Closer Look
Like nearly all memory you can buy – the Ballistix Elite come in their
own transparent plastic box. The one used by Crucial is made a bit more secure with
an extra plastic supporting tray for the contents inside, but at the same time it's
rendered hardly reusable by the glue used to hold it together.
It's a matter of taste, but we do find a combination of matte
black heatspreaders on black PCB very attractive, especially without Crucial
going too crazy on the additional styling features. Not only do the heatspreaders
look nice, they are also very functional, providing lots of surface area to keep
things cool.
SPD of these sticks is pretty simple – three JEDEC profiles up
to DDR3-1333 with an additional XMP that will automatically set the memory to
its specs on Intel platforms. We tested it, works like a charm.
This being our first time dealing with tall heatspreaders
from Crucial, we did not know what to expect. Even though we've experienced
bigger removal problems from makers like OCZ, removing heatspreaders from
the Ballistix Elite is not something we would recommend people to do at
home unless they really know what they're doing.
Even though ICs are relabeled with a Ballistix logo,
based on the side markings and Crucial's business portfolio it's not
difficult to guess the maker – Micron. We can't tell the exact model,
but we believe our memories to be from the D9PFJ family.
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