Ballistix Elite 3200 MHz 16GB Quad Channel DDR4 review - A Quad Channel introduction

Ballistix (by Crucial) 3200MHZ (C16) DDR4 Memory
High performance - High volume - Low Latency - 16GB memory kit

We review a 16GB Ballistix Elite kit from Ballistix, now its own brand separated from Crucial. The 3200 MHz 16GB memory is cool, fast and runs XMP 2.0 memory profiles on Intel platforms as well. Join us as we review some of the fastest clocked bars of memory your money can get you. This quad-channel memory was optimized for Intel platforms on Z170/Z270 and X99, obviously with four 4GB DIMMs, ideal for a quad-channel 16 GB setup.

DDR4 memory modules you can choose plenty from, the cheap but dull all-green Kingston Value memory for example works absolutely fine. Then the regular mainstream DIMMs, then step it up a little and high-frequency memory is a hint faster and often cooler looking inside your PC with the fancy designs and heatspreaders. Then there's enthusiast grade memory for the performance enthusiasts, which is what we will look at as Crucial, well, Ballistix has released their Elite series memory. The DIMMs we received from them clock in at a nice 3200 MHz (effective), considering that a lot of you run your memory at 2133 MHz and, for DDR3, actually 1600 MHz, that's nearly double the memory frequency. But how will that relate to performance? 

Stylish RAM for the people that need fast performance, the people that build their own PCs and perhaps customize them a little. In that mindset Ballistix has released an updated SKU based on quality, performance and aesthetics. Not the cheapest, but pretty cool with great looks and frequencies rating up to even PC4-25600 (3200 MHz) that can be enabled with a simple XMP profile in your BIOS. We received a dual/quad (your preference) channel kit, 16GB of it... configured over 4 DIMMs thus holding 4 GB each. Rated PC4-25600 / 3200MHz at CAS latency 16 and sure, this has to be one of the coolest looking memory kits anno 2017 in its all-dark design. The end results will be very interesting as we'll simply take this memory seated on a Core i7 6950 Extreme / X99 Intel chipset setup and evaluate it to the baseline performance of other chipsets/processors and their respective reference baseline performance.
  

Ballistix is offering the kits with clock speed of the memory modules ranging up-to a scorching 3200 MHz these days with varying CL timings running as tight as 16. As such we test this kit, their DDR4 3200MHz CL16-18-18-36 16GB (4x4GB) 1.35V kit. Depending on the platform you use it with, it is a dual-channel kit or quad of course. At the time of writing this kit costs € 169,-

Have a peek at the awesomeness first.