256mb Kingston PC-3500

By Nathan Kirsch

Benchmarks & Performance:

AMD Results:

Our Test System:

  • AMD Athlon XP 2100+ (T-Bred B)
  • ABIT KD7
  • Thermalright SLK-800 (Air Cooled)
  • ABIT OTES Ti4200 64mb (default)
  • Maxtor 40Gb ATA-100 7,200rpm
  • Thermaltake 360W Power Supply

Testing Procedure:

All testing was done on a fresh install of Windows XP Professional build 2600. The tests were done on the desktop with no other software programs running. We ran the Athlon 2100+ at the FSB needed to give us the correct memory timings. During this review, the room temperature was 26 degrees Celsius, while the case temperature was 31 degrees Celsius.

Sisoft Sandra 2003 Pro:

Sandra is designed to test the theoretical power of a complete system and individual components. The numbers taken though are purely theoretical and may not represent real world performance. Higher numbers represent better performance.

Results: I don’t feel that these results need much explanation. The Corsair XMS 3500 is able to walk away with victories at all memory speeds. I would like to point out that we were able to get the Kingston HyperX up to 434mhz, but it could only be done at Cas 2.5-2-2 1T. At 434mhz, the Sandra memory scores were 3189/2945 for HyperX, which is lower than the 426mhz CAS 2-2-2 1T results.

PCMark2002 & 3dMark 2001SE build 330:

On our two final tests, we decided to run all three modules at DDR400 speeds at the most aggressive settings available on our ABIT KD7 motherboard.

Results: The leader on both tests was the Corsair XMS3500. It was not ahead by that much, but 46 points on 3dmark is a noticeable difference.

Intel Results:

Our Test System:

  • Intel Pentium 4 2.66B (ES Sample)
  • ABIT IT7-MAX2 Version 2
  • Thermaltake Spark7
  • MSI Ti4600-VT2D8X
  • Western Digital 30Gb ATA-100 7,200rpm
  • Antec 400W Power Supply
  • ViewSonic E90fb Monitor

Sisoft Sandra 2003 Pro:

Results: On the Intel system, DRAM voltage was set to 2.8, and we ran DDR 434 at the advertised Kingston HyperX timings (2-3-3-7-1T). We found that at anything below 2.8v we were not able to get the memory to load Windows XP. The above chart shows that the HyperX ties with Corsair on the Float, but Corsair takes a small three point lead on the Integer bandwidth usage at PC-3500 speeds.

Now that I have seen the results, we will look at overclocking and sum up my overall impression of our Kingston HyperX module!

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