Testing Method & Test Setup

Rated speed a very isolated, boring and non-enthusiast-ish way of using the memory. To show the picture in full, we are going to perform a series of overclocking tests using our Ivy-Bridge based testing platform.

Motherboard	ASUS Maximus V Gene (BIOS 0086)
CPU	Intel Core i7-3770K
Graphic card	XFX 8600 GT
Memory	Kingston HyperX H2O KHX2133C11D3W1K2/8GX
HDD	Samsung 40 GB
PSU	Silverstone OP1000
OS	Windows 7, 64 bit SP1

Based on our previous experience with Hynix CFR, we will use five timing settings with an optimum formula CAS+2=tRCD=tRP+1, each tested for maximum stable frequency at five voltage settings from 1.35 to 1.75V. In every one of 25 scenarios, stability will be verified with a 150% coverage of eight 750MB HCI Memtest instances. In case of an error-free pass, we raise the memory frequency by 10MHz and perform the stability test all over again.


Our H2O was not the first recent Kingston’s memory, SPD of which is incapable of setting subtimings to stable values outside of prescribed profiles. In such case, we advise users to base their settings on ones we show on the screenshot above.

Results

As can be seen from the diagram, our sample has demonstrated optimistic and very predictable timing and voltage scaling throughout all of the testing range. Given a slight raise of voltage, operation at rated frequency is possible with timings of 9-11-10-27. This is a healthy improvement over the specification, speaking of which, we were able to clear it at 1.4V with room to spare. Sticking to CL11 made things stable all the way to 1260MHz; a very impressive result for a DDR3-2133 kit with modern tight binning standards.
Looking back at all the other results we had with Hynix CFR based memory these H2O are somewhere near the average zone; we had kits that performed better, but also we had stuff that was much worse, including its bigger DDR3-2400 brother. Of course, it’s mostly down to luck but it’s funny how Kingston allow their more expensive models fail their specifications while putting the capable ICs on lower rated modules.

Page 1 - Introduction	Page 4 - Results
Page 2 - Closer Look	Page 5 - Conclusion
Page 3 - Photo Gallery

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