Crucial Ballistix DDR4-3600 CL16 16GB RAM Kit Review

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Conclusion

RAM capacity and performance are important in any modern gaming desktop PC.  You want enough capacity for gaming and office work, and at the same time you want performance, but you also don’t want to break the bank.  This is where the Crucial Ballistix DDR4 memory kits come into play.  They offer just the right balance of frequency, timings, cooling, and aesthetics at a price point that doesn’t break your wallet.

Today we reviewed the Crucial Ballistix 16GB DDR4-3600 CL16 memory kit.  This kit includes two 8GB DDR4-3600 PC4-28800 CL16 memory modules for 16GB total in dual-channel.  It’s a great kit for any AMD Ryzen system or Intel system using DDR4.  It comes with timings of 16-18-18-38 CR 1T at 1.35V.  This is the perfect balance of frequency and CAS latency.  At DDR4-3600 this memory maintains the 1:1 FCLK Frequency with AMD Ryzen systems so the Infinity Fabric is not bottlenecked. 

In addition, it’s right in the middle on the fastest CAS latency timing for RAM, it’s much faster than CL19 RAM, and not far from CL14 RAM which may not run as stable at this frequency unless the Voltage is bumped way up.  Those CL14 DDR4-3600 models usually have to run at a higher 1.45V.  This one can run at 1.35V and give you CL16 at DDR4-3600.  Also, 16GB is the perfect capacity for gaming, and would also be enough for office work.

Performance

When it came to performance, just setting the RAM to its XMP or D.O.C.P. profile alone will provide the biggest boost to performance.  This RAM can run at DDR4-3600 and CL16, so why not set it and make it go.  We saw bandwidth increases of 34% more read bandwidth and 35% more write bandwidth as well as 27% more copy performance.  In SiSoftware Sandra 2021 we experienced a 30% performance improvement, and in PassMark a 23% improvement.

With our overclock applied we saw a further increase in performance across the board.  Read performance bandwidth went up another 8%, write performance was up 9% and copy performance was up 9%.  SiSoftware Sandra 2021 saw a 6% boost with the overclock and PassMark received a 4% improvement.

We also experienced some good latency improvements using D.O.C.P. versus the default setting.  At DDR4-3600 and CL16 latency improved quite a bit by 23% better latency in AIDA64 which was a 20ns difference, and the same for PassMark PerformanceTEST.  Increasing the frequency to DDR4-3933 and keeping the same timings also improved latency a bit further, it shaved about 4ns off the time and made it even better.

Overclocking

Overclocking this RAM went flawlessly.  First of all, it runs perfectly using the AMD D.O.C.P. profile of DDR4-3600 at 1.35V and CL16.  We had no problems with our AMD Ryzen system.  This is pretty much all the “overclocking” you need.  If, however you want to go further, we found out how far this RAM could be pushed without having to overvolt it or lower the timings.

We found that at the same Voltage of 1.35V, and the same CL16 timings, we were able to push it up to DDR4-3933 for 3933MT/s.  That’s a 333MT/s increase, or 9% overclock.  This is without lowering the timings, so we maintain excellent latency.  This is also with the FCLK Frequency set to 1966MHz to retain parity with the AMD CPUs for optimal performance and the best latency.  The memory was very easy to overclock.  We also found, if you did indeed want to bump the Voltage up, you could make DDR4-4000 stable, but it does require raising the Voltage.

Final Points

The Crucial Ballistix 16GB DDR4-3600 CL16 memory kit is a great balance of features, performance, and price.  It runs at 3600MT/s which is the sweet spot for current Ryzen systems, as well as Intel systems.  At DDR4-3600 it also runs at a good timing of CL16.  It’s much faster than CL19 and is some of the better CL16 timings we’ve seen in RAM.  Combine this with the sweet spot for capacity, and the fact that this RAM is cooled very well and has an appealing aesthetic for an appealing price, this RAM kit is a really good value for today.

It provides the right capacity and performance for any gamer to have a great gameplay experience with the fastest CPUs and video cards.  It can also be overclocked if you really need more bandwidth, there is headroom there.  The design is well made, and the heat spreader is not an annoying design, it has the right kind of gamer/industrial/professional design and look to it.  With different color options, you should be able to theme it well with your build. 

This RAM shows you don’t have to spend a lot of money to have good RAM today for your machine.  Once again, right now this RAM kit is only $75.98 at Newegg, so for very little money, you get a very decent setup.

Discussion

Brent Justicehttps://www.thefpsreview.com
Former managing editor of GPUs at HardOCP for 18 years, Brent Justice has been reviewing computer components since the late 90s, educated in the art and method of the computer hardware review, he brings experience, knowledge, and hands-on testing with a gamer-oriented and hardware enthusiast perspective. You can follow him on Twitter - @Brent_Justice You can sub to his YouTube channel - Justice Gaming https://www.youtube.com/c/JusticeGamingChannel You can check out his computer builds on KIT - @BrentJustice https://kit.co/BrentJustice

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