So starting a video with an apology never gets any easier, but there’s no way I can
go on like this anymore…
I made a severe and continuous lapse in my judgment, and I don’t expect to be forgiven.
See, a while ago I reviewed a kit of Crucial’s Ballistix RGB memory, and I titled that review
“the new RGB RAM king”, believing that it was about as good as it gets when it comes
to RGB on a RAM module.
But I was wrong.
While the Ballistix RGB had some mad sick lighting strapped to it, when compared to
what we’ll be reviewing today, I can’t in good conscience call it the RGB RAM king
anymore.
And that’s because in this video I’ll be reviewing Crucial’s Ballistix MAX RGB,
a more premium, much faster, and much more RGB-ified RAM champion.
It might also be a bit of a bad buy for Ryzen systems, but we’ll get to that a little
later.
And while we’re on the topic of Ryzen, if you’re like most of us and are waiting for
GPU prices to drop before snagging one up, or you just don’t need a dedicated graphics
card at all for your work, home theatre, or small form factor builds, then you definitely
need to check out AMD’s new Ryzen 5000G processors.
The 5000G lineup ships with everything that makes the regular 5000 series chips so phenomenal,
including the innovative 7nm Zen 3 architecture, high core counts, high clock speeds, and a
host of fancy new features which you can check out in my review of the 5800X, but with some
extra special Radeon graphics sauce to top it all off.
The 5000G-series chips feature Radeon graphics with up to 8 dedicated graphics cores with
clock frequencies all the way up to 2,000MHz, which makes them perfect for playing almost
all of the best esports games at 1080p, while also providing a good experience in most modern
AAA games with some tweaked settings here and there.
So, if you’re sick of waiting and want to jump into the game right now, check out the
link in the description, and if you’re in South Africa and want to get your hands on
them as soon as possible, head on over to Takealot also linked down below.
Now, with Crucial making, tuning and engineering their own memory from start to finish, when
they release a DDR4 kit like the one we’re working with here, you know it’s gonna be
something special.
Crucial’s Ballistix Max lineup comes in RGB and non-RGB versions, ship in 8GB or 16GB
per module configurations, and sport some of the fastest frequencies in the game (when
it comes to DDR4 memory anyway), ranging from 4000MHz all the way up to 5100MHz.
The two kits we’re checking out today are of the RGB variety, which makes me very happy,
and both include two 8GB modules with rated frequencies of 4400MHz and CL19 timings.
So basically we’ve got 32 gigs of pure memory speed right here.
Speed that you wouldn’t really expect coming from such a discreet and sleek package.
Unlike a lot of other more ostentatious and gaudy high-speed memory kits (some of which
I’m not gonna lie, still look amazing), the Ballistix MAX keeps things much more simple
in the looks department.
They come in any color as long as it’s black, don’t feature any distracting bells and
whistles, and the branding on both sides is done super tastefully.
The shrouds on these things are probably some of the most lowkey ones you can find in a
sea of edgy, gamery, and toy knife-looking RAM kits.
Instead of looking like they just came out of a Transformers rave party, these things
are the essence of subtlety.
The matte black finish adds a whole lot of class to the entire affair, while Crucial’s
attention to detail in the angular designs on both sides of each module ensures that
it doesn’t end up looking boring.
They also feel as premium and sturdy as they look.
The brushed black metal feels fantastic, and there’s a lot of it which makes each module
feel like they were once part of a Space X rocket, and the overall build quality is just
superb.
All of that aluminum also helps in the cooling department with the MAX only hitting a max
temp of 46 degrees during my testing.
All in all, I do tend to prefer a teensy bit more flair when it comes to the parts in my
rigs, landing somewhere between this and a hunk of gold with diamond-encrusted spikes
everywhere, but I can still fully appreciate the tactical restraint Crucial decided to
go with here.
I have no doubt that these things would look great in pretty much any color-themed build,
or a serious overclocker’s open-air test bench.
But all of that mostly counts for the non-RGB version of the Ballistix Max.
Because when the lights on the MAX RGB turn on, you’d better get ready for the RGB-splosion
dreams are made of.
RGB LEDs run along the entire top of each module, making for a spectacular light show
as soon as your system boots, and it’s just gorgeous.
Each LED goes much brighter than I expected, probably brighter than all of the other RAM
kits I’ve worked with, and the whole thing is almost seamless.
Almost, because like Peter Parker’s uncle once said, with great brightness comes great
diffusion.
Or something like that.
What I’m trying to say is that these LEDs go so bright that they create minor hotspots
that are…
well, relatively easy to spot even though the high-quality diffusion layer on top does
a fairly good job of keeping the lights mostly in check.
FIX THE ORIENTATION OF THE PLASTIC ON THE MODULE YOU OPENED – IT’S THE WRONG WAY
AROUND!
As for that diffusion layer itself, it’s big.
So big that there are almost no gaps in lighting between each module when you’re running
four side-by-side (which looks really dope), and they have a minimalist design with the
Ballistix MAX text at the center and grooves on both sides.
It’s nothing too special, other than the size, and I think something a little more
exciting would’ve been cool to see.
Which is probably why Crucial entered full-on enthusiast gamer mode by making the diffusion
layer super easy to remove and providing users with the files needed to 3D print their own,
opening up the door to almost limitless customization.
Like, even the official files supplied by Crucial look AMAZING.
The lighting itself is also super customizable with the Ballistix M.O.D.
Utility offering a bunch of options including 12 preset patterns, brightness and speed adjustments,
and you can apply all of that to all modules, or individually which I think is pretty cool.
And If you’re already using third-party lighting software like Mystic Light, then
you can get even more creative with the light show.
Now, even though Crucial has clearly paid a lot of attention to detail when it comes
to the aesthetic design of these modules, their primary focus was almost definitely
raw performance, so I think it’s about time we got into some benchmarks.
Going up against the 32GB Ballistix Max kit will be Crucial’s own 32GB kit of Ballistix
RGB and a 16GB kit of the more budget-friendly Ballistix Tactical Tracer.
All of the kits were run on my Ryzen 5800X system which includes MSI’s MEG X570 ACE
motherboard, Antec’s 750W EAG Pro, Crucial’s P5 Plus as our game drive, and MSI’s RTX
3070 Gaming X Trio doing its best to eliminate as much of the GPU bottleneck as possible.
All of the kits were tested running at their stock speeds and latencies for this first
round.
Now, first up are two synthetic productivity benchmarks in the form of the Blender benchmark
and Cinebench R23, and if you were betting on a blowout in favor of the Ballistix MAX,
then you just lost that bet.
Surprisingly the Ballistix RGB comes out as the big winner here, and in the case of Cinebench’s
multithreaded score, by a significant margin.
Weird.
Well, maybe we’ll see things improve for the MAX when it comes to gaming.
Or maybe not.
Definitely not, actually.
Out of all of the games I tested, the MAX came out on top in only two of them including
Warzone and Civilization 6, while the regular Ballistix RGB got the highest average FPS
in eight games – though obviously, it was a pretty close race in most cases – and
the Tactical Tracer surprisingly managed to grab a win too.
If you’re confused by this less than stellar performance, you’re not alone.
I’ve always known that a RAM kit’s latency can often play a bigger role in gaming performance
than pure speed alone, but this is probably the first time I’ve seen it in action like
this.
So I went back to the drawing board.
I bumped the MAX’s frequency up to 4600MHz, upped the voltage to 1.6V, tightened timings
to CL16 though with slower secondary and tertiary timings than on the other kits for the sake
of stability, and ran it all again.
And you know what, that definitely helped.
With this configuration the Ballistix MAX walked away with a very comfortable win, taking
the lead in seven of the games in this 9-game gauntlet.
But man it’s so close that I almost want to chalk it up to margin of error in many
cases.
So what’s actually happening here?
Why does a kit of memory that’s faster by more than a thousand megahertz need to be
overclocked and have its timings tightened for it to stand a real chance against the
regular Ballistix RGB?
Well, I think it comes down to a couple of things.
First off, latency.
Even though I was able to get the Ballistix MAX down to CL16, it wasn’t really “true”
CL16 as lowering the secondary and tertiary timings anywhere near as low as on the regular
Ballistix RGB was impossible for my system.
Super high speeds and slow timings just aren’t great for gaming if you don’t know what
you’re doing.
I mean, just look at the state of DDR5 right now, where even with their massive speed advantages
they’re losing out to DDR4 kits with much slower speeds but also lower latencies.
Next, and I think the most important part of this puzzle is that we’re using a Ryzen
system here, and there’s a reason the phrase one-to-one is used all of the time when talking
about Ryzen and memory.
See, for a Ryzen chip and a memory kit to work together as best as they possibly can,
it’s recommended to run everything in a one-to-one-to-one configuration.
That’s what most motherboards usually default to when you turn on XMP.
That means that the memory frequency, Ryzen’s Infinity Fabric Clock (or F-clock), and your
memory controller (or U-clock) frequencies need to be in sync for ultimate performance.
So ideally the Ballistix MAX would run at 4400MHz with an F-clock and U-clock set to
2200MHz.
But unfortunately, 2200 is basically unattainable right now on probably all Ryzen systems as
far as I know.
And because of that, even with an XMP profile applied, the kit defaults to 4400MHz, with
an F-clock of 1800 and a U-clock of 1100MHz.
And even though an F-clock of 1800 is actually pretty impressive, it’s all out of sync,
and that’s why I think we’re seeing lower performance numbers than the kit is capable
of.
The only other likely scenario here that I can think of is that there’s a lot more
fine-tuning that needs to be done to get fast memory to play well with Ryzen.
And that’s the thing, I’m betting a lot of you watching this don’t plan on overclocking
your memory at all, except for hopefully enabling XMP, so if you’re using a Ryzen system then
I don’t see any reason to splurge on a lightning-fast kit like the MAX unless you’re an experienced
overclocker with ready access to liquid nitrogen.
For regular people like myself, a kit like Crucial’s Ballistix RGB which I reviewed
not too long ago is hands down the better option.
A 16GB, 3600MHz, CL16 kit will only set you back about $74 right now, while the 16GB,
4400MHz, CL19 kit of Ballistix MAX is selling for around $97.
Crucial’s Ballistix Max is a high-speed, gorgeous, and very premium kit of RAM, and
if you’re using a system from team blue (which doesn’t mind out of sync frequencies
all that much), just want some bragging rights, know how to fine-tune memory on Ryzen, or
want to try to set some overclocking records, then the Ballistix MAX is still a fantastic
option.
For the rest of us with Ryzen systems though, kits with frequencies under 4000MHz and fast
timings still seem to be the sweet spot.
Just like the sweet spot I have for AMD’s new Ryzen 5000G-series chips and their built-in
Radeon graphics.
I can’t wait to get my hands on one for a small form factor HTPC I want to put together
sometime soon.
Be sure to check out the 5000G-series lineup using the link in the description, and if
you’re in South Africa, check them out at Takealot also linked down below.
Thanks to Crucial for letting me play around with the Ballistix MAX, and thanks and happy
holidays to everyone who made it this far into the video.
Your watch time is the best present I could’ve hoped for.
I’ll see you in the next one, cheers.