Crucial Ballistix 8GB DDR3 2000MHz CL9 Memory Kit

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The gang at Legit Reviews has an 8GB Crucial Ballistix DDR3 2000MHz CL9 memory kit strapped to the test bench today for a little review action.

After using the Crucial BallistiX DDR3 DDR3-2000 8GB kit in my primary PC for a couple, I quickly became spoiled by having an extra 4GB of RAM available compared to the 4GB kit I had been using previously. Even having a few standard applications like an internet browser, photo editor, media player, and office applications open resulted in system RAM usage of 4GB in Windows. So, I am officially convinced that I need more than 4GB of RAM for daily use.
Click to expand...
 
Are these more reliable than they have been in the past? I love Crucial RAM and their service, but any attempts to use their Ballastix, even at stock speeds, was a nightmare for me in the past. They seemed to overheat and go bad.

I went through 4 sets once before I told them to just forget it and send me normal RAM, which has worked flawlessly for years.
 
TechLarry said:
Are these more reliable than they have been in the past? I love Crucial RAM and their service, but any attempts to use their Ballastix, even at stock speeds, was a nightmare for me in the past. They seemed to overheat and go bad.

I went through 4 sets once before I told them to just forget it and send me normal RAM, which has worked flawlessly for years.
Click to expand...
I had a similar experience with the DDR2 BallistiX. Granted, these are a completely different creature in the sense that its DDR2 vs DDR3, I'd also really love to hear some user experience before even bothering with them again.
 
Not ever touching a set of ballistix again, went through 9 sets of DDR2 and then just cut my losses and replaced with g-skill to sell my 775 set up.
 
It seems like I haven't heard about nearly as many Ballistix problems as they had back in the DDR2 days when overclockers were feeding the modules 2.2v+ to squeeze them past 1000MHz :) Something about the Micron DDR2 chips loved voltage that allowed them to clock high but did suffer a lot of failures as a consequence.

I think the unofficially/officially imposed limitation of 1.65v probably saves a lot of modules from premature death.
 
TechLarry said:
Are these more reliable than they have been in the past? I love Crucial RAM and their service, but any attempts to use their Ballastix, even at stock speeds, was a nightmare for me in the past. They seemed to overheat and go bad.

I went through 4 sets once before I told them to just forget it and send me normal RAM, which has worked flawlessly for years.
Click to expand...

I have only used ballistix once and sad to report my experience matched yours, unstable out of the box at SPD settings. Had to tune to fix.

Its the ram I have just taken out, in addition the heatsink was accidently partially pulled of one of the dimms by the flexible plastic part of my cpu fan, seemed to break a bit too easy.
 
wow interesting.

i have the exact opposite experience.

running this kit on the bulldozer build. memory is overclocked to 2133, factory timings, .1 bump in voltage.

back when i had ddr2, i managed to take them all the way to up 1439mhz. with .2 bump in voltage and a little looser timings.

never had a problem using SPD settings, or overclocking for that matter. My ddr2 set lived that those speeds for nearly 2 years, still have them in a box somewhere.
 
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