Crucial Ballistix Sport DDR4-2400 Memory Review – High Density and Speeds Low Power

TECHNOLOGY X TESTING PROTOCOL

At Technology X, we test our RAM slightly different depending upon the product’s marketed purpose, whether it be an entry-level budget kit or a high-end enthusiast level kit.  Our goal is to test in a system that has been optimized with our SSD Optimization Guide, however, CPU C State alteration may or may not have occurred depending on the motherboard and BIOS configurations. Additionally, we also try to include links to the benchmarks used in our report so that you as the reader can replicate our tests to confirm that your system performs the way it should

TECHNOLOGY X TEST BENCH

All of the components we use for testing are standard off-the-shelf PC components from major manufacturers, which can be purchased at a variety local retailers and online. We’ll also provide links to our components for those of you that find an interest in our equipment.

We’d like to thank Intel and ASRock for providing vital components in this test bench, without which this report would not be possible. Check out our review of the Intel Core i7 5960X and the ASRock X99 OC Formula used in this report.

BENCHMARK SOFTWARE

To test our RAM we’ll use a variety of benchmarking tools and productivity applications including AIDA64, Cinebench R15, WinRAR and Photoshop CC. We’ll also do some gaming tests using FRAPS to measure FPS performance.

OVERCLOCKING AND LATENCY TUNING

To test our RAM, we’ll be doing some overclocking and latency tuning to see what the best settings we can run the RAM at outside of its guaranteed rating of 2400MHz speed and 16-16-16-39 timings. However, before we start tuning, we’ll run a memory benchmark using AIDA64 to get a performance baseline.

Now that we know what our RAM performs at with the rated specifications we’ll get to work. After some time in the system BIOS, here are the best timings we were able to get at three different memory speeds. It is worth noting that this particular kit only had one XMP profile available, so these settings are applied manually.

So you can see this RAM can definitely run outside of its rated specifications, whether or not that translates into increased performance, we’ll fine out soon enough.