Crucial Ballistix 8GB DDR3-1600 BL2KIT51264BA160A
Jul 11th, 2011 | By JaredTypically we would go over installation but since the Ballistix Sport modules do not exceed the standard DIMM size this really isn’t necessary. Generally speaking if you have a motherboard that supports DDR3, then the BL2KIT51264BA160A will fit.
While the Ballistix BL2KIT51264BA160A is rated at 800MHz (DDR3-1600) it is not out of the question to try and squeeze whatever you can beyond the rated specifications. While the Ballistix Sport line isn’t aimed at the enthusiast tweaking population most of us like to get more out of our equipment. That is what I set out to do early with this kit. The first step of my overclocking was to increase the frequency, without changing the timing, until the system became unstable. I defined stability as successfully passing a loop of 3DMark Vantage, multiple runs of SuperPI 1M as well as at least 3 hours of Prime95. Of course the system also had to pass a week of regular PC usage (including all of the testing benchmarks) at that frequency for at least a week to make sure there were no abnormal restarts or program errors. The Ballistix BL2KIT51264BA160A reached 905 MHz (DDR3-1810), up from 800 MHz which is pretty good.
The second overclocking test I did was to see how tight of timing I could reach using the BL2KIT51264BA160A at stock speeds before the system became unstable. The same rules apply, no voltage changes and stability has the same definition as above. I pushed the timing down to 9-9-9-27 from 10-10-10-28.
Now with that out of the way it was time to throw some benchmarks at the Ballistix Sport kit.