Crucial Ballistix 3200 MHz DDR4 DRAM Desktop Gaming Memory Kit CL16 BL2K8G32C16U4W (WHITE), STANDARD: 16GB (8GBx2)

I had 4 sticks of 8gb Crucial Ballistix @2666mhz with XMP enabled. This ram was solid, but I wanted a little more. I knew it was possible the gains could end up being small, but I had the money, so I went for it. My computer is an IBuyPower 'Enthusiast'(Yes, I plan on upgrading the psu and graphics eventually) that I use for day trading stocks. The computer was already pretty solid out of the box, especially for only $499, but what I liked was that the ASRock motherboard B450M-ibw (proprietary to IBuyPower, but same as a B450M/ac) and AMD platform that I thought would be a fairly solid starting point with which to upgrade as I came across more funds. The first thing I did was go from the stock 8gb of ram to Crucial 8x2. This helped a bit, but needed some help, so I upgraded to a Ryzen 5 3600. Already excellent gains and speed (It came with a Ryzen 3 2400g). I overclocked the Ryzen 5 to 4.2ghz @ 1.4v, which proved to be nice and stable, but I didn’t like how high the voltage was, which is not needed and really only causes heat, so I ended up at 1.375v.I then bought 2 more of 8gb ram by Crucial for 32gb total, 8x4gb at the stock speed of 2666mhz. This was fine, but it really didn't help much bc I was still at the stock speed of 2666, so in essence, I could tell, and feel, that it could be improved upon. I eventually did away with the 4x8 setup @2666 and went with this kit at 3200mhz, 16x2, with XMP enabled. I tried messing with timings to see if I could achieve CL15 or CL14, but every time I saved bios settings and rebooted, it kept throwing away XMP as well as my cpu overclock and rebooting everything to auto. So essentially, what I discovered is that at least with a Ryzen 5 3600 and an ASRock B450M-ibw(same as B450M/ac, just different bios), these Crucial Ballistix either don't like to be overclocked passed their stock XMP overclock settings, or the motherboard/bios doesn't like it. I have a feeling it's the ram that doesn't like it.Full specs are:Ryzen 5 3600 overclocked to 4200ghz @ 1.400voltsCrucial 32gb(16x2) 3200mhz CL16 with XMP enabled.So right now with this setup, my best Cinebench rating is 1825, which I noticed beats out quite a few Ryzen 7 setups listed on Cinebench. I still have the stock PSU and graphics card which I'm itching to upgrade, but I haven't decided if I'm going to add 2 more 16x2 sticks for a total of 64gb. I know most activities won't benefit, but some will, so there's that.Crucial is definitely solid kit. There's a reason they are as reputable as they are. Hope all that helps.** Edit (as of 04/25/2020): I’ve upgraded to 64gb of ram, 16x4 with xmp enabled @3200mhz.If this makes sense, overall it’s not faster per se, but does feel ‘smoother’. Everything feels effortless, almost like the cpu accesses to ram when it needs to for help, which is rare, but seems to ‘know it’s there when needed’, if you will. I’ve upgraded the cpu to an EVGA 750w Gold, the graphics card is now an RTX 2060 Super and I’ve put a Noctua U12A cpu cooler on the cpu which has allowed me to squeeze the overclocking to 4.3 @ 1.375. I’ve upgraded the intake and exhaust fans to Noctua F12’s and this thing is not only stable as mountain, but quiet as a mouse. I have an air purifier in my room that is louder than this thing. Anyway, just some tweaks I thought I’d add. Well worth it. Ram is excellent, can’t go wrong.*** Edit #2 (as of 10/5/2021): I still have 64gb of ram, but I've bought all white modules that are 3000mhz cas latency 15 (CL15).Full Specs now are:- Ryzen 9 3900x w/ Noctua NH-U12a for the cpu cooler (Using Noctua's NT-H2 Thermal Paste)- RTX 2070 Super- 64gb Crucial Ballistix 3000mhz CL15 overclocked to 3466mhz- Corsair case with Kaze Flex case fans- B450m/IBW (Proprietary iBuyPower Motherboard made by AsRock (Closest AsRock has is the B450m/ac and no one seems to have a clue what the difference between the two are even though they look identical to my eyes). I keep pushing its limits and it hasn't failed me. If I upgrade it'll be to an x570 Taichi as I'm already comfortable with how AsRock's bios is laid out.- Seasonic 750w Platinum PSU- Samsung 970 Evo Plus NVME with Archgon M.2 2280 Heatsink(purchased here on Amazon).Actually everything was purchased on Amazon. Everything is running like butter. My Cinebench Score is over 7500 now with my Ryzen 9 overclocked to 4.4ghz. Please be aware the Cinebench is not a good indicator of your ram timings and mhz speed being stable as Cinebench is more CPU intensive.So anyway, My previous 64gigs of ram I could not for the life of me get timings tighter. They were 3200mhz at CL16. I wanted CL15 or CL14 as this is better for production since I don't actually game(hence why so much ram). I was able to get the old ram to 3466mhz with Infiniti fabric at 1733 no problem, however.In comes the 3000mhz CL15. It's all white now instead of a mix of red and black even though the specs were the same on both the black and red sticks. I popped in the new all white ram, got myself into the bios and something interesting happened. I did not need to touch that 3466mhz overclock. It immediately registered the same, but held the 15-16-16-35 timings. This is a win as I rarely experience happy surprises of that nature when dealing with overclocking scenarios. Boy was I a happy camper. I was completely prepared to have to set the new ram's XMP profile and attempt to again boost the frequency and Infiniti fabric, but in fact, the old memory's setting held in the bios. I've checked the performance tab in task manager and sure enough, it says the ram is running at 3466mhz and Ryzen Master confirms Infiniti fabric is at 1733. I'm not going to push it any further as I'm still on a B450m motherboardnow extremely happy with how everything is running.

I did a lot of research on this. My Dell Inspiron 3668 desktop (mini-tower to my eyes), is all Dell, and is proprietary. Which means they are sticklers for replacement and upgrade of hardware. It came with one stick of SK hynix 8GB DDR4 2400MHZ DRAM. My motherboard can use up to 16GB RAM, and with two slots for memory I was going to do my self justice by trying something more top-of-the-line.So I got two Crucial Ballistix sticks of RAM, 8GB's each to fill both slots on my MBD. I received the memory four (4) days earlier than expected (Saturday). AWESOME!! What a nice, small project to do over the weekend.Upon opening the container, I was quite impressed with the stick's weight, as there are aluminum heat-dissipating covers on them. Not to mention the color (red) which I chose for aesthetics. They fit alongside of each other nicely. The computer recognized the 'memory change' upon powering up, and using "Piriform: Speccy as a system information application, verified the upgrade with specifics.It was a flawless experience, and the best quality RAM I have installed yet (and I have done quite a few).

I had these installed on an MSI z490-Pro board (one of MSI’s lowest priced offerings) for a year and a half. Installed it, booted into bios and activated XMP II profile. Not a single issue for the past year and a half.Fast forward to two months ago. Got a high-ish end ASUS Rog Strix z790 board to upgrade to 13th gen Intel CPU, and it’s been nothing but trouble since the first day. Constant crashes when xmp is activated, and no bios update is helping.So, if you have these and want to stay with DDR4 to save money on your new build, do a deep research on what motherboard you will pair these with.

This was a great upgrade for me from my previous single channel of ddr4 memory with only 8gb. I now have no concern of memory blocking myself no matter how many tabs I have up on Firefox on my secondary screen while gaming and that's on top of running discord and screen capture software while I try to push my FPS to the max. I may have went a bit overboard with 32gb as at most I've only even used 52% of the memory at once but it will definitely allow me to move this over to my next motherboard as I continue my upgrading quest through the years. I will suggest though 16gb of dual channel ddr4 should be more than enough for most gamers and would only consider more if your using memory intensive programs for saying renderings or video editing and even then 16gb will still service most users without any major issues.

To answer my title I have used brands from other manufacturers since I've have been building pc's since 2000.to many to name some brands are not even around anymore.I only use two brands now crucial (my preference) and sk hynix.both are very good.crucial has the edge as it is much more stable in gaming builds.my own personal build pc's always have crucial ram and crucial m.2 ssd's or crucial ssd's.out of all the brands I have used ;crucial has always been the best most reliable product.only once did I get a bad stick of ram and crucial sent me a new one no questions asked they didn't even ask for the old one back.they stand behind there products and that is huge in today's over populated pc component market.