Kingston HyperX DDR3 CL9 2000mhz 3GB Triple channel kit
Test Setup & Overclocking
Published: 16th February 2009 | Source: Kingston Technology | Price: £214.99 |
For todays testing we will be using the Asus P6T Deluxe, a mid range i7 motherboard from Asus that we hope to use for all of our memory testing.
Here's a breakdown of the rest of the components:
Processor
Intel Core i7 920 'Nehalem' @ 2.66Ghz
Motherboard
Asus P6T Deluxe
Memory
Kingston Technology HyperX DDR3 CL9 2000MHz 9-9-9-27 3x1GB Kit
Corsair CL8 1600MHz 8-8-8-24 3x2GB kit
Graphics Card
Nvidia 280GTX
Drivers
GeForce 180.60
PSU
Gigabyte Odin 1200w
Operating System
Windows Vista Ultimate 64bit SP1 + Updates
Intel Core i7 920 'Nehalem' @ 2.66Ghz
Motherboard
Asus P6T Deluxe
Memory
Kingston Technology HyperX DDR3 CL9 2000MHz 9-9-9-27 3x1GB Kit
Corsair CL8 1600MHz 8-8-8-24 3x2GB kit
Graphics Card
Nvidia 280GTX
Drivers
GeForce 180.60
PSU
Gigabyte Odin 1200w
Operating System
Windows Vista Ultimate 64bit SP1 + Updates
For testing the memory we used a number of synthetic benchmarks and games:
Synthetic Benchmarks
- Lavalys Everest 4.10
- SuperPI mod_1.5
- Sisoft Sandra 2009
3D Benchmarks
- 3DMark Vantage
- Far Cry 2
For the run of benchmarks, we will be comparing the 2000MHz HyperX kit to the 1600MHz 6GB Corsair Dominator kit which costs around the same price to see if there is any real benefit in sacrificing timings and size for bandwidth.
Overclocking
Starting from scratch we disabled on the settings that may affect the overclocked settings such as Intel Speed Step as well as disabling the C-State settings which may also affect some of the results in the benchmark testing phase of the review. Here's how the sticks look at stock speed:
Now we see the missing tRAS setting. At its rated speed its JEDEC setting is 27 but as we see above we did manage to lower this ever so slightly to 24 which is a little more respectable.
Overclocking the ram was a painstaking affair. No matter what settings I used I couldn't obtain any more performance from the kit. On the surface this was disappointing but when you consider that Kingston have achieved the 'golden' 2000MHz setting with just 1.65v it's not at all bad. The kit was clearly already at it's limit so I wasn't going to force the issue to much even though I did nudge the voltage up to 1.7v as well as lowering the settings to no avail.
Overclocking the ram was a painstaking affair. No matter what settings I used I couldn't obtain any more performance from the kit. On the surface this was disappointing but when you consider that Kingston have achieved the 'golden' 2000MHz setting with just 1.65v it's not at all bad. The kit was clearly already at it's limit so I wasn't going to force the issue to much even though I did nudge the voltage up to 1.7v as well as lowering the settings to no avail.
Let's see how the memory performs with our suite of memory benchmarks...
Most Recent Comments
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Also nice review, but preferred to see a 6GB at 1800, 3GB doesn't cut it, especially at those pricesQuote
Also nice review, but preferred to see a 6GB at 1800, 3GB doesn't cut it, especially at those pricesQuote
i really love the Red heat spreaders on my G Skill i think they are tastefully done but they still look good but good point on changing color on the PCB... anyways that price is likely more then we mid-rangers can afford... but for performance good show...Quote
Holy heck. That RAM flies. Didn't think that such a small (relative) difference between the two kits could have such a big effect in the graphs.
It's a steep price to pay, but i7 isn't a cheap thing to adopt anyway and if we pay 300 notes for our graphics, then why not speed up the whole system for less?Quote
It's a steep price to pay, but i7 isn't a cheap thing to adopt anyway and if we pay 300 notes for our graphics, then why not speed up the whole system for less?Quote
Quote:
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Originally Posted by name='VonBlade'
Holy heck. That RAM flies. Didn't think that such a small (relative) difference between the two kits could have such a big effect in the graphs.
It's a steep price to pay, but i7 isn't a cheap thing to adopt anyway and if we pay 300 notes for our graphics, then why not speed up the whole system for less? |
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But the price....Quote