Manufacturer: Crucial, Kingston, G.Skill Price: $ N/A US Author: Steve Date: 07/06/2011

[ Introduction ]

Today we are checking out three dual-channel memory kits, each offering an 8GB capacity with a 1600MHz operating frequency. These kits come from the likes of Crucial, G.Skill and Kingston, and all cost under $100, making them very affordable... Recently we put together a DDR3 roundup featuring dual-channel memory kits made up of two 2GB modules for a total capacity of 4GB. The roundup included memory kits from the likes of OCZ, Patriot, Kingston, Crucial, Mushkin and ADATA. Out of that bunch Crucial was given our “Supreme Value” award for their Ballistix BL2KIT25664FN1608 memory and Kingston received the “Performance” award for their HyperX T1 memory. Since then both Crucial and Kingston have released new and even more affordable DDR3 memory series and today we are going to check them out. The Ballistix memory that we looked at previously has now been made more compact by doing away with the heatsinks in favor of more traditional heatspreaders. Known as the Ballistix Sport series, this new memory costs just $43 for the 4GB dual-channel DDR3-1600 kit and $90 for the 8GB kit. That is almost a 30% saving when compared to the Ballistix memory. Kingston on the other hand has launched a special edition version of their HyperX Genesis memory, otherwise known as the grey edition. What is interesting about this memory is that it appears, at least on paper, to be the same memory as the HyperX T1, just without the massive heatsinks. Like Corsair, Kingston has outfitted their latest memory with more compact heatspreaders. The HyperX Genesis Special Edition costs $50 for the 4GB dual-channel DDR3-1600 kit and $68 for the 8GB kit, making the latter considerably better value. When we published our last memory roundup there was one manufacturer missing. For whatever reason we were unable to bring G.Skill to the table, which was a shame given how impressed we had been with their products in the past. However in a case of better late than never, we now have our hands on their new RipjawsX memory. Their dual-channel DDR3-1600 8GB kit costs just $75, which is impressive given the relatively low-latency timings. It will be interesting to see how this memory stacks up...

Table of Contents >>> Introduction <<< Crucial Ballistix Sport G.Skill RipjawsX Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey Test System Specs & Memory Application Performance Gaming Performance Conclusion Next Page ->

Calle2003 Posts: 16 Joined: 2010-04-27

Posted on: 07/09/2011 12:50 PM Crucial is good for compatibility and reliability...but the performance sucks.