September 9, 2007
Sean "Obsidian" Potter
Colin "Rhettigan" Dean
Crucial
Forums
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Crucial Ballistix Tracer DDR2-800
The system we're using to test the RAM in started with only 1GB of Super Talent CL5 DDR2-800 RAM. While using Linux or any version of Windows that isn't Vista, 1GB is more than enough RAM for every day activities. I'm able to play World of Warcraft, run Firefox, and listen to iTunes without using the entire gigabyte of RAM that the system had. The Ballistix Tracer has a few advantages over the CL5 in that it provides lower latency and has matched dual-channel support.
Let's look at our two system configurations.
The only bottleneck I can see in this configuration is the Radeon X600. It's unfortunately an SE edition of the graphics card, and only provides us with an PCI-Express x8 link, using on half the bandwidth the x16 port it's plugged in to. Hopefully the RAM is able to give us noticable performance boosts to forgive the video card's shortcomings.
We've chosen not to attempt overclocking the Crucial Ballistix. While we are an enthusiast website, we're looking to see the stock value of the hardware (that, and our motherboard isn't the most overclockable motherboard). First, we'll be looking at Sandra's memory bechmarks. You can find out more about Sandra here. Note that these are theoretical benchmarks and don't say as much for real-word performance. That's what gaming is for.
I found it odd that the CL5 outperformed the Ballistix in a few areas. I have a feeling something may be hampering the RAM's performance, and most likely it is the motherboard. The Random Memory Access should probably be much lower than it is. This is most definitely caused by the motherboard. Again, these are only theoretical benchmarks and you can't base real word performance from them.
For a more real-world look at how the RAM is going to perform, we've selected a few choice games. Using the same systems as above, let's see if the RAM improves gameplay for our favorite games, as well as 3dMark05. For Counter-Strike: Source, we used the Video Stree test from the main menu. For UT2004, we chose to use the default settings and created a benchmarked-mode botmatch with the following command-line options: dm-rankin?spectatoronly=1?numbots=12?quickstart=1?attractcam=1 -benchmark -seconds=77 -ini=default.ini
I was much more delighted to see the gaming scores over Sandra's. The Crucial Ballistix Tracer improved performance across the board, although not by much. We gained a few frames per second in both UT2004 and CS:S, and only a meager 36 points in 3dMark05. As we guessed earlier, the graphics card seems to be a major bottleneck in our system. With a better card, we imagine we'd see drastic improvements and bigger differences between the two brands of RAM.
Regardless of the videocard, the RAM performed very well in the benchmarks we've selected. More than that, the colorful LEDs keep us distracted while we let the benchmarks run. Let's move along and look at the big picture of the RAM with our conclusion.
Let's look at our two system configurations.
| System 1 | System 2 | |
| Case | Thermaltake Soprano DX (Provided by Thermaltake) | |
| Processor | AMD Athlon X2 3600+ | |
| Motherboard | ECS GeForce6100SM-M | |
| RAM | 1GB Super Talent CL5 DDR2-800 | 2GB Crucial Ballistix Tracer DDR2-800 |
| Graphics | ATi Radeon X600 SE | |
| Hard Drive | Maxtor 100GB SATA | |
The only bottleneck I can see in this configuration is the Radeon X600. It's unfortunately an SE edition of the graphics card, and only provides us with an PCI-Express x8 link, using on half the bandwidth the x16 port it's plugged in to. Hopefully the RAM is able to give us noticable performance boosts to forgive the video card's shortcomings.
Benchmarking
We've chosen not to attempt overclocking the Crucial Ballistix. While we are an enthusiast website, we're looking to see the stock value of the hardware (that, and our motherboard isn't the most overclockable motherboard). First, we'll be looking at Sandra's memory bechmarks. You can find out more about Sandra here. Note that these are theoretical benchmarks and don't say as much for real-word performance. That's what gaming is for.
| Sandra | System 1 | System 2 (Ballistix) |
| RAM Bandwith Integer Performance (higher is better) | 4746MB/s | 5387MB/s |
| RAM Bandwidth Float Performance (higher is better) | 4753MB/s | 5349MB/s |
| Random Memory Access (lower is better) | 91 ns | 96 ns |
| Memory Access Speed Factor (lower is better) | 58 | 58.6 |
| Cache and Memory Speed Factor (lower is better) | 11.9 | 9.5 |
| Cache and Memory Combined Index (higher is better) | 8128MB/s | 9014MB/s |
I found it odd that the CL5 outperformed the Ballistix in a few areas. I have a feeling something may be hampering the RAM's performance, and most likely it is the motherboard. The Random Memory Access should probably be much lower than it is. This is most definitely caused by the motherboard. Again, these are only theoretical benchmarks and you can't base real word performance from them.
For a more real-world look at how the RAM is going to perform, we've selected a few choice games. Using the same systems as above, let's see if the RAM improves gameplay for our favorite games, as well as 3dMark05. For Counter-Strike: Source, we used the Video Stree test from the main menu. For UT2004, we chose to use the default settings and created a benchmarked-mode botmatch with the following command-line options: dm-rankin?spectatoronly=1?numbots=12?quickstart=1?attractcam=1 -benchmark -seconds=77 -ini=default.ini
| Gaming Performance | System 1 | System 2 (Ballistix) |
| Counter-Strike Average FPS (higher is better) | 32.04 Avg FPS | 38.05 Avg FPS |
| UT2004 Botmatch Lowest FPS(Default Settings, higher is better) | 26.7 | 26.7 |
| UT2004 Botmatch Average FPS(Default Settings, higher is better) | 86.00 | 89.1 |
| UT2004 Botmatch Highest FPS(Default Settings, higher is better) | 262.6 | 281.8 |
| 3dMark05 | 1244 | 1280 |
I was much more delighted to see the gaming scores over Sandra's. The Crucial Ballistix Tracer improved performance across the board, although not by much. We gained a few frames per second in both UT2004 and CS:S, and only a meager 36 points in 3dMark05. As we guessed earlier, the graphics card seems to be a major bottleneck in our system. With a better card, we imagine we'd see drastic improvements and bigger differences between the two brands of RAM.
Regardless of the videocard, the RAM performed very well in the benchmarks we've selected. More than that, the colorful LEDs keep us distracted while we let the benchmarks run. Let's move along and look at the big picture of the RAM with our conclusion.
