There used to be a time when tangible gains in performance could be made by using enthusiast-grade system memory. However, recent CPU microarchitectures from Intel and AMD have taken away much of the benefit of using super-fast, super-expensive RAM, for modern processors have lots of on-chip cache and clever prefetching to disguise memory latency.
But Crucial reckons that there's still merit in providing the enthusiast with different grades of memory. It's now planning on subtly changing the appearance of the enthusiast-orientated Ballistix line and also simplifying its products into three distinct groups.
The 'old' Ballistix module is at the top. A slight change in livery is accompanied by the addition of model designation. Crucial is using Elite, Tactical and Sport nomenclatures to denote the quality of the memory, with Elite being the fastest and Sport the (relative) slowest and cheapest.
Sitting between Elite and Sport is the all-new 'Tactical'. According to Crucial, it offers slightly better timings and higher frequencies than Sport while chiming in just below Elite.
We like the idea of segregating enthusiast memory into easy-to-understand families, as they make implicit sense, yet have doubts that the word Tactical works.
Does Ballistix Tactical sound right to you? We're sure that Crucial would love to hear your comments on the revised line-up.
