Introduction
Today in our hellish laboratory we have a sample of some of the fastest desktop memory available to the end user. Crucial has provided another sample of their top memory for your wondering minds and fat wallets. Seems the wallets do not have to be near as fat as they used to for top notch memory like what we have here. This particular set sells for around $299.99 at most large on-line retailers (at the time that this article is written, anyway). That’s about 30% cheaper than a couple months ago for the same product. Yes indeed, we have here is a hardware enthusiasts wet dream come true! Large memory capacity that is fast, widely available, and cheaper than the competition! Since Crucial is owned and operated by Micron, you know what you are getting, quality, value and some of the best engineered components in the world.

The memory
The memory kit came packed in the usual Crucial retail box with each stick individually wrapped in an anti-static bag. Appearance-wise, these sticks are a little different than the last set of Crucial PC-8000 I reviewed last year, the difference being the chrome trim around the borders of the heatspreaders. Aside from that everything else is identical, even down to the color of the aluminum heatspreaders. The actual memory IC modules are officially a mystery. I contacted the Crucial rep that sent these sticks to me and they said they could not tell me what IC chip came on this memory kit because of the competitive environment of the memory market. I won’t take the heatspreaders off to find out either because last time I tried that it killed the memory stick. I have done some leg work, though and have found the same sticks in many online computer forums and they claim to be the much coveted D9GMH but there is no way to be sure. Below you can see the retail box with the memory kit in front of it.

Next are a few shots of the same memory version but different memory kit. After a couple months of running the kit at 4-4-4-12 @ 2.35v set to DDR-1000 in the motherboard bios the first pair of sticks died on me. Crucial was good enough to immediately sent me out another pair to replace them. Crucial tech support informed me that anything past 2.25v would damage the memory kit. That’s only .05 more volts than it is advertised for. There is almost no safe voltage headroom in these sticks. So needless to say, after I finished the review the memory was left at 2.25v. You can see the close up shot of the 2nd memory kits build codes. Now the next shots give you a good view of the top and bottom of the memory kit.

You can see the end of the sticks here and can visualize how effective these heatspreaders are with dissipating the heat load away from the memory kits. The open ended edges seem to be designed to capture any moving air that might be pushing through the case.

Next we have a view of the kit installed in the motherboard. After a couple hours of using my computer I touched the heatspreaders to see how hot the memory was and it was just warm to the touch. Looks like the heatspreaders were doing a fine job.

Module Specifications

• Module Size: 2GB kit (1GBx2)
• Package: Ballistix 240-pin DIMM
• Feature: DDR2 PC2-8000
• Configuration: 128Meg x 64
• DIMM Type: UNBUFFERED
• Error Checking: NON-ECC
• Speed: DDR2-1000
• Voltage: 2.2V
• Memory Timings: 5-5-5-15

System Specifications

• AMD FX-62 AM2 2.8Ghz
• Asus M2N32-SLI Deluxe
• Scythe Mine 120mm fan
• Crucial PC-8000 5-5-5-15
• 2 x 74Gig Raptor Raid 0
• 2 x 8800-GTX eVGA SLI
• Creative Fatal1ty X-Fi
• PCP&C 750w PSU
• NEC 3500 Combo DVD/CD

Performance
Memory performance will be gauged in 3 ways. I will use Everest Ultimate Version 2006 3.50, ScienceMark 2.0, Sandra Benchmark 11.22. the test results will be compiled into a graph for ease of comprehension. Now lets see what this memory kit is capable of doing. Mind you this is on the AMD AM2 platform so it will perform much better that the Intel/Kentsfiled setups. AMD has migrated their memory controller to an on chip CPU configuration with enhanced latency and performance. Intel’s is not bad but certainly cannot compete, with their memory controller being within the motherboard northbridge as opposed to an on chip CPU solution. Hold on to your hats people we are about to FLY!

*note 290Mhz is DDR2-1044

*note 290Mhz is DDR2-1044

Not to bad at all if you ask me. This memory tops out at 1044 which is 44Mhz over its rated spec and at 4-4-4-12 too! The 4 series of timings really picked up the score on the tests. I attempted to run this kit at 3-3-3-10 but was only able to complete one run at 240fsb with Everest @ 9018 ScienceMark 2.0 @ 8270 and Sandra @ 8943. Anything above this speed on the 3 series of timings resulted in BSOD. I really did not expect much in the 3 timings. The big surprise was the overclock I was able to achieve on the 4 series of timings. DDR-1044 on 4s is excellent!!!

Conclusion
The price on high speed memory has really come down in the last few months and the memory kit here is a prime example of this encouraging trend. Cant’ really complain about the price, for under $300 you can have yourself a set of this fine memory. Performance is very good as well. Even at stock the bandwidth this set puts out is great. Not to speak of the final overclock bandwidth that we were able to get out of it. The flexibility of the memory timings is superb and produced even more bandwidth. This kit is very sensitive to higher volts and should be considered when choosing this memory for your system. The highest speed I was able to squeeze out of this kit far exceeds its rated speed. DDR-1044 (4 series timings) out of a DDR-1000 (5 series timings) memory kit is most excellent indeed!!
10/10

The Good: price, performance, flexibility, overclock, bandwidth
The Bad: none-what-so-ever