Kingston HyperX Savage (32GB) DDR3 Memory Review

TECHNOLOGY X TEST BENCH AND PROTOCOL

At Technology X, we test our RAM slightly different depending upon the product’s marketed purpose, whether it be an entry-level budget kit or a high-end enthusiast level kit.  Our goal is to test in a system that has been optimized with our SSD Optimization Guide, however, CPU C State alteration may or may not have occurred depending on the motherboard and BIOS configurations. Additionally, we also try to include links to the benchmarks used in our report so that you as the reader can replicate our tests to confirm that your system performs the way it should

TEST BENCH

All of the components we use for testing are standard off-the-shelf PC components from major manufacturers, which can be purchased at a variety local retailers and online. We’ll also provide links to our components for those of you that find an interest in our equipment.

BENCHMARK SOFTWARE

To test our RAM we’ll use a variety of benchmarking tools and productivity applications including AIDA64, Cinebench R15, WinRAR and Photoshop CC. We’ll also do some gaming tests using FRAPS to measure FPS performance.

OVERCLOCKING AND LATENCY TUNING

To test our RAM, we’ll be doing some overclocking and latency tuning to see what the best settings we can run the RAM at outside of its guaranteed rating of 2133MHz memory speed and 11-12-12-36 timings. However, before we start tuning, we’ll run a memory benchmark using AIDA64 to get a performance baseline.

Now that we know what our RAM performs at with the rated specifications we’ll get to work. After some tweaking, we were able to get some fairly decent results, however it is worth noting we were unable to successfully get our timings down below CL11. Also, in order to get it to post at all with a speed of 2400MHz and timings above the stock at CL12, we had to increase our memory voltage from 1.60v to 1.68v. That being said, it is a 32GB Kit and these are usually harder to overclock. So here is the configurations we will be testing at: