Crucial, a division of Micron, uses Micron chipsets to assemble very fast DDR3 memory modules. The new BallistiX DDR3 series are expected to give more or less what other manufacturers offer at their proposals. While the specs indicate 1600MHz with CL8, we managed to make the memory work at CL7 without much effort, just pump up voltage a bit up to 1.90V.

I was curious to see how this memory would perform compared to the SuperTalent PC3-1600CL7 modules. The results speak for themselves. More or less, both modules are "equal". They operated at the same memory frequencies with similar timings and similar performance. We cannot declare a clear winner out of this "contest", even though the Crucial modules support the embedded XMP profile, which SuperTalent doesn't.

From an overclocker's point of view, we managed to get the Crucial modules up to 924MHz, two MHz less compared with the SuperTalent DDR3-1600CL7.

Perhaps with different memory and motherboard settings, these kits could go even higher. But you can't go wrong with the Crucial BallistiX DDR3-1600 memory kit. The retail price of US$680 (as found at Crucial's website) is much higher than what the SuperTalent DDR3-1600CL7 is currently sold at. It's a matter of time before Crucial drops its prices, since other vendors have introduced faster rated DDR3 memory at a lower price.

Concluding this review, we believe Crucial has a very good product, somewhat pricier than its competitors. If the price was right, we would have highly recommended this product.