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Today we look at Crucial's Ballistix Tracer PC-8000 DDR2 memory.

With AMD discontinuing Socket 939 processors, and Socket 754 also soon to be discontinued, DDR memory is essentially dead - except for a small upgrade market.

DDR3 memory is at least six months to a year away from the general market, so for the near future everyone will be focusing on DDR2... and frankly, all of the major players have already been focusing on DDR2 for quite a while. DDR2 has grown far beyond the official JDEC specifications, as a matter of fact, today's PC8000 and higher DDR2 memories are providing speeds that were not envisioned.

The last time we looked, the Crucial Ballistix PC6400 did quite well, beating its 800-4-4-4-12 specification by running at 810-4-4-4-10 - however it was not really an enthusiasts oriented memory, and it could not get stratospheric speeds. Before that, when we reviewed the Crucial Ballistix PC4000 DDR memory, we were able to confirm that it met and slightly exceeded its specifications, but again, we were limited in overclocking potential.

Our previous experiences suggested that the Tracer would easily meet its expectations, but as Crucial in the past seemed to concentrate on the upgrade market, we would not normally expect a lot of "headroom" for overclocking. Now however, the Ballistix Tracer PC8000 is clearly aimed at enthusiasts - and we hope that it means that it will perform significantly beyond its specifications.

Crucial sent us an OEM package, part number BL2KIT12864AL1005, not a fancy retail blister pack - and frankly, I prefer this cardboard box as it protects the memory better than a blister pack, and it costs Crucial less. As you can see from the shot below, I was eager to open the box, and cut it open before taking the shots for this article.

Inside the box, I found two memory modules, each of them individually packaged in an anti-static bag. The modules were firmly held by cardboard cutouts so that they cannot flop around during transport.

Besides the memory sticks, Crucial also included a small fold-out manual instructing those new to PC's on how to install the memory.

The modules had solid heat spreaders on them, and you'd never guess from this angle that the modules have LED's on top - unlike previous LED modules they are not "in your face" as Crucial used small surface mount LED's.

For this review, we decided to do something a bit different... we wanted to see how this memory would perform on a new QX6700 quad core system!

But before you ask... here's a shot of the LED's: