Kingston HyperX PC2-8500 Review

[stinger608]

"t's official folks, DDR is dead. AMD's socket AM2 was the final nail in the coffin, and quite frankly, we're pleased as punch. Memory manufactures are now free to concentrate their efforts soley on optimzing DDR2, and to further help bring closure for grieving enthusiasts, no time was wasted in bringing DDR2-1066 to the marketplace. Today we'll be examinging Kingston KHX8500D2K2/1G, a 1GB DDR2-8500 that looks to expand the HyperX lines to new heights." - Paul Lilly

Kingston HyperX KHX8500D2K2/1G 1GB PC2-8500 Memory Kit Review

Be sure to read the whole article!!!

Great job again Paul :D :D

[Jokerswild]

Thats some fast ram by the benchmarks. What does this mean in real world performance? Will the difference be noticable from DDR 3200 when your doing photoshop and how much real world time is saved? I have no idea what the extra speed means in terms of performance. Will 1 gig of DDR2 out perform 2 gigs of DDR?

[One4yu2c]

That's some fast RAM by the benchmarks. What does this mean in real world performance?
It depends on what you do and what specific platform we're discussing. Generally speaking, I think you'd be hard pressed to notice a real-world difference between DDR2-533 and 667, or 667 and 800. You'd be more likely to notice the performance gains in 800 over 533 though, and once prices level out, it will make more sense to go with the higher end kits. And of course if you're overclocking, that's where the real dividends can be had, as there's a pretty good jump in going from 2.0GHz to 2.66GHz, which this DDR2-1066 kit allowed us to do on the 3800+ X2 processor.

Will the difference be noticeable from DDR 3200 when you're doing Photoshop and how much real world time is saved?
There is a performance boost in going from, let's say a 3800+ X2 s939 with 1GB DDR-3200 to a 3800+ X2 AM2 with 1GB DDR2-800, but it's not significant. The differences would mainly come down to benchmarking, and it would not be a good idea to make a sideways upgrade like that simply to have the higher clocked RAM. For the sake of upgradeability, any new system build should be looking at a DDR2 foundation, but you can expect roughly the same performance on an equivalent s939/DDR system.

Eventually this will change, as RAM manufacturers concentrate on fine tuning DDR2 offerings with tighter timings. Really though, the real benefits will come from AMD and Intel adding support for the higher frequencies (Intel already supports DDR2-1066, AMD goes up to DDR2-800) and seeing kits start to scale even higher.

Will 1GB of DDR2 outperform 2GB DDR?
Absolutely not. See above. In any application that takes advantage of over 1GB RAM (FEAR, BF2, WoW, heavy photo/video editing), additional RAM would outweigh the benefits of DDR2. Again though, it's really not an issue on new builds, as both AMD and Intel have moved to DDR2. Since it's the only choice for a new and modern build, it makes the decision process pretty easy. :P

[RangerXLT8]

Whew that Sandra score is nice. Nice job.

[Jokerswild]

Thanks Paul that clears it up. :D

[polobunny]

Originally Posted by One4yu2c

That's some fast RAM by the benchmarks. What does this mean in real world performance?
It depends on what you do and what specific platform we're discussing. Generally speaking, I think you'd be hard pressed to notice a real-world difference between DDR2-533 and 667, or 667 and 800. You'd be more likely to notice the performance gains in 800 over 533 though, and once prices level out, it will make more sense to go with the higher end kits. And of course if you're overclocking, that's where the real dividends can be had, as there's a pretty good jump in going from 2.0GHz to 2.66GHz, which this DDR2-1066 kit allowed us to do on the 3800+ X2 processor.

Will the difference be noticeable from DDR 3200 when you're doing Photoshop and how much real world time is saved?
There is a performance boost in going from, let's say a 3800+ X2 s939 with 1GB DDR-3200 to a 3800+ X2 AM2 with 1GB DDR2-800, but it's not significant. The differences would mainly come down to benchmarking, and it would not be a good idea to make a sideways upgrade like that simply to have the higher clocked RAM. For the sake of upgradeability, any new system build should be looking at a DDR2 foundation, but you can expect roughly the same performance on an equivalent s939/DDR system.

Eventually this will change, as RAM manufacturers concentrate on fine tuning DDR2 offerings with tighter timings. Really though, the real benefits will come from AMD and Intel adding support for the higher frequencies (Intel already supports DDR2-1066, AMD goes up to DDR2-800) and seeing kits start to scale even higher.

Will 1GB of DDR2 outperform 2GB DDR?
Absolutely not. See above. In any application that takes advantage of over 1GB RAM (FEAR, BF2, WoW, heavy photo/video editing), additional RAM would outweigh the benefits of DDR2. Again though, it's really not an issue on new builds, as both AMD and Intel have moved to DDR2. Since it's the only choice for a new and modern build, it makes the decision process pretty easy. :P

Exactly my opinion on the matter, but with cooler words. =P Well said.

Edit: Also cool review, I was reading it while waiting for a E6700 to install windows. Alright alright, I was reading fast. :D

[yurimxpxman]

In addition to what Paul said, I think Gordon Ung's DDR latency vs. frequency article is very informative on the subject. Check it out if you can. And when you do, don't forget to read Paul's 25 apps article :)