With DDR3 memory's increasing momentum about to get a big push from the forthcoming Intel i7 processor, Kingston's 1800MHz kit is good value for the performance it delivers.
With the new core i7 from Intel just around the corner, DDR3 is about to get another push. The release of Intel’s new processor should expand DDR3 awareness as well as lead to drops in price and increase availability and options.
A long-time player in the memory game, Kingston developed the HyperX series a few years back. It was aimed at users who wanted the best of the best . While the series has been a bit quiet lately, the better yields of chips now available for DDR3 means that we’re beginning to see the name come back onto the market.
The Kingston package manages to tell us some of the more important information we really need to know about the memory. The particular kit we looked at is a 2GB, PC3-14400 one. This equates to 1800MHz DDR, which Kingston has neglected to mention on the front of the box. Also not mentioned are the timings, which are 8-8-8-24 at 1.9V, pretty standard for modules of these speeds.
What’s interesting though, is that this particular set, which has the part number “2GN” versus the standard “2G”, is NVIDIA SLI Certified. What this means is that the kit will achieve the rated speeds on the 790i SLI-enabled chipset. If you’re looking for memory for your X48 motherboard though, don’t be deterred by this. Slotting the memory modules into our X48 test bed, and adjusting the timings to the correct numbers, allowed us to proceed with an overclock of our processor to a level that would let us run the memory at 1800MHz.
As for going higher than the rated speed, we could only achieve a few more MHz by increasing the voltage above stock. With no guarantee that the kit you purchase could achieve higher than the rated speed, if you find yourself really wanting memory that goes faster it’s probably worth looking at kits in the PC3-16000 range which are rated at 2000MHz DDR.
Fortunately, it was all good news with the modules firing up and getting into Windows without any problems. We then proceeded to test the modules in a number of applications that mainly stress out the CPU and RAM, which let us know that the memory is not only capable of getting into Windows at the rated speed, but is also stable under an intensive environment.
While a 2GB kit would tend to be frowned on because it doesn’t seem like enough for the user who is venturing into DDR3 territory, with the new Intel chipset supporting triple-channel memory, adding just one more module of the same memory will not only increase overall speed but make Windows Vista that little bit faster, without having to upgrade to a 64-bit version so that all the memory can be addressed.
While the HyperX kit we have in hand today doesn’t offer anything that makes it stand out when compared to other kits in its class, it does perform exactly as it should. The $299 price tag is reasonable when compared to other 1800MHz DDR kits, but it’s still very expensive when compared to entry level 1333MHz DDR3 kits. With some companies now also offering kits capable of speeds in excess of 2000MHz (though they are more expensive) 1800MHz does feel a bit “last month”. Having said that, if you find yourself only pushing your CPU to speeds into the 450MHz FSB mark, the money saved with a PC3-14400 kit will certainly be welcome.