Introduction

Kingston was the first memory manufacturer I was aware of, due to various magazine advertisement campaigns that they had during the late 1980s and throughout the 1990s. Around 2000, adding 128 megs of Kingston PC-100 memory to a 733 PIII HP I had was the second experience I had inside of a computer, the first had been replacement of a fried dial-up modem. A short time later, when I was introduced to the world of enthusiast computing, Kingston wasn't forgotten, but names like Corsair and Mushkin seemed much more exotic and enticing. Not long after that, I begin seeing guys in forums mentioning they were using the new Kingston HyperX modules and were getting good performance from them. I was glad to see Kingston enter the enthusiast market, though this is the first opportunity I've had to check their HyperX memory out.

Kingston's 20 year history is packed with numerous awards from the likes of Fortune, Inc, and Forbes magazines, and for the last four years, they were ranked the #1 memory module manufacturer for the third-party memory market. They have been extremely successful at building quality products, and taking care of their employees considering the numerous "best employer" awards they have received over the years.

Kingston started their HyperX line of enthusiast memory modules in 2002. This is a HyperX DDR3-1375 7-7-7-20 2 gig kit. Will the KHX11000D3LLK2/2G perform to the standards that we'd expect from Kingston? Read on and see!

From the data sheet:

"Kingston's KHX11000D3LLK2/2g is a kit of two 128M x 64-bit 1GB (1024MB) DDR3-11375 CL7 SDRAM memory modules, based on sixteen 64M x 8-bit DDR3 FBGA components per module. Each module pair has been tested to run at DDR3-1375 at a low latency timing of 7-7-7 at 1.7v. The SPDs are programmed to JEDEC standard latency DDR3-1066Mhz timing of 7-7-7 at 1.5v. Each 240-pin DIMM uses gold contact fingers and requires +1.5v. The JEDEC standard electrical and mechanical specifications are as follows:

Features:
- JEDEC standard 1.5v +/- 0.0075v Power Supply
- VDDQ = 1.5v +/- 0.075v
- 533Mhz fCK for 1066 Mb/sec/pin
- 8 independent internal banks
- Programmable CAS Latency: 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10.
- Posted CAS
- Programmable Additive Latency: 0, CL-2, or CL-1 clock
- Programmable CAS Write Latency (CWL) = 7(DDR3-1066)
- 8-bit pre-fetch
- Burst Length: 8 (Interleave without any limit, sequential with starting address "000" only), 4 with tCCD=4 withch does not allow seamless read or write [either on the fly using A12 or MRS]
- Bi-directional Differential Data Strobe
- Internal(self) calibration: Internal self calibration through ZQ pin (RZQ: 240 ohm +/- 1%
- Average Refresh Period 7.8us at lower than TCASE 85C, 3.9us at 85C < TCASE .95C
- Asynchronous Reset
- 1066Mbps CL7 doesn't have backwards compatibility with 800Mbps CL5
- PCB: Height 1.180" (30mm), double sided component

Performance:
- CL(IDD): 7 cycles
- Row Cycle Time (tRCmin): 50.63ns (min)
- Refresh to Active/Refresh Command Time (tRFCmin): 90ns
- Row Active Time (tRASmin): 37.5ns (min)
- Power: TBD W (operating per module)
- UL Rating: 94 V -0
- Operating Temperature: 0C to 85C
- Storage Temperature: -55C to 100C

Packaging

The Kingston HyperX comes in this hanging blisterpack. No knife, scissors, sword, or chainsaw needed here, the package is sealed by the label that runs across the front. Its funny, actually. out of all the memory that is such a pain to open, assumedly for anti-theft reasons, Kingston HyperX is probably the most likely high performance memory to actually be hanging in a retail store somewhere.