Review: Kingston HyperX Predator DDR3-1,866 memory

by Tarinder Sandhu on 13 November 2012, 10:00 3.0

Tags: Kingston

Quick Link: HEXUS.net/qabo2f

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How we test, plus overclocking

Comparison Memory

 
Kingston Predator HyperX 1866
Corsair XMS-1333
Corsair Vengeance 1600
G.Skill Ripjaws 2133
Patriot Viper 3 2133
Model
KHX18C9T2K2/16X
CMX8GX3M2A1333C9
CMZ8GX3M2A1600C9B
F3-17000CL11D-8GBXL
PVI38G213C1K
Capacity
16GB (2x8GB)
8GB (2x4GB)
8GB (2x8GB)
8GB (2x4GB)
8GB (2x4GB)
Speed
1,866MHz
1,333MHz
1,600MHz
2,133MHz
2,133MHz
Timings
9-10-9-27-2T
9-9-9-24-2T
9-9-9-24-2T
11-11-11-30-2T
11-12-12-30-2T
Voltage
1.50V
1.50V
1.50V
1.50V
1.50V
Price*
£110
£30
£30
£40
£45
Cost per GB*
£6.87
£3.75
£3.75
£5
£5.63
*Approximate, correct at time of writing

Test bench

CPU AMD A10-5800K APU
Motherboard Gigabyte F2-A85X-UP4 (F3G)
Storage device Samsung 830 Series 256GB SSD
Graphics card AMD HD 7660D integrated
Power supply Corsair AX750
Operating system Windows 7 Ultimate SP1, 64-bit

Benchmarks

AIDA64 (download)
HEXUS.PiFast (download)
3DMark 11 v1.0.3.0 (homepage)
3DMark Vantage v1.2.0 (homepage)
Batman: Arkham City (homepage)
DiRT Showdown (homepage)

Notes

We're testing the modules on an AMD FM2 platform. The A10-5800K APU just loves faster memory, for its HD 7660D IGP's performance scales by up to 25 per cent in Batman: Arkham City when run with DDR3-2,133 memory instead of DDR3-1,600.

Overclocking

We run the overclocking test by inputting standard 9-9-9-24-2T timings and seeing just how well the test modules can scale. Voltage was increased from the default 1.50V to 1.60V. Perhaps more of a limitation of the test setup than ceiling of the modules themselves, our set managed to clock up to 2,000MHz at these settings - the same as two other previously-tested sets of 1,866MHz-rated RAM.

Going the other way and loosening-off timings to 11-13-13-35-2T resulted in a top speed of around 2,300MHz - we had to increase the APU's base clock once the modules were set to 2,133MHz speeds.

So where does this put Kingston in the grand scheme of DDR3 modules? The reported figures are a little shy of those produced by both the Patriot and G.Skill DDR3-2,133 packs but higher than obtained by the Corsair DDR3-1,600 Vengeance duo. Kind of makes sense, right?

Chip manufacturer Hynix appears to have a sweetspot of between 1,866MHz and 2,400MHz for this grade of memory.