Crucial to End Ballistix RAM Production and Sales

[maxfly]

Teresa Kelley, Vice President and General Manager, Micron Commercial Products Group explains, “We remain focused on growing our NVMe and Portable SSD product categories, which both offer storage solutions for PC and console gamers. Additionally, Crucial JEDEC standard DDR5 memory provides mainstream gamers with DDR5-enabled computers with better high-speed performance, data transfers and bandwidth than previously available with Crucial Ballistix memory.”

And the award for most ridiculous statement of the year in tech goes to...? Of course crucial ddr5 offers better performance, data transfers and bandwidth! Your comparing ddr2/3/4 to ddr5 you nitwit! You don't even make ballistix ddr5 as a comparison!

Aaaand so we are going to kill off the ddr3/4 ballistix that has nothing to do with ddr5. Oh, and btw it put your company on the map in the enthusiast world. Yup, throwing away sales is a great way to grow your business, hmmm. Someone was hit hard with the stupid stick apparently lmao. I predict Teresa has a glowing future in the biz.

Edit- Sorry for the rant. Stupidity really should hurt tho.

 

[Sem98]

press F

 

[zlobby]

Your vitriol really seeps through in your comments. Do you hate everything and everyone?

Apart from his spelling and grammar, I too share the same sentiment in this case.

 

[Tartaros]

A pity, I had Ballistix ram in the past and it was good. I specially remember the DDR with the golden heatsinks, those were awesome for Opterons back in socket 939 era.

Apart from his spelling and grammar, I too share the same sentiment in this case.

Just ignore him.

 

[Countryside]

Sad news indeed, so many crucial ballistix memory i have used and now they shall remain as memories

 

[Turmania]

What I understand from this is that crucial does not see any hope for ddr5 for the future. No one leaves a sector where they sell two sticks at 500 and above.

 

[uuee]

Very sad. That "made in mexico" label always warmed my heart. Reminded me of my beautiful V3 3000. Are there any other modules that are not from Asia?

 

[zlobby]

Very sad. That "made in mexico" label always warmed my heart. Reminded me of my beautiful V3 3000. Are there any other modules that are not from Asia?

There are. You can still choose between modules made in Milano, Paris and Praha. Take your pick.

 

[Kapone33]

Exactly. Far cheaper than gskill, fits under any hs and they just work. 3600 blacks are all I use for am4 builds(and alot of intel if I can get them).
Dropping the ballistix name is a huge mistake. Brand recognition is everything in the memory market and they are giving their biggest up, cuz we want erthang ta be crucial? Just stupid.

Yep I every pre built I have come across has has Ballistix. AMD or Intel.

 

[Veseleil]

This may explain why both my crucial 3600 Kits have C9BLM ICs which are suppose to be used in the 4400 MAX series. Performance is insane!!!
I even got 3667 @ CL14 Stable on my 1700X.
View attachment 236997View attachment 236993

Seeing that made me wonder... I remember having 65ns before.

So I've checked and found out that the newer BIOS screwed up the latency on my CRUCIAL 16GB Ballistix DDR4 3200MHz CL16 KIT BL2K8G32C16U4B.

 

[damric]

This is sad news, but another company will bin the Micron ICs, probably Team.

Ballistix binned Micron E became my favorite DDR4 for price/performance on AM4, even more so than Hynix CJR or DJR.

I have tried a few unbinned JEDEC Micron E and they were terrible though.

I'm guessing the time and effort to bin DDR5 ICs is just not worth the cost for Micron.

 

[bug]

Teresa Kelley, Vice President and General Manager, Micron Commercial Products Group explains, “We remain focused on growing our NVMe and Portable SSD product categories, which both offer storage solutions for PC and console gamers. Additionally, Crucial JEDEC standard DDR5 memory provides mainstream gamers with DDR5-enabled computers with better high-speed performance, data transfers and bandwidth than previously available with Crucial Ballistix memory.”

And the award for most ridiculous statement of the year in tech goes to...? Of course crucial ddr5 offers better performance, data transfers and bandwidth! Your comparing ddr2/3/4 to ddr5 you nitwit! You don't even make ballistix ddr5 as a comparison!

Aaaand so we are going to kill off the ddr3/4 ballistix that has nothing to do with ddr5. Oh, and btw it put your company on the map in the enthusiast world. Yup, throwing away sales is a great way to grow your business, hmmm. Someone was hit hard with the stupid stick apparently lmao. I predict Teresa has a glowing future in the biz.

Edit- Sorry for the rant. Stupidity really should hurt tho.

I'm pretty sure they're not being stupid. Most likely they just have better margins elsewhere.
But it's still funny watching their marketing guys trying to put lipstick on the pig.

 

[Aquinus]

They also have a ton of "regular" Crucial branded DDR5 memory for sale.

Maybe they're consolidating the brand? It might just be marketing trying to do something. Who cares what brand under Crucial it is if it's still the same products they've always been selling. I can't believe that they're reducing capacity unless this is how they justify limited supply to increase prices, but that's very tinfoil-hatty and I don't believe that.

 

[TheLostSwede]

Seeing that made me wonder... I remember having 65ns before.


View attachment 237071

So I've checked and found out that the newer BIOS screwed up the latency on my CRUCIAL 16GB Ballistix DDR4 3200MHz CL16 KIT BL2K8G32C16U4B.

View attachment 237072

View attachment 237070

You need to lower your tRFC to something more sensible and the latency will drop. 666 is insanely high.

Maybe they're consolidating the brand? It might just be marketing trying to do something. Who cares what brand under Crucial it is if it's still the same products they've always been selling. I can't believe that they're reducing capacity unless this is how they justify limited supply to increase prices, but that's very tinfoil-hatty and I don't believe that.

They're apparently won't don't anything outside JEDEC spec for now.

 

[Valantar]

What I understand from this is that crucial does not see any hope for ddr5 for the future. No one leaves a sector where they sell two sticks at 500 and above.

That analysis makes no sense. PCs will need RAM. Future platforms won't support DDR4. So ... either they have no hope for the DIY PC market as a whole, or they're choosing to focus elsewhere. As for "No one leaves a sector where they sell two sticks at 500 and above" - that depends entirely on the ROI, volumes, and overall priorities of the business. Selling ultra-premium OC RAM kits requires a lot of scale + engineering effort, both in overall PCB and product design, binning (which can be somewhat labor intensive at the high end), and volume to sell off the ICs that don't reach whatever bar gets you that price. You could always argue that margins are higher in those markets, but they are also more prone to risk and less stable (if s competitor suddenly launches a faster kit at a lower price, you might be left with no margins at all), while focusing on lower margin, more stable markets like OEM products makes for drastically lowered effort and easily attained scale (as long as you can get the contracts). It's not uncommon at all for companies to leave consumer-oriented markets to focus on B2B or OEM instead.

 

[smiler3d]

Shame, good reliable memory from a good brand, currently running 4x8GB 3200 in my ryzen, and very happy with it

 

[Chrispy_]

Micron will still make DDR5, and hopefully that means you can get zero-RGB, black PCB, Micron DDR5 from Crucial at a sensible price:

Currently they only sell JEDEC spec stuff but basic XMP would be welcome without the pointless space-wasting "heat"sinks or RGBLED bullshit.

 

[bug]

Micron will still make DDR5, and hopefully that means you can get zero-RGB, black PCB, Micron DDR5 from Crucial at a sensible price:

View attachment 237138

Currently they only sell JEDEC spec stuff but basic XMP would be welcome without the pointless space-wasting "heat"sinks or RGBLED bullshit.

Honestly, in the absence of XMP, you just have to set frequency and timings yourself. Not the worst thing in the world.

 

[Chrispy_]

Honestly, in the absence of XMP, you just have to set frequency and timings yourself. Not the worst thing in the world.

I'm now experienced enough to do this with DDR4, not touched a single DDR5 kit yet.

 

[Cutechri]

This is never a good thing.

 

[chrcoluk]

That analysis makes no sense. PCs will need RAM. Future platforms won't support DDR4. So ... either they have no hope for the DIY PC market as a whole, or they're choosing to focus elsewhere. As for "No one leaves a sector where they sell two sticks at 500 and above" - that depends entirely on the ROI, volumes, and overall priorities of the business. Selling ultra-premium OC RAM kits requires a lot of scale + engineering effort, both in overall PCB and product design, binning (which can be somewhat labor intensive at the high end), and volume to sell off the ICs that don't reach whatever bar gets you that price. You could always argue that margins are higher in those markets, but they are also more prone to risk and less stable (if s competitor suddenly launches a faster kit at a lower price, you might be left with no margins at all), while focusing on lower margin, more stable markets like OEM products makes for drastically lowered effort and easily attained scale (as long as you can get the contracts). It's not uncommon at all for companies to leave consumer-oriented markets to focus on B2B or OEM instead.

It makes sense to me, the DIY market future isnt looking good with the prices of gpus, motherboards etc. Plus I expect when building a PC fast ram is the lowest priority out of cpu, gpu, board and ram. Sure people will often not bother with basement level ram, but the sweet price point for ram is usually mid range and considered "good enough".

 

[Valantar]

It makes sense to me, the DIY market future isnt looking good with the prices of gpus, motherboards etc. Plus I expect when building a PC fast ram is the lowest priority out of cpu, gpu, board and ram. Sure people will often not bother with basement level ram, but the sweet price point for ram is usually mid range and considered "good enough".

But that's not what the person I quoted said. What you're saying is one of the more limited, specific and plausible scenarios I presented, so ... yes?

 

[Veseleil]

You need to lower your tRFC to something more sensible and the latency will drop. 666 is insanely high.

Tried tRFC 540, but it crashes one of my sticks, so i need to remove it physically to even boot. Set to 554 (as calculator value implies), still isn't good.

 

[TheLostSwede]

Tried tRFC 540, but it crashes one of my sticks, so i need to remove it physically to even boot. Set to 554 (as calculator value implies), still isn't good.
View attachment 237360View attachment 237361

Could be your CPU as well maybe the memory controller can't handle it.
At least you're not on the latest AGESA, so that's not what's messing things up, but it seems like even the one you're on might be less than ideal.
Can you roll back to one version older and at if it makes a difference?

 

[Veseleil]

Could be your CPU as well maybe the memory controller can't handle it.
At least you're not on the latest AGESA, so that's not what's messing things up, but it seems like even the one you're on might be less than ideal.
Can you roll back to one version older and at if it makes a difference?

The original BIOS the board came with was better, yes. But I updated it just because of SAM feature. I can see now it was a mistake, as i didn't saw any noticeable improvement with it (might be some games in the future though).
The problem is I don't have a power backup of any kind, and every BIOS flash is a huge risk (i think my mobo is already out of the warranty, and it was already replaced once due to the magnetic interference with onboard audio). I do need to buy a cheap UPS just for BIOS flashing purpose, and I will soon enough. I will post the results.
For now, I'll just drink that latency with a few ice cubes and a slice of a lemon.
Thanks for the help provided. It's highly appreciated.