Kingston HyperX KHX3500/512

By Eric Vaughan

June 19, 2003

Like many of you I couldn't pass up the deal that BestBuy had going on this memory last weekend (deal is good till Saturday). $100 was just to good to pass up for a 512MB stick of "performance" memory. This is going to be short and sweet folks.

I'm going to line up what other memory I've got here to give you something to compare it to. They are: Crucial PC2700 512MB, and Corsair XMS3000 512MB. Kingston advertises the KHX3500 is able to do 434MHz at timings of 2-3-3-7.

For testing I took the HyperX as far as I could take it and then used the same timings on the other ram. I used Prime95 to test stability, in addition I played a little UT2003 with the HyperX to verify the final settings were indeed stable (that's what were all interested in doing while OC'd...right?!)

While I was able to boot at the advertised settings of 434/2-3-3-7 the system wasn't stable. Playing around with the settings I was finally to get stable at the final settings. It should be no surprise that the Corsair XMS3000 was able to hang tough even though it isn't "rated" as high as the HyperX. It also was no surprise that the Crucial PC2700 wasn't able to overclock well. At the speeds my system was designed for (333MHz) I was able to set the HyperX and the Corsair at 2-2-2-5. The Crucial wouldn't boot at that setting.

All-in-all the HyperX performed well although not up to the advertised specs. That may be due to the system itself and a higher end system might be able to squeak a little more from it. At the price point I bought it at I have no problem recommending the HyperX. It is cheaper than most other high performance ram and also comes with a lifetime warrenty.