A Closer Look

Sticks retrieved from the floor, I carefully inspected them all up close. Crucial's 2133 MHZ DDR4 kit comes on a standard green PCB with 8 memory chips on each side. Since these sticks are each 8 GB in density, smaller 16 GB kits are likely to have sticks in the box that only have memory chips on one side of the PCB.


The side with no stickers present clearly showing each memory chip's face, these chips are easily identified. It's pretty clear that Crucial's sticks are populated with memory ICs built by Micron. Flip the sticks over and you'll also see their specification labels.


The label with Crucial's obvious branding contains most of the relevant information, although it is a mad mess of letters and numbers only Crucial's website or past experience will let you decipher. The other label is one by Crucial's parent company Micron, and it contains the same base information.


Looking at the memory chips up close, it's again pretty obvious that they are by Micron, but those of us that are a bit more interested in overclocking might be happy to see the return of "D9" ICs, which may or may not be indicative of some added overclocking performance. The edge of the bottom features the standard bevel all DDR4 sticks have, which allows for easier insertion and removal.


There are a couple areas on the PCB with some markings that might be of interest to those that are into finding the very best sticks for overclocking, though the actual usefulness of the information provided here might hardly be worth mentioning. There seems to be a date code on one edge, while the middle comes with a standard PCB demarcation that references the PCB type and style more than anything else.


Looking at the memory ICs again, we can see different codes stamped onto some of the ICs. Look at the side without labels and it's obvious that the stick was assembled using ICs from different batches, which is pretty standard-fare for any stick. This highlights how each IC is tested before even being put on a PCB, a sure sign of quality as there is no other explanation for such a procedure than to make sure the products you get are worth every penny you spend.


These aren't some flashy metal-wrapped enthusiast sticks. These are the reference sticks on which all other sticks Crucial might release from now on are based, which has me quite excited. More on why in a minute.