Performance
Crucial Ballistix Sport LT 32GB DDR4-2400 memory kit has been tested on our usual platform which contains Intel Core i7 6700K processor overclocked to 4.2GHz with cache frequency also at 4.2GHz and ASRock Z170 OC Formula motherboard.
As an addition, in 3D benchmarks was used ASUS GTX980 graphics card.
Let’s begin with AIDA64 Memory and Cache benchmark.
Crucial Ballistix Sport LT memory is clearly not the fastest in our comparison. It’s because of how Intel Skylake platform is scalling with memory frequency. It simply likes high memory frequency while DDR4-2400 isn’t much above standard. I wonder why Crucial is releasing only lower frequency memory like DDR4-2400 while this memory can easily work at higher frequency. In the comparison there is also DDR4-2666 kit from Crucial which is showing much higher results.
On the other hand, Ballistix Sport LT results are pretty good for DDR4-2400 memory kit and are more than enough for most users.
MaxxMem Preview is performing similar tests as AIDA64 but in single threaded environment. Here we see a bit better situation. Read and copy bandwidth is lower than on higher frequency memory kits but still not that much.
Synthetic bandwidth tests are not telling us much about real performance so let’s move to some other tests.
I had to run HyperPi 32M couple of more times to check if it’s not a mistake but Crucial Ballistix Sport LT is really fast in this test even though frequency is lower than competitive memory kits. I wonder if it’s memory design at higher capacity or something else. Most other memory kits in our comparison are single rank while Sport LT is dual rank. In general meaning it can transfer more data in single clock cycle.
In Cinebench R15 we can see that lower memory latency helps more. High capacity memory kits, especially at lower frequency are not the best in this test. However there are only couple of points difference so I wouldn’t worry about the differences. I assume that in real life rendering high capacity memory will be still much better idea than lower capacity but higher frequency. All who are using graphics applications know how much time can save additional RAM.
PCMark 8 is a benchmark which is testing whole PC performance. It uses various tests based on popular applications and less demanding games.
As we can see on the graph, synthetic memory performance doesn’t change much and regardless what specification has memory, results are almost the same. It also means that better is to buy higher capacity memory ( if we can use it ) than to pay premium for higher frequency memory.
Let’s take a look at last benchmark which is the latest 3DMark.
In 3DMark we can see similar situation as in PCMark. In both presets so Fire Strike and Fire Strike Ultra, results are almost the same. We can see that higher frequency memory is slightly faster but it won’t really affect our experience in games. I guess that there will be titles which react better on faster memory, especially if anyone wishes to play in 4k display resolution but if anyone can afford so strong setup then probably won’t care how much memory cost.
Crucial Ballistix Sport LT DDR4-2400 is good memory but could be faster. Most users won’t see any difference between DDR4-2400 and higher frequency memory but computer enthusiasts and overclockers will probably choose DDR4-3000+ memory kits. I wish to see higher frequency memory from Crucial as so far the highest kit is Ballistix Elite which was also in comparison of this review.
At the end I will add that overclocking potential isn’t high but I was able to stabilize our test memory kit at DDR4-2800 CL15-15-15 and 1.35V. At 1.20V was possible to set 2666 CL15-15-15 or 2800 CL16-16-16. We wish to see DDR4-3000+ but I think these are still great results considering high memory capacity.
