ocaholic - Memory > DDR3 > Kingston HyperX Predator 2x4GB DDR3-2800 CL12 1.65V Review

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Closer Look

Traditionally for Kingston, memory is packed in a black plastic container and is not supplied with any additional accessories.

Even though blue has recently been out of fashion amongst motherboard and case makers, one can't really penalise Kingston for using the heatsink color scheme that has been their trademark for over a decade.
However, the standard green PCB color does deserve a little bash. Not only is it even harder to find a match for than blue, but it is also a sign of unfulfilled promise by Kingston to switch to black PCB for high-end products soon after summer 2013.

Plain design, relatively small surface area and black plastic covers might suggest that the heatspreaders on the Predator are rather useless, but thanks to their mass they were easily capable of cooling the modules even at high voltages with little surrounding airflow.

The heatsinks are held on the modules via a layer of thermal adhesive tape and are not too difficult to detach. Underneath, we find that only one side of each module is populated with Hynix chips of 4Gbit density commonly referred to as MFR, while the other side of the modules is blank.

The SPD module of our kit provides some basic information about the maker, model and the manufacturing date of the modules. It also features JEDEC profiles up to DDR3-1600 for out-of-the-box compatibility as well as a couple of XMP profiles that will get the memory to the rated speeds at a change of just one BIOS option.
What we found interesting, is that the second XMP profile features a tighter set of timings at DDR3-2666, which is the exact specification of Kingston’s previous flagship. Detailed settings of profiles can be seen below.

Page 2 - Closer Look

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Photo Gallery

Page 3 - Photo Gallery

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Testing Method & Test Setup

To test the overclocking capabilities of the our kit, we are going to use an overclocked Intel Haswell platform due to its fast memory controller, which allows for all testing to be done within a reasonable period of time.

Motherboard	ASUS Maximus VI Impact (BIOS 0217)
CPU	Intel Core i7-4770K @ 4.5 GHz
Graphic card	ASUS GTX 580
Memory	Kingston HyperX Predator KHX28C12T2K2/8X
SSD	Samsung PM840 Pro
PSU	Seasonic Platinum 660 Watts
OS	Windows 7, 64 bit SP1

Even though Haswell is very flexible on the memory frequency one can set, very few people actually do base clock (BCLK) overclocking on their daily setups. Therefore, we fix the BCLK frequency at default 100MHz, only adjust the memory multipliers and then minimise the voltage for each given setting.
As usual, our stability method of choice is HCI Memtest. Since we are dealing with an 8 GB kit, we use eight 750 MB instances and call things stable if we see all of them to go past 150% without showing a single error.
Not to get things too complicated, we only set the primary timings, command rate (1T) and the memory voltage by hand while the rest of the settings are left for the motherboard and SPD to agree on.

Results

Traditionally, our aim is to see how memory reacts to voltage and timing adjustments and in case with Hynix MFR we have an almost linear dependence between stable frequency and voltage using a constant CAS latency. What comes to second and third entries in the primary timings list, tRCD and tRP, the main factor for lowest stable values for those is frequency, with voltage playing a role only in borderline areas. Lastly, the tRAS value we use in each part of the testing is a sensible value induced by an educated guess.
A good indicator of quality on Hynix is voltage required for stability at DDR3-2800 at CL11, which good sets can do below 1.70V and superb ones under 1.65V. In case with our HyperX, we have a lowest stable value of 1.73V, which isn’t exactly bad, but our expectations were set a tad higher given the status of this kit.
In other news, the memory can also reach DDR3-2200 with 9-11-11 or DDR3-2400 with 10-12-12 at reasonable voltages, but if this is the range of frequencies you are interested in, there are kits that will do these specs at a fraction of the price.
Another thing not in Predator’s favor is the voltage tightness of the second XMP, which was showing occasional errors already at 0.01V below the desired voltage value. A pass is still a pass, but in long-term, this might cause Kingston one or two additional RMA cases.

Page 4 - Results

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Conclusion

Using geizhals to conduct the price research, we see that sets of KHX28C12T2K2/8X currently retail starting from 201 Euros excluding shipping across the EU. This might seem like a bargain next to four-figure pricetags of competitor’s flagships, but there are multiple reasons why we wouldn’t recommend spending money on this particular model of HyperX.
Firstly, 8 GB kits based on Hynix MFR chips with same-or-better spec and overclockability can currently be had for less than half of Kingston’s price, take Team Group’s DDR3-2666 CL11 set for 80 Euros as an example.
Secondly, single-sided modules like the ones in question are known to have a slight performance cripple compared to dual-sided configurations, which makes the bragging rights the only feasible reason for their purchase. Now that the “raw frequency” bubble had burst, Kingston might find themselves a bit late to the party and have a hard time selling their DDR3-2800 kits, unless a similar 2x8 GB model gets released any time soon.
But not all things are looking grim. If we ignore the pricing, we still get a well-made, reasonably fast and flexible set of memory, which is not a bad thing given how little effort Kingston have recently put into the high-end segment.

Award

Overall, we rate the 2x4 GB set of Kingston HyperX Predator DDR3-2800 at 3 stars out of possible 5.