Crucial Ballistix Tactical DDR3 1866MHz 8GB Memory Kit Review

After we had configured the memory to run at the correct stock speeds and timings, we proceeded to boot into Windows to check that the settings had stuck by taking a look at CPU-Z.

After we had confirmed our speeds, we continued to open AIDA64 so that we could take a look at the stock performance of this kit. This is a great way to start when benchmarking and attempting to overclock memory as it gives us a stable ground for comparison later on.

Looking at the stock performance levels, for a mid range kit, what is on offer is not too bad with read speeds of 19623MB/s, write of 18303MB/s and copy of 21798MB/s at a latency of 38.9ns. The real question is, is there room for improvement? We know that 99% of the time this is a yes, so its overclocking time to see how much extra value is in this kit.

First job with any memory overclocking is to actually overclock the CPU itself to open up some headroom on the memory controller. With the CPU at 4.5GHz, the first stage is too see how far the memory goes just by raising the pre-set dividers. First job though is to slacken off the timings to increase stability as faster speeds.

Moving up through the dividers, we soon found ourselves at the 2200MHz divider with no fuss at all. Timings were set at 12-12-12-29 and voltage still at a stock 1.5v. The 2133 divider sadly showed a no-boot scenario and so the next step is to raise the BCLK up bit by bit to hit the upper limit. Upping the BCLK to 101MHz saw a clean boot but the system hung a little and by upping the DRAM voltage to 1.55v this was alleviated. Sadly though, a BCLK of 102MHz saw a complete non-boot and slackening off the timings and raising the voltage to 1.6v saw no changes. 2220MHz out of a 1866MHz budget kit though is not a bad way to go.

After another easy overclocking session, AIDA is fired back up to see how the bandwidth has improved and across the board there was a gain to be had with read speeds now at 22880MB/s, write at 23479MB/s and copy at 26759MB/s with a reduced latency of 35.4ns.