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

A few months ago, we received a 16GB kit of Kingston “Beast” 2133MHz DDR3 HyperX memory (KHX21C11T3K2/16X), and we feel we can give our impressions and especially gaming benchmarks of its performance compared with 8GB of Kington 1866MHz DDR3 HyperX Blue.

For nearly two years, we have been running 8GB of Kingston Blue HyperX memory at speeds of 1866MHz on a Z77 EVGA FTW motherboard which is higher than the default 1333MHz that Intel has specified for the Ivy Bridge platform.

Our upgrade from 8GB to 16GB is a somewhat expensive upgrade as the Kingston HyperX Beast 16GB kit that we are evaluating today is $155 at Newegg whereas the 8GB (4x2GB) kit of Kingston HyperX Blue (KHX1866C9D3K2/4GX) costs much less at $46.99.  However, 16GB kits do demand a premium over the 8GB kits as a corresponding 16GB kit of 1866MHz HyperX Blue costs about the same as the faster 16GB 2133MHz Beast HyperX RAM.

More system memory is great for many things, but we have already shown that a gamer needs no more than 4GB of RAM for 32-bit PC gaming.  We also found that 1866MHz is only slightly faster than 1333MHz in gaming and performance increases are game engine dependent.  The one very positive thing we found is that higher-rated and high-quality RAM is very useful and sometimes essential for stable high CPU overclocks.

4GB versus 8GB system RAM in Gaming

Although the following charts are slightly dated, we see that even with a relatively large sampling of games, that there is no difference in frame rates (fps) between using 4GB or 8GB system RAM for 32-bit gaming.  There will also be no framerate difference between 4GB, 8GB, 16GB, or more, for 32-bit gaming.

Although the amount of system RAM over 4GB makes no practical difference to the framerates, there are subjective observations made which assert that using greater amounts of RAM makes an improvement to the overall gaming experience.  And of course with a lot of system memory, it is even possible to create a RAM drive which will load levels as fast as the game engine will allow.  There are many reasons to upgrade your PC’s RAM from 4GB to 8GB, or to 16GB or more, but PC gaming is not one of them.

What about now?  And especially, what does faster RAM have to do with performance?

Effect of RAM overclocking on gaming performance

We have compared RAM overclocking once before using our entire game suite of the day with Core i7-920 at 4.2GHz and also with Core i7-3770K at 4.8GHz by using a GTX 690 – the only differences being the speeds of the 4GB of DDR3.

In many cases, there is a performance increase just from clocking the system memory higher which appears to be dependent on the individual game engine. So what we are going to do now, is to find out if even higher clocked memory at 2133MHz makes any practical difference to a gamer over using system RAM clocked at 1600MHz or even at 1333MHz.

Most Ivy Bridge motherboards clock their RAM at default 1333MHz and the end user actually has to enter the BIOS to increase the frequency.  Recently, XMP profiles have become popular and it has become very easy to set optimal RAM speeds automatically.

Kingston’s Beast HyperX RAM has two separate XMP profiles that can be set in the BIOS besides the default 1333MHz. The first XMP profile automatically sets it to run at 2133MHz with CL11 timings at 1.6V. The second XMP profile runs at 1600MHz with CL9 timings at 1.5v.

To their credit, EVGA regularly updates their BIOSes for their FTW Z77 motherboard.  Although an older beta BIOS that we prefer for performance did not have an XMP profile for the Kingston Beast RAM, a recent EVGA FTW BIOS update took care of that issue.

Before we look at system memory speeds and gaming performance, please head to the next page where we will unbox the Kingston 16GB HyperX Beast 2133MHz RAM.  Afterward, we will give our impressions of the differences noted with faster RAM – 16GB HyperX “Beast” at 2133MHz versus 8GB HyperX “Blue” at 1866MHz.  After that, we will detail the system specs, offer the gaming charts, and finally reach a conclusion.

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.

Test Configuration

Hardware

• Intel Core i7 3770K (overclocked to 4.5GHz); Turbo is on.
• EVGA Z77 FTW motherboard (Intel Z77 chipset, latest beta BIOS, PCIe 3.0 specification; CrossFire/SLI 16x+16x using Plex chip.)
• 16GB Kingston DDR3 2133MHz Kingston HyperX “Beast” RAM (8×2 GB, dual-channel at 2133MHz; supplied by Kingston)
• 8GB Kingston DDR3 1866MHz Kingston HyperX “Beast” RAM (4×2 GB, dual-channel at 1866MHz; supplied by Kingston)
• Noctua NH-DH14 CPU cooler and 7 case fans, supplied by Noctua
• Nvidia GTX Titan (6GB, 836/6008MHz, reference clocks), supplied by Nvidia
• Onboard Realtek Audio
• Genius SP-HF 800A speakers, two pairs in 4.0 Quadraphonic configuration, supplied by Genius
• O 500 GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 hard drives configured and set up identically from drive image; one partition for Nvidia GeForce drivers and one for ATI Catalyst drivers
• Cooler Master Platinum Pro 1000W PSU, supplied by Cooler Master
• Thermaltake Overseer RX-I full tower case, supplied by Thermaltake
• Philips DVD SATA writer
• HP LP3065 2560×1600 thirty inch LCD.

Test Configuration – Software

• NVIDIA GeForce WHQL 314.22  High Quality; Single-display Performance mode; Prefer Maximum Performance
• Windows 7 64-bit; very latest updates
• Latest DirectX
• All games are patched to their latest versions.
• vsync is forced off in the control panels.
• All results show average frame rates
• Highest quality sound (stereo) used in all games.
• Windows 7 64, all DX9 titles were run under DX9 render paths, DX10 titles were run under DX10 render paths and DX11 titles under DX11 render paths.

The Benchmarks

• Synthetic
  • SiSoft Sandra 2013 Engineer Latest version – Memory Bandwidth
  • CPU-Z

• Synthetic Gaming
  • Vantage
  • 3DMark 11
  • 3D Mark 2013 Firestrike/Firestrike Extreme
  • Heaven 4.0
  • Valley 1.0

  DX9 Games

   

  • Serious Sam 3 BFE
  • Alan Wake: Ameican Nightmare
  • The Witcher 2
  • Borderlands 2
  • Left 4 Dead 2

  DX10 Games

   

  • Crysis
  • Far Cry 2
  • Just Cause 2

  DX11 Games

   

  • BattleForge
  • Alien vs. Predator
  • STALKER, Call of Pripyat
  • Metro 2033
  • Lost Planet 2
  • H.A.W.X. 2
  • Total War: Shogun II
  • Crysis 2
  • Dirt 3
  • Batman: Arkham City
  • F1 2012
  • Battlefield 3
  • Max Payne 3
  • Sleeping Dogs
  • Sniper Elite V2
  • Hitman: Absolution
  • Assassin’s Creed III
  • Crysis 3

 

The above is our test bench. Let’s check out the differences that we noted next.

Differences Noted with Faster RAM – 16GB HyperX “Beast” at 2133MHz versus 8GB HyperX “Blue” at 1866MHz

First of all, we did note that doubling the amount of RAM made no difference whatsoever to PC gaming.  We did not create a RAM disk as 16GB is somewhat small and Windows 7 Home Premium does not support more than that.  We did notice that multi-tasking became even easier – especially when FireFox suffered from a serious memory leak that would cripple a 4GB system.  The slightly faster RAM definitely was noticeable in the benchmarks and barely noticeable in day to day tasks with the exception of tasks that were memory intensive.

We didn’t find any differences with our older version of Photoshop 7 Elements although Office was slightly faster with the 16GB RAM versus the 8GB.  Multi-tasking was better with the higher capacity and faster RAM, but one would be hard pressed to actually notice the difference outside of the benchmark numbers.

Synthetic Memory Bandwidth benching – SiSoft’s Sandra 2013

Before we get to gaming and to the gaming charts let’s look at SiSoft’s Sandra 2013.  It is a synthetic benching suite that can accurately compare and measure memory bandwidth as an aggregate or even look specifically at Integer and Float Memory values.  Let’s first look at our Kingston Beast HyperX DDR3 using XMP Profile number 1 which is set at 2133MHz

2133MHz

Here is the BIOS shot of XMP Profile One which shows the timingLooking at the main BIOS, we can see the voltage at 2133MHz is correctly and automatically set by the XMP profile at 1.6V:

Here is Sandra’s bandwidth result with the RAM set at 2133MHz:

 

1600MHz

1600MHz is the default for XMP Profile number 2 which has tighter timings than Profile 1.   Here is the BIOS shot showing the timings:Notice that the voltage is down from 1.6V at 2133MHz to 1.5V at 1600MHz

Here is Sandra’s bandwidth result.  There is a pretty significant drop from DDR3 running at 2133MHz for 25.07GB/s down to 20.68GB/s at 1600MHz:

Let’s see what default settings in the BIOS at 1333MHz produce.

1333MHz

If you do nothing and never enter your BIOS to set the XMP profile, your memory speeds will be set to 1333MHz by default.

Here is the BIOS shot

Here is Sandra’s bandwidth result.  You can see that is has dropped further from 1600MHz at 20.68GB/s to 17.43GB/s at 1333MHz

Of course, this is synthetic.  Many applications do not need more than 1333MHz.  As gamers, we need to see how memory bandwidth affects gaming.

 

Gaming Charts

Here are the gaming charts

At 1333MHz, the HyperX Blue kept up with the 1333MHz Beast RAM.  In some cases, its slightly faster timings allowed it to marginally outperform it.  When we increased the RAM speed, we generally see a slight performance boost, depending on game.  However, there is not much difference overall between HyperX Blue at 1866MHz and the Kingston HyperX Beast at 2133MHz suggesting that our CPU at 4.5GHz has sufficient bandwidth at the lower speed.

Now we are going to take the ten benchmarks that benefited most by increasing the RAM speed and we will further overclock our Core i7 -3770K from 4.5GHz to 4.8GHz using our Beast RAM at 1333MHz default compared to running it at 2133MHz.

In all cases, the performance continues to scale with increasing CPU core speed with the faster RAM.  Probably it is obvious, but good to actually see it happening in game engines that respond to faster memory speeds.

We have been enjoying the benefits of a PC with 16GB of super-fast DDR3 and now almost take for granted the advantages that this fast HyperX Beast RAM gives us.  Let’s head over to our conclusion

 

Conclusion

It is clear to us that we no longer have to give a second thought to overclocking because the RAM is fast enough for just about any situation.  Where memory intensive programs are used, this RAM excels.  Although more than 4GB of system RAM is not needed for 32-bit PC gaming, many other programs certainly can use the faster RAM and for multi-tasking, 16GB is noticeably more useful than 8GB.

Kingston HyperX 16GB Beast 2133MHZ RAM

 

Pros

• The Kingston HyperX Beast RAM is good-looking RAM which accents white and red on black and will look good in any case.
• The two XMP profiles enable 1.5V for 1600MHz and tighter timings, or 1.6V and 2133MHz with complete stability.
• All modules are factory tested and come with a lifetime guarantee and Kingston’s great support.
• Higher stable RAM speeds make stable CPU overclocking easier and there are performance increases depending on game engine.  Larger amounts of RAM make multi-tasking more efficient and some programs faster.

Cons

• Performance improvement in a gaming PC is minimal and no more than 4GB of system RAM is actually required for 32-bit gaming.

 

We feel that Kingston has brought some very fast and very stable DDR3 that works very well in every situation and every test we put it through and it deserves ABT’s Editor’s Choice Award.

We were very impressed with the performance and the stability of Kingston’s HyperX Beast DDR3 PC2133 and it will be featured in our PC and in our benchmarking from now on.  The Kingston “Beast” HyperX RAM does live up to its name and exceeds expectations.

This editor is heading for E3 in Los Angeles tomorrow and you can expect a full report on ABT’s main page  We will also attend Nvidia’s press event which promises to be interesting.  Check ABT forum for the latest updates.

Happy Gaming!

Mark Poppin

ABT Senior Editor

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