8. While many may be hesitant to invest in 2GB kits because of a perceived performance hit, this memory should allay those fears. With more games and applications recommending 2GB as the new memory standard, the Crucial Ballistix PC4000 is without a doubt one of the best 2GB DDR1 memory kits available.