Crucial Ballistix DDR2 Memory

Today we get the opportunity to play with the Crucial Ballistix DDR2 memory. So what could possibly make these any better than the rest? Well for starters, this RAM runs at tighter timings and is SLI certified. Like other memory manufacturers, they offer a limited lifetime warranty.

I have an SLI motherboard, a pair of 8600 GT in SLI, and an SLI certified case and power supply. I'm not sitting here saying you need SLI versions of everything. I'm actually creeped out about how SLI I have become. Maybe I should just get some SLI RAM and paint an nVidia logo on my head. Well okay, maybe I shouldn't go THAT far, but SLI memory has piqued my interest. Unlike the SLI certified case, which didn't seem to have any advantage over your normal case, SLI memory is supposed to offer some kind of advantage in performance. My first action was to investigate what SLI memory is. Here is what I grabbed from nVidia's site.

"NVIDIA SLI-Ready system memory certification ensures compatibility and system stability with the rest of the SLI ecosystem components, including NVIDIA nForce SLI motherboards, NVIDIA GeForce GPUs, and SLI-Ready power supplies. SLI-Ready memory also supports Enhanced Performance Profiles (EPP). When paired with NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI, 680i LT SLI or 590 SLI AMD edition-based motherboards, SLI-Ready memory exposes advanced performance memory settings.

"Only memory that pass NVIDIA SLI certification can be called 'NVIDIA SLI-Ready certified.' Be sure to look for the NVIDIA SLI-Ready badge when you buy your system memory."

After reading this I'm still a little fuzzy on what it does. I take away from this that it adds compatibility and stability while giving the memory advanced settings. Doing a little more research, I found out that it is mostly done via the Enhanced Performance Profiles (EPP). This is more information about the timings than what are normally in the SPD profiles. It should make the memory "self-tweaking," in a sense. All those settings in the memory configuration that require countless hours of tweaking can now be done by the memory itself.