Crucial recently brought new Ballistix PC2-8000 memory modules to the market, which are particularly
well suitable to overclock a PC or Mac.
It was possible to reach excellence results also with default DDR2 voltage and fast timings in the test,
so the modules are also well applicable on more inexpensive motherboards with less BIOS settings.
The test report shows the performance of the Crucial Ballistix 2 GB DDR2-1000 kit and offers an
overclocking comparison to 5 other memory modules.

Many thanks for the support with the BL2KIT12864AA1005 Ballistix 2GB PC2 8000 / DDR2 1000 CL5 kit by the manufacturer Crucial.

The 2 GB kit contains 2x 1024 MB Ballistix 240-pin DIMM DDR2-1000 (PC2-8000) memory modules and has at present
a manufacturer price recommendation of 435 euro (01/2007).
They're available with the upper banner in the Crucial Shop and at our sponsors.

In this small box are the two very well protected memory modules:

Crucial supplies the two memory modules as well as a multilingual installation guide, which should make it possible also
for less experienced users to install them easily.
Here is a picture of the Ballistix memory modules:

The memory modules are provided on a black plate with gold passive heatsinks (heatspreader) which are supposed to
enhance the memory cooling also with higher frequencies and/or higher voltages.
Thus one achieves on the one hand better results with overclocking and on the other hand a longer life-time,
whereby Crucial by the way grants lifelong warranty (Limited Lifetime Warranty) for the buyer
(all informations to manufacturer conditions are of course without guarantee by ocinside.de).

Here's another picture of the nice Crucial Ballistix modules ...

Let us begin with the most important part of the test report, because the optics and packing is of course rather
secondary and the possible stable performance is the most important factor.
The test results are based on an ASRock AM2XLI eSATA2 SLI motherboard with an Athlon 64 Socket AM2 3000+
CPU on different frequencies depending on the reference clock for the different memory benchmarks.
Thus the multiplier adjustment remains on 9x with all frequencies, because an adjustment for the CPU in half multiplier
steps would be too inaccurate to get nearly the same CPU frequency for all tests.

Microsoft Windows XP Professional SP2 is used as operating system.
The stability was examined with the software Memtest86 and SiSoft Sandra Lite 2007.SP1 program is used for all
benchmarks, since it offers extensive adjustments and a fast result comparison.

First the maximum possible frequency of the memory module was determined.
The memory frequency was increased in small steps with a fixed memory timing of 4-4-4-10 2T and default memory voltage, as long as the detailed memory test with Memtest86 runs without any errors.
This quite long testing time ensured that this frequency works really stable with these modules.

The highest possible frequency with 4-4-4-10 (Tcl Trcd Tras Trp) timings was stable with amazing 461 MHz.

It's possible to run clearly higher frequencies with increased voltages or lower timings, because the frequency values
and timings depends directly from each other.
Officially Crucial specify the highest voltage of 2.2 V without loosing the warranty and this is a considerable voltage
to get nice overclocking results (the default DDR2 memory voltage is 1.8 Volt).

This highest possible frequency was compared to two other settings.
On the one hand 461 MHz with SPD values (these are given by the manufacturer in the SPD IC),
and on the other hand 200 MHz (x2) with SPD values.

By the way, the "Memory Bus Range" is no benchmark value, but this value is quite simple to calculate by the
frequency and is useful for the benchmark comparison.

Here're the benchmark results:

Here's a diagram of the benchmark values:

Here is a direct benchmark result comparison of some DDR2 and DDR memory modules:

As to be expected the results of the Crucial PC2-8000 CL5 memory modules are also with the default voltage higher than
the results of conventional PC2-5300 CL3 or PC2-6400 CL4 modules.
The frequency of 461 MHz was reached with the Athlon 64 3000 CPU on 9x 256 MHz reference clock = 2304 MHz and
fast 4-4-4-10 2T timings.
So if the motherboard doesn't offer features to adjust the memory frequency full asynchronously or just in large steps,
it is nevertheless possible to get good overclocking results.
It was possible to overclock the PC2-8000 modules in the test over 500 MHz with little increased voltage and
this is a considerable value with these memory timings.
A well selected memory voltage (VDDR/VMEM) is thus very important particularly with these modules to reach
high overclocking results.

The Crucial Ballistix 2GB PC2-8000 kit (BL2KIT12864AA1005) is very well overclockable and convinces with fast timings also
with a lower DDR2 memory voltage.
PC2-6400 CL4 and PC2-8000 CL5 modules are still a good choice for high-end overclocker, even with the recently
published PC2-10000 modules. Because the high-end Crucial 1GB or 2GB PC2-8000 kits have a good price/performance ratio
and are already available in most online shops.

Many thanks for the support with the BL2KIT12864AA1005 Ballistix 2GB PC2 8000 / DDR2 1000 CL5 kit by the manufacturer Crucial.

The 2 GB kit contains 2x 1024 MB Ballistix 240-pin DIMM DDR2-1000 (PC2-8000) memory modules and has at present a manufacturer price recommendation of 435 euro (01/2007). They're available with the upper banner in the Crucial Shop and at our sponsors.

In this small box are the two very well protected memory modules:

Crucial supplies the two memory modules as well as a multilingual installation guide, which should make it possible also for less experienced users to install them easily. Here is a picture of the Ballistix memory modules:

Here's another picture of the nice Crucial Ballistix modules ...

Microsoft Windows XP Professional SP2 is used as operating system. The stability was examined with the software Memtest86 and SiSoft Sandra Lite 2007.SP1 program is used for all benchmarks, since it offers extensive adjustments and a fast result comparison.

The highest possible frequency with 4-4-4-10 (Tcl Trcd Tras Trp) timings was stable with amazing 461 MHz.

This highest possible frequency was compared to two other settings. On the one hand 461 MHz with SPD values (these are given by the manufacturer in the SPD IC), and on the other hand 200 MHz (x2) with SPD values.

By the way, the "Memory Bus Range" is no benchmark value, but this value is quite simple to calculate by the frequency and is useful for the benchmark comparison.

Here're the benchmark results:

Here's a diagram of the benchmark values:

Here is a direct benchmark result comparison of some DDR2 and DDR memory modules:

The 2 GB kit contains 2x 1024 MB Ballistix 240-pin DIMM DDR2-1000 (PC2-8000) memory modules and has at present
a manufacturer price recommendation of 435 euro (01/2007).
They're available with the upper banner in the Crucial Shop and at our sponsors.

Crucial supplies the two memory modules as well as a multilingual installation guide, which should make it possible also
for less experienced users to install them easily.
Here is a picture of the Ballistix memory modules:

Microsoft Windows XP Professional SP2 is used as operating system.
The stability was examined with the software Memtest86 and SiSoft Sandra Lite 2007.SP1 program is used for all
benchmarks, since it offers extensive adjustments and a fast result comparison.

This highest possible frequency was compared to two other settings.
On the one hand 461 MHz with SPD values (these are given by the manufacturer in the SPD IC),
and on the other hand 200 MHz (x2) with SPD values.

By the way, the "Memory Bus Range" is no benchmark value, but this value is quite simple to calculate by the
frequency and is useful for the benchmark comparison.