The reasons to purchase a high performance RAM kit are as varied as the consumers who purchase them. For some application load time is the deciding factor in their purchasing decision. For others it is Virtualized Operating System performance. For others still it is game load times. For others still it is to shave a .1 of second off their synthetic test scores so as to climb ever higher in the online rankings that various sites host.
With such a wide variety of criteria it behooves us to use as wide and varied a list of testing protocols as possible. As such we have used a blend of synthetic and real world benchmarks, as well as custom real world game benchmarking.
For real world and video games we have used the same tests as we use for storage testing and created a RAMDrive. Specifically, we have used Borderlands, GTA V, and Saints Row 3.
For synthetic tests we used Cinebench, FAHBench, SuperPi, and AIDA tests.
For real world tests we used Adobe PhotoShop and VMWare.
The OS was a fresh clean install of Windows 7 with all latest hotfixes, patches and updates applied.
To show the performance differences we have tested at stock, ‘XMP’, and then manual overclocking levels. All tests were run 4 times and average results are represented.
For overclocking we do not overclock the CPU and rather only the RAM is overclocked to show performance gains that the RAM will net consumers. To ensure that any overclock we do obtain is realist we also limit voltage to – at most – 1.40volts. Anything above this bordering on dangerous to the RAM and will noticeably reduce the longetivity of the DDR4 RAM ICs.
Main Test System
Processor: Intel i7 5930K or Intel i7 6700K
Memory: Test Kit
Video Card: MSI 980Ti Lightning
Motherboard: Asus Sabertooth X99 or Asus Z170 Deluxe
Cooling: Noctua U12S
SSD: 1x Intel 750 1.2TB NVMe SSD
Power Supply: Corsair AX860i
Monitor: Dell U2714H
OS: Windows 7 Ultimate x64 SP1
Kingston HyperX Fury DDR4-2666 32GB Kit – Overclocking
After working with this kit we can conclusively say that if you are looking for a challenge. One that will really test your skills at overclocking RAM…. this is not the kit for you. We say this as this kit is downright boring its reliability and dependability. Seriously this kit is not going to challenge your skills or prove you are ‘1337’ builrder or anything like that.
Instead if you are a system builder, or even average consumer, who is not looking to test their skills and just want a zero hassle set of RAM that you squeeze some extra performance from, the HyperX Fury DDR4-2666 should be on your short list. Not only will it instantly set itself to 2666 speeds, and thus even without any input from you be overclocked, but with very little effort you can either lower the CAS latency or push the envelope. All that is required is a bit more voltage and changing some settings. To be precise we did not have to use 1.4 volts for this kit and instead 1.35 is the sweet spot. With this extra 0.15 voltage consumers can either choose to keep the DDR4-2666 speed but lower the CAS latency timing from an already low CL15 to an even lower CL14. For certain scenarios this certainly will give a nice boost in performance and even after extended stress testing proved to be perfectly stable.
While lowering the CAS latency even further certainly will appeal to some consumers, most will instead want to increase the overall speed the RAM runs at. Here this kit will also impress as it was once again down right easy to overclock. By simply, leaving the timings at 15-17-17-18 we slowly increased the speed…. and increased the speed… and increased the speed. Without self-imposed limitations on voltage we were actually able to hit DDR4-3200 and could have gone further if we had been willing to go to 1.45. However, at a mere 1.35v this kit was perfectly stable at DDR4-3200.
That is fantastic no matter how you slice things as the typical CL15 DDr4-3200 32GB kit will set consumers back $230, and yet with very little effort get comparable performance for only $160 from this kit. Now with all that said, each set of RAM will be different so it is possible that we simply got an above average kit; however, based on the reputation of this particular kit we believe the opposite is true and that some kits can indeed do better that it. In either case, even if DDR4-3200 is ‘all’ that you can expect from it this kit is still a downright fantastic value.
