Does the Kingston “Beast” 2133MHz DDR3 live up to its name?

Unboxing

The Kingston Beast 16GB HyperX kit comes in packaging usually reserved for 4 DIMMs.

We open the package and remove the front plastic cover.

Kingston has made their RAM to look aggressive and very good in any case.  Black with red and white accents always look good.  Unfortunately, our Noctua NH-DH14 mega cooler’s fan hides the RAM from view and the fan must be removed to install or remove the RAM.  The fan barely clears the RAM as it has a pretty high profile and may not fit under all large coolers.

It looks even better out of the packaging.

The Kingston warranty is “lifetime” and their RMA service if you need it is fast and efficient.  You can call and talk to a Kingston representative for technical support.  The installation guide is easy to follow as installing system RAM is uncomplicated.

 Always discharge static electricity, turn off your PC and make sure the notches on the RAM line up with the slots.  Done.  It’s time to turn on our PC and run some benches.  Here is the HyperX 16GB Beast RAM compared with the 8GB HyperX Blue.  Make sure you have room for the Beast in your case!

Specifications

The Kingston Kit is officially named, KHX21C11T3K2/16X which is 16GB DDR3-2133 CL11 240-Pin DIMM Kit (8GB 1G x 64-Bit x 2 pcs.)

The specifications are quite impressive.

Here are the features:

Finally, here is Kingston’s own description and XMP timings.

Before we compare some differences we noted by upgrading our RAM from 8GB of fast RAM to 16GB of even faster RAM, let’s check out our test bed.