Bling, Bling: Crucial lights up its memory

Meridian (ID) - Matching the Christmas decoration in of your house, performance memory manufacturer Crucial added holiday lighting to its memory. The Ballistic Tracer model line displays "activity-indicating" LEDs and "blue ground effects LEDs".

Crucial said that the "introduction of the Ballistix Tracer memory series takes Crucial's high-performance memory to a whole different level". The modules offered not only " the best possible stability and performance, but also the revolutionary visual effects," according to John Stroozas, Crucial's Director of Engineering.

The Ballistix Tracer memory features two rows of eight "chasing" red and green LEDs atop the module, circulating at varying speeds proportional to usage. A custom-designed circuit relays bus activity to the LEDs, allowing them to accurately reflect usage of each memory module by the rate of change of the LED indicators, the company said. In addition, eight blue ground effects LEDs emit a constant glow near the pins.

Real world use of LEDs integrated in the memory may be limited, since even enthusiast gamers may not always have their eyes fixed on their memory. However, we admit that Crucial's PR department is absolutely right that "it just doesn't get more "bling" than this".

The memory is priced from $103 for a 256 MByte DDR2-4200 module and offers several other versions up to a 1 GByte DDR2-5300, which can be ordered for $385.