Crucial Ballistix is officially dead

jmilcher said:
https://betanews.com/2022/02/16/crucial-ballistix-dead-micron/

“Crucial Ballistix is officially dead. Yes, folks, Micron has decided to kill this popular line of PC memory for gamers and enthusiasts. …”

If you’ve been in this hobby since the days of old, this will hit home. My first set was a ddr2 set.
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Rebranding - I can live with that. Micron (American company) offers some great, affordable memory options. I also appreciated the non-blinginess of Ballistix. I don't buy memory for LEDs - I buy it for performance.
 
My favorite DDR3 color scheme:

ballistix.jpg
 
sleepeeg3 said:
Rebranding - I can live with that. Micron (American company) offers some great, affordable memory options. I also appreciated the non-blinginess of Ballistix. I don't buy memory for LEDs - I buy it for performance.
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Its becoming less and less American every day unfortunately :(
 
This is an incredibly stupid move. Brand recognition is huge among enthusiasts/gamers/ocers/builders etc...doing away with their easily recognized, high end designation is a big mistake. The Crucial name among memory modules without ballistix attached is generally known as run of the mill, overpriced, cookie cutter stuff. Not worth looking at. They will have their work cut out for them.
 
No wonder it's been out of stock since forever at Amazon and B&H. New SKU for rebranding is okay though. Crucial and GSKill are my go to-s for building.
 
Weird decision. Ballistix is a long running brand line, with well reviewed and respected quality and reputation. The DDR4 3600 32GB kit I bought last year, is Ballistix. I've had a couple of other sets over the years. As I have always viewed Crucial as a bar which other brands try to compare to.
 
Ballistix may have been a recognizable name but it was generally overshadowed by just about everyone else. They sell far more of their generic Crucial branded memory than the Ballistix ever did, and with the DDR5 spec as it is they can probably consolidate. I hope this means they just start launching high speed memory under a boring name, auditing gets uppity when I bring in a flat of G.Skill Gspot LED spanks edition sticks. When it’s time to upgrade memory on the older units.
 
sleepeeg3 said:
Rebranding - I can live with that. Micron (American company) offers some great, affordable memory options. I also appreciated the non-blinginess of Ballistix. I don't buy memory for LEDs - I buy it for performance.
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Their Ballistix Tracer line was the first memory sticks I was aware of having LEDs on them, they have generally stayed fairly low profile compared to many others.
 
Lakados said:
Ballistix may have been a recognizable name but it was generally overshadowed by just about everyone else. They sell far more of their generic Crucial branded memory than the Ballistix ever did, and with the DDR5 spec as it is they can probably consolidate. I hope this means they just start launching high speed memory under a boring name, auditing gets uppity when I bring in a flat of G.Skill Gspot LED spanks edition sticks. When it’s time to upgrade memory on the older units.
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I found the Ballistix memory were over priced for what they were. Better deals were found with other manufacturers.
 
If I’m not mistaken I think they were one of the few sticks that allowed 16GB of 1 bank 1 sided ram for Ryzen. Maybe it was 32GB, can’t really remember but trying to find that particular setup was a PIA at 3600.
 
1_rick said:
Man, it's like a broken record!

You gotta find some CRA auditors and point them at newegg and tell 'em "Ok, buddy *you* find some with [insert spec here], a good reputation, and no RGB!"
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Unless the pole is sharpened, we won’t touch New Egg with a 10 foot one after the last time they burned us. Took months and a legal team to sort out so their black listed in our system. But yeah, I should throw it back in them.
 
Good riddance, can't count how many sticks of ddr2 and ddr3 tracers I've had go bad. They're the reason I'm partial to Gskill and Corsair these days.
 
I only used Ballistix for two builds, one DDR2 and one DDR3.

To be honest, I never noticed any significant difference between Ballistix and the "regular" DIMMs, except for maybe a wee bit more room when it came to being aggressive with memory timings. Even then, it wasn't anything to really take note of, though, and I'm perfectly fine with "regular" Crucial memory.
 
Lakados said:
Unless the pole is sharpened, we won’t touch New Egg with a 10 foot one after the last time they burned us. Took months and a legal team to sort out so their black listed in our system. But yeah, I should throw it back in them.
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I was just using them as an example. "Check it out, 500 kits, and they've all got LEDs. But if it'll make you feel better I can melt them off with a soldering iron". You could substitute Amazon or whoever, although their search filters aren't nearly as good--oh, who are we kidding, they suck.
 
vegeta535 said:
I found the Ballistix memory were over priced for what they were. Better deals were found with other manufacturers.
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Maybe, but if you are an overclocker and want a Micron ram Crucial was a 100% sure way to get one. Like in current DDR4 systems Micron E die was the next best thing right after Samsung B-die for overclocking or tightening the timings down. With other brands you have to research a lot to get the die you want and even then it can be a lottery.
 
Ballistix always rang like a low tier wannabe. It was never a name instilling confidence.
 
I still have some Ballistix Tracer modules around. It's the only RAM I've ever seen where the LEDs are actually useful. They flash at a rate proportional to memory bandwidth use, so you can learn to tell if everything is working alright just by the lights. Practical bling.
 
When Crucial/Micron spun them off into their own sub-brand, I always kinda hoped to see some diversification of their product portfolio such as cases, PSUs, maybe even delve into the GPU AIB realm.

As far as the company, all I own and recommend for RAM and NAND is Micron/Crucial/Ballistix products...with the exception of my SK Hynix M.2 NVMe. Love Samsung RAM and NAND, but Crucial just simply blows them out of the water for value.

Not one failure, ever. All of my older DDR2 and DDR3 DIMMs and even my old Crucial M4 SSDs are still going strong to this day. Even the big drum beating pink rabbit is impressed.
 
cpufrost said:
The DDR2 tracers were particularly bad. Both ran quite warm.
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all ddr2 ran warm especially the 1066+ modules that ran hot to the touch if you tried to run 4 sticks. that's when ram coolers became a thing and were actually quite useful
 
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I've never understood corporate marketing. Almost hate it. This decision to ditch a well known name only confounds me further.
 
TheToE! said:
Wow! May ballistix RIP with DFI and abit.
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and HyperX RAM. After buying Crucial Ballistix RAM for a Rocket Lake machine and HyperX RAM for a Comet Lake machine, I ended up buying Kingston Fury RAM for another Comet Lake machine I wanted to build for my mother.
I find it odd how years ago when you bought 1600MHz RAM for example, it was really 1600MHz RAM. Now you have to look at compatibility lists to find out what speed it will run natively. It took me maybe a couple of hours to determine the Fury RAM was the one I wanted to buy (2666 MHz that will run at 2666 MHz for a Comet Lake CPU).
 
MrSneis said:
I just want naked ram modules with same specs as the ballistix; not a fan of the gaudy heatsinks and RGB. The naked ram modules the manufacturers sell now are always the bottom of the barrel timings.
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you can take the heatspreaders off
 
Now I know why they were selling 32GB DDR4-3200 Crucial Ballistix kits at newegg for $90... well sh*t...
 
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