Those who have been around in the Socket 775 era might remember a brand named Crucial. Being in a very close business relationship with Micron, the maker behind the legendary D9GMH and D9GTR chips, has enabled Crucial to launch the Ballistix series, which instantly became an overclocking hit. In the following chip generations, Micron have failed to repeat their success, which meant that Crucial memory division have mostly been flying under the radar. But now, judging by the new outburst of Ballistix on the market, it seems that Micron might have again come up with something interesting.


Instead of the two modifications we were used to, Ballistix memory is currently being offered in four different flavors – Sport, Tactical, Smart Tracer and Elite. In a series of consecutive reviews we'll try to cover as much of these as possible kicking off today with an 8 GB set of DDR3-1866 Elite.

Manufacturer	Crucial
Series	Ballistix Elite
Part Number	BLE2CP4G3D1869DE1TX0CEU
Type	DDR3
Capacity	8 GB (2 x 4GB)
Frequency	1'866 MHz
Timings	9-9-9-27
VDIMM	1.5 Volt
Registred/Unbuffered	Unbuffered
ECC	No
Cooling	Passive Heatspreader
Waranty	Lifetime warranty
Package Type	Plastic Blister

The rated timings of this memory certainly stand out from the competitors – seeing tRCD one or two values above CAS has already become a norm. So does the rated voltage - it's only 1.5V. We'll see if it means great overclocking headroom due to voltage scaling or is a result of a lack thereof but first, let's concentrate on the product appearance.

Page 1 - Introduction	Page 4 - Testing Method & Test Setup
Page 2 - Closer Look	Page 5 - Results
Page 3 - Photo Gallery	Page 6 - Conclusion

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