The high-end computer market has really advanced over the past two years. We've seen the introduction of Precott CPU's from Intel boasting 2MB of L2 cache. Intel's latest platforms also now use DDR2 which scales faster that traditional DDR, albeit at slower latency. In the past two years we've also seen AMD enjoy success with the launch of their Athlon 64 processor. Combine that with a speedy nForce 3 or nForce 4 chipset and you've got yourself a screaming system. As good as any of these processors are, they are only as good as the motherboard and RAM that they use. If you've got a great board, and processor, but run PC2100 or PC2700, you are seriously crippling your performance.

Today, we are taking a look at a pair of PC4000 DDR modules from Crucial. This is their Ballistix series of memory and features pretty decent timings and performance. For those of you who are unaware, Crucial is the front-end for Micron - a memory company who's been around a long time. In this review we'll see if Crucial has a decent product with the Ballistix PC4000 (DDR500) or if they are relying more on their name to sell a product. It should be a good time.