Kingston Lowers HyperX DDR4 Voltages From 1.5V to 1.35V
Kingston just gave us word that they are lowering the voltages on select DDR4 memory kits from 1.5 Volts to 1.35 Volts. Kingston hasn’t started shipping any DDR4 memory kits, but they did send out a handful of pre-production kits running at 1.5V to a handful of review sites, overclockers and partners around the world. It appears that Kingston has done some additional testing and discovered that 1.5V is not needed with the latest DDR4 IC’s and PCB combination. Kingston is not saying what if anything has been changed since no kit ever came to market at 1.5V. Kingston informed us that their first DDR4 memory kits will be hitting store shelves this week and will be SPD programmed to run up to 1.35V depending on what kit you purchase.
Legit Reviews recently had an X99 platform failure and one of the areas of concern was the high voltages that the Kingston HyperX Predator 16GB (4x4GB) 3000MHz memory kit was running. We are happy to hear that Kingston has lowered the voltages as it wasn’t really needed and will reduce temperatures and hopefully improve the reliability and lifespan of the memory kits. After speaking with many Intel engineers that worked on Haswell-E we do not think out platform failure had to do with the 1.5 Volts running on this particular DDR4 memory kit as the Haswell-E processors memory controller supports both DDR3 and DDR4 memory. DDR3 memory comes standard now at 1.5V, but many kits are still on the market at 1.65V. Since Intel designed the memory controller to work with DDR3 and many Intel Xeon processors are using the same core architecture with DDR3 memory kits just fine, we can safely assume the higher than normal DRAM voltage isn’t to blame. Intel also recently came out and let us know that 1.2-1.5V is the acceptable DDR4 Voltage range for Intel X.M.P. 2.0 memory kits.
Legit Reviews is one of the very few sites that has reviewed this particular memory kit and also had an X99 platform failure. This isn’t big news, but we figured it would be of interest to our readers. We have gone back and made updated to the original article due to the specification change.
