In the past we have displayed great enthusiasm in the Crucial packaging and that is going to continue today. The brown box is the ultimate package in our opinion and companies like Crucial and Thermalright apparently agree.
It is just unfortunate that more companies can't recognize that a solid brown box is the way to go because most, if not all sales are going to be through on-line vendors. On the shelf fancy displays are a thing of the past and shipping security should be priority number one with retailers. Of course, with memory, the standard package is the plastic clamshell and yes it is a solid solution but there are times when the plastic clamshell falls short. Sometimes they can come loose and the modules can show up strew throughout a package with potential damage to capacitors or resistors, it has happened to us here.
The interior of Crucial's cardboard box doesn't allow for that sort of movement. The accordion inside stabilizes the memory during transport and the tight confines of the box prevent any dancing around by the modules. This has been and always will be my favorite package for memory. I thank Crucial for keeping the cardboard box and look forward to many more kits showing up in this fashion. Of course, the other item of Crucial's package that differs from others is the fact that the modules are individually sealed in anti-static bags. This not only helps protect the memory further, it also provides 100% security from receiving a used 'new' set of memory. This is another huge bonus over a re-sealable plastic clam shell because with those, you really never know if you are the first purchaser of the memory.
As mentioned and seen, anti-static bags individually seal each module off from the outside world and any harm from static electricity. Once outside the anti-static bags we can see that these modules are identical looking to the previous DDR3 Ballistix kit we looked at over eight months ago now. Wow, it has been eight months already, how time flies when you're having fun...I digress. The un-mistakable orange of the Ballistix heat spreaders still looks great and the clip less design Crucial moved to back then is still used today and we couldn't be happier to see it.
Without clips along the top, the issue of the heat spreaders lifting off the ICs at the bottom of the modules is completely removed and a good solid contact can be found across the entire surface of the IC. The modules are also no thicker or taller than a standard memory module so installation will be a breeze and no fitting room issues should pop up, un-like when you go shopping with your girlfriend and you get caught looking at another female who is also trying on clothes. Admit it, we have all been there and faced the wrath of an upset woman because of it.
There really isn't much else to discuss so here are a couple more photos of these wonderful looking modules. For those esthetically proficient in their builds, finding a motherboard to match the orange of the heat spreaders is going to be impossible but at least everyone will know what memory you have in your system with just a simple glance. The use of the dark Levin PCBs continues with Crucial and after our last experience torturing the PC3-12800 Ballistix with the same PCB, we can safely say that there should be no concerns with the quality of the PCB. They have stood up to months of abuse and these modules will likely see the same if not more.
Our last photo before moving on to the specifications section is a macro shot of the contact between the heat sinks and the ICs underneath. We can see Crucial has stuck with the grey fiber thermal pad and that these modules, like all Micron D9 based 1GB sticks, are single sided. We will now go over the outlined specifications of these modules, their EPP2.0 profiles, and of course we will also have a look under the heat spreader to see which Micron IC we will be working with today.