Kingston HyperX 3x 2GB DDR-2250 short test

[G.Foyle]

Hello, faithful readers! Don't worry, we're not dead, just busy half of the time and grabbing some summer sun during the other half
I just had an opportunity to test a Kingston triple channel DDR-2250 memory kit and I decided to put together a short review. I didn't feel like putting a only a teaser here, but if you'd like to give us some clicks you can also read the same on teampclab.pl.

Rated frequency is very high for a triple channel kit, the kit is clearly targeted at Gulftowns since 45nm Core i7 won't consistently reach that frequency, and certainly not on air.
Kit comes in a big box containing three modules, HyperX fan and some boring leaflets:

(click pics to enlarge)
Fan looks exactly like on older HyperX kits; heatspreaders are also unchanged, but they are attached very firmly and make contact with all chips (as opposed to flimsy heatspreaders on first revision of Elpida Hyper Kingstons):

Here's the label for all you detail lovers:

Crowd favourite, a chip shot:

And everything mounted on my test platform:

SPD has two XMP profiles programmed: one for DDR-2000 at 1,7 V uncore voltage, another for DDR-2250 at 1,35 V uncore. It's clear that the rated speed is only achievable with Gulftowns, but it's nice to see Kingston include a backup profile for Bloomfields as well. More details about XMP profiles can be seen here.

Testing platform:
Core i7-980X Q4EG "press ES"
ASUS Rampage III Extreme (thanks ASUS!)
HIS Radeon HD5770
Enermax Revolution 85+ 850W

First I tried max clock at stock timings and stock voltage:
DDR-2404 9-11-9-27 1,65 V


Next up was CL9 testing on increased voltage. I reached the same frequency for 9-11-9 and 8-11-8 timings, which means I'm either at an IMC or tRCD limit:
DDR-2416 8-11-8-27 1,72 V


Next I tried to lower the primary timings to 7-9-7:
DDR-2022 7-9-7-24 1,65 V


I was a bit surprised because that's where the fun ended - the kit wouldn't run 6-8-6 above 1800 MHz, and I didn't bother testing lower, as there's already a lot of memory that will run any imaginable timings under DDR-1800. Also it doesn't scale with voltage almost at all - i was able to reproduce that DDR-2416 8-11-8 result at stock voltage.
Overall this kit is a very nice product - it certainly makes a good impression: very high stock frequency, effective cooling solution well programmed SPD. But for extreme overclocking, where low timings matter as much as high frequency, there are better kits, even Powerchip IC based. Stay tuned for another Kingston OC memory test in a few weeks

[Mafio]

great memory, 2400 cas8 32M stable isn't bad for a non hyper kit

wich ICs?
Elpida BDBG?

[G.Foyle]

Yes, BDBG - added IC picture to orginal post.

[jabski]

nice review, thanks for the info

[Johnny87au]

wow cas8 @ 2400, one of the best ive seen so far.. These bbse's im guessing? not hypers?

[websmile]

Thanks for the info- should be be good 24/7 ram, but in terms of benching the BDGB are not what i´m dreaming of

[wiener007]

Nice test, it would be interesting to see how they run DDR-2022 7-9-7-24 1,65 V with 4Ghz uncore and how much VTT is needed.

[ViViD]

Nice Work Keep Pushing For Better

[Hondacity]

oh nice +2 = not psc ...but bdgb

thanks for info

[AceBaran]

What is Psc and bdgb ?

[Aerou]

What is Psc and bdgb ?

Memory chips
PSC = Powerchips brand, memory chip maker, so you can see someone saying their DDR2 memory also has PSC, but different chips

BDBG specific ELPIDA memory chip, ELPIDA also made BASE aka Hyper, BBSE, ...

Knowing the characteristics of these chips, you can predict achievable performance +/-5% on a memory kit by the ICs used, or vice versa, testing how a kit performs, you can have a good guess what ICs are used without stripping the cooler off

[AceBaran]

Tnx Aerou for explaining

[Calathea]

Interesting review, especially since I've recently bought a used 3x1 HyperX T1 kit. On MIIIE + i7 860 I've been able to reach 2000 cas 6, but judging from tras and trcd, they also seem to be elpida bdbg. They scale to about 1.70, 2000 cas 6 were run with 1.69 real voltage. I thought they were PSC until now It's a 2000 9-10-9-27 kit btw.

[AceBaran]

Can someone point me to a good ram overclocking and timing guide pls

[Mafio]

a bit OT...BTW here is a good timings explication guide http://www.tweakers.fr/timings.html

[AceBaran]

a bit OT...BTW here is a good timings explication guide http://www.tweakers.fr/timings.html

Super

Tnx

[larrys2006]

Could you post your bios settings that you were using that gave the best results?

[spoolindsm127]

Great review and outstanding results G.Foyle!

Did you do any memory benchmarks to compare latencies? It'd be interesting to know how Everest memory benchmarks compare between 2000 7-9-7-24, 2200 8-10-8-27, and 2400 8-11-8-27. Nonetheless excellent review, thorough and informative.

[AceBaran]

Does this look right ?

[Mafio]

2000 cas6 always looks good, especially for BDBG
what i don't like is the sky high tRCD, but with these ICs no way to set it below 9 at 2000 MHZ

p.s. try lowering tRFC to 80, write to read (same rank) to 15, tRRD 4 and tRTP 5

[AceBaran]

Mafio tnx for the tips.. thats what i need.

Learning

[Booj]

Indeed 6-9-6 seems to be a nice sweet spot for this kit.

1.65v


1.7v


There is a dropped channel here, backing off a bit brought it back. Probably hitting the limit of air cooled IMC.