A-Data And Crucial
A-Data DDR3-1333 CAS 9
A-Data has consistently supplied Tom’s Hardware's lab with quality RAM for as long as most of us can remember, striking a balance between performance and price that has often let the firm’s products slip “under the radar” compared to cheaper or faster parts. Yet, today’s retail kit represents the brand’s cheapest parts, and we’re anxious to find out if these offer similar quality to the mid-priced parts we often receive.
Read Customer Reviews of A-Data's 4GB DDR3-1333 CAS 9 Kit
Available online as part number HY63I1B16K, these DDR3-1333 CAS 9 modules are so low-key they aren’t even found on the manufacturer’s Web site. Yet the fact that these modules are rated at the DDR3 standard 1.50V gives us hope that a little extra voltage might allow the kit to reach far beyond its rated settings.
Heat spreaders usually aren’t needed at the A-Data kit’s rated voltage, but once again, we’re hoping that these might give us a little more overclocking capability after custom-voltage levels are applied.
Crucial DDR3-1333 CAS 9
Tom’s Hardware has a long history with Crucial’s CT25664BA1339 modules--after the triple-channel kit containing three of the same parts won our previous value comparison, we went on to place two of today’s dual-channel kits in our $2,500 System Builder Marathon machine. Low-cost RAM that’s good enough to qualify for a high-end build? You bet!
Read Customer Reviews of Crucial's 2GB DDR3-1333 CAS 9 Kit
Many readers will likely be even more shocked that the winning modules from our previous roundup don’t even have heat spreaders. But we’ve found that such accessories are often a hindrance to low-cost parts. Cheap heat spreaders are typically applied with double-sided tape of questionable thermal performance, and Crucial makes no attempt at pretentiousness here.
Though CPU-Z doesn’t report the rated DDR3-1333 (667 MHz) and 9-9-9-24 timings of this part number CT2KIT25664BA1339 dual-channel set, the motherboard on our test bed set the modules correctly.
