Kingston HyperX Predator DDR3-2400 8GB Dual-Channel Memory Kit

It’s been a while since we’ve seen a refresh of Kingston’s RAM products. Sure they recently released color variation of their modules but the heatspreader design has remained in-tact. Well, given that their designs have proven effective, why change it? Still, Kingston has managed to do a bit of refreshing to their product line, souping up the HyperX T1 line with their new heatspreader design and that’s what we have for review today. For this review, we’ll look at the Kingston HyperX Predator memory modules which are now Kingston’s flagship memory product. Clad in an all-new heatspreader design, these modules still pack Kingston’s top of the line components. Let’s get this review started and let’s make this extremely showy!

Kingston is back on our test bench and it’s pretty much just last week that we’ve tested the HyperX T1 for Ivy Bridge that we’re now testing its modern form in the new HyperX Predator modules. As we’ve already mentioned, these modules are essentially the same modules as the T1’s we’ve looked at but we’re still interested if Kingston has done more than just slapped a new heatsink on their existing products. Let’s not waste any time and get on with the testing.

FEATURES

• Capacities 4GB–32GB (with 4GB, 8GB, 16GB and 32GB kits)
• Speeds up to 2666MHz
• 1.5V & 1.65 V operating voltages enable stable overclocking
• Intel XMP Ready; optimized performance settings handpicked and tested by Kingston engineers
• Dual Channel kit tailored for P55, H67, P67, Z68, H61 (AG), and Z77 Intel chipsets; as well as A75, A87, A88, A89, A78, and E35 (Fusion) AMD chipsets
• Exceptional clock and latency timing specifications to enhance overall system performance
• Heat sink design achieves effective maintenance of speed while prolonging the memory lifecycle
• 100% factory tested

CLOSER LOOK

Depending on how you viewed the HyperX T1, the new design of the HyperX Predator may or may not be all that drastic to you but for us, it’s certainly a more distinctive design which manages to retain the same appeal yet feature a more aggressive look. The most prominent feature of the HypeX Predator is its heatspreader: cold-blue with a signature X emblazoned on the body, you can’t miss these babies in the shelves.

Here we have a shot of the HyperX family line: The Predator, the now defunct T1 and the mainstream Genesis. As you can see on the image to the right, the Predator has managed to get a bit of a decrease in fin height which should appeal to some who found the old HTX spreaders to be too tall for their large CPU coolers. The Predator’s fins are still tall but that small decrease might be enough to accommodate some coolers.

The black and blue design and aggressive X style should go in well with some motherboards especially if you’re going for a themed build.

Test Setup

PERFORMANCE

SiSoft’s SANDRA is a benchmarking, testing and system information application which provides plenty of options in gaining information regarding your system. For this test, we gauge the memory bandwidth of the system.

As far as bandwidth is concern, as the T1 bears similar specs to the Predator it’s expected that they both give the same amount of performance for this test on the same clocks. They managed to edge out a rather tightly timed Avexir Core but still fall quite short from the far too aggressive NANO from Avexir.

Maxon offers a nice benchmark tool called Cinebench which really stresses your entire system to render a very complex scene. The output score is completely unique to Cinebench but allows us to have a rough idea of how the CPU works with 3D rendering tasks.

We some improvements over the T1 in this test and managed to even out against the Avexir Core.

X264 HD is a free benchmarking tool that shows the performance of a system by converting a 720p video clip.

We see the Predator stumble a bit in this test but still, its within that range that we can appreciate.

3DMark 11 is the most recent iteration (not counting the version for the upcoming Windows 8) of the popular benchmarking software from Futuremark. For this test we run the Performance preset of the benchmark which comes with the free version of 3DMark 11 which should present a more reproducible scenario for a lot of people.

Forgive us for the misleading graph, there’s actually just a bit of difference in this scores but as we always say, every drop counts and the Predator manages to ease in at a well-contested second.

Ungine’s Heaven benchmark is a DirectX application designed to measure the performance of a system in game-like loads.

This one takes the Predator to the top, managing to hold a hairline lead over its predecessor.

The benchmark modes in Civilization5 are designed to stress and test various aspects of the users hardware and supporting software. This benchmark is designed to simulate a late game workload as it exercises all aspects of the game engine pipeline since all simulation and renderable object types are represented at a frequency consistent with a game that has been in progress for 300+ turns. We capture the full render score for our comparison graphs.

Another close game from all our test units, all of them evenly matched by just a point with the T1 and Predator tying for top spot.

Performance Scaling

Very noticeable amongst the tests here is the result for SuperPI 32M and Winrar4.0 with the jump from 1866 t 2133 clocks really showed us some curious results. Still though, we see some pretty good numbers and scaling across the especially on SuperPI, giving us a 7 second cut in completion time.

OVERCLOCKING & CONCLUSION

And this is where things get interesting. As with any enthusiast-oriented parts, most of this products claim to fame is it’s OC potential and we put that to test. As usual, we try and bump the memory multiplier on our system to see if we can get a nice, free speed boost from these modules and as with most of our endeavors of this particular nature, we failed. Moving on to the next best thing, we hit the BCLK multiplier and see how far we can take these babies. In the end we managed to get the following clocks for our system. Very impressive for a DDR3-2400 kit.

As being mostly a redesign of their former flagship, the HyperX Predator still maintains pretty much the same specifications of its older brother, the original T1. Despite packing newer components, Kingston has managed to deliver performance worthy of being their top product, retaining the figures found on the past HyperX T1 we looked at. No word on local pricing and availability as of yet, but at an online price of around US$67, this shouldn’t veer far off from most high-end DIMM kits out there.

Certainly, the biggest change in the HyperX Predator is the newly designed heatspreader. Modern and appealing, it’s certainly got a place in a lot of people’s systems and with performance and OC potential that’s certainly top-tier, we give our Recommend Award to the Kingston HyperX Predator.