Overall and Final Verdict
I loved the first Ballistix Elite kits styling and that was no different this time as well. The all blacked out look is a nice change from the RGB everything that most products are doing. When you get a closer look I think the military-like design is also a nice touch. The heatspreaders are also heavy and well built where a lot of kits are kits are just thin aluminum stuck on each side, this goes beyond that. Especially at the top where the machined bit that holds both heatspreaders together is stout. With aesthetics not a concern at all, it was mostly performance and pricing that I was wondering about.
Performance of the 4000 MHz kit ended up being really good. I did note that a little tighter on the timings wouldn’t have been bad but when you start comparing the Elite kit against other 4000 MHz kits there are only a few that are going for the 17 CAS Latency, 18 like this kit has is the norm. What really impressed me though was the level of overclocking I was able to get out of the kit. The last Elite kit was okay at overclocking but this kit managed to run well with an extra 533 MHz and it made a huge difference in performance as shown in the testing.
As for pricing, like the previous kit, this one isn’t cheap. To be fair the heavy duty heatspreader design does cost more. But when you start looking at similar kits, even with the same CAS timings this kit is on the high end. Up above the normally overpriced RGB kits as well. It was actually priced right with the 4000 MHz kits running with a 17 CAS Latency, not changing anything else a slight tightening of the timings would help better place this kit as far as pricing goes. Other than the pricing though this is a solid kit. Because this is new and pricing does change over time, I would keep an eye on it. This could still be a great pickup, especially for someone looking to be able to overclock and get even more performance. All of the 2x8GB kits that are running in the 4500/4600MHz range are a lot more expensive (some 2 or 3 times as much) so there is some potential to see a lot of extra value assuming other kits overclock as well as our sample did.
Live Pricing: HERE
