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Kingston HyperX Ultra Low Latency PC3200 |
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Written by Mikhail Ivanenkov
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Wednesday, 20 June 2007 |
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Page 1 of 3
Thanks to Kingston for the product sample.
PC3200 (DDR400) is the last official JEDEC-ratified DDR1 speed. However, since its inception enthusiast-oriented memory from large and small manufacturers alike has been surfacing left and right. The first wave was the MHz race; we quickly saw the emergence of PC3500, PC3700, PC4000, and so on, but eventually the current ICs hit a performance wall and the focus shifted to lowering timings. Recently all of the tier 1 companies have created "ultra low latency" PC3200 modules and Kingston is no exception.
We received a pair of 1GB Ultra Low Latency PC3200 HyperX memory kits. For those wondering, the model number of this particular kit is KHX3200ULK2/1G. Each kit comes with a pair of 64M x 64-bit modules. Components on each module include sixteen 32M x 8-bit (8M x 8-bit x 4 Bank) in TSOP packages. Kingston rates this memory at 2.6V (or 2.7V depending on where you look for that information), though we found 2.5V to work just fine at stock settings. Aside from the sticks each package also contains a foldout installation guide and lifetime warranty information.
The sticks bear the typical blue HyperX heat spreaders. These are held in place via a pair of steel retention clips. Between each spreader and the corresponding modules is a strip of 3M thermal tape. Ultra Low Latency means one thing across the board: the (practically) tightest possible timings of 2-2-2-5 at DDR400 speeds (200MHz). In most cases tighter timings are more beneficial than a slight MHz bump and it's nice to see high performance memory that doesn't require tweaking on the user's behalf.
Removing one of the heat spreaders reveals the bread and butter of low latency memory: Samsung TCCD chips. These bundles of overclocking joy are rated up to 250MHz (albeit at more relaxed timings) and can top out well past that point. An important thing to note is that memory "overclockability" in general (much like processors) is more or less hit-or-miss. Samsung's TCCD chips may be rated for 250MHz and the majority of people who own RAM utilizing these modules can get similar results, but there's no guarantee other than the specified rating. In other words, it's entirely possible (though highly unlikely) that you could end up with a PC3200 HyperX stick that only runs at PC3200.
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 20 June 2007 )
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