Verdict: Decent performance in Athlon 64 systems, but it can't be overclocked

Kingston is one of the largest memory manufacturers in the world, and its HyperX-branded DIMMs are squarely aimed at enthusiasts or, as the company describes us, 'serious gamers'.

This particular kit is rated as PC2-5400, which means that it's guaranteed to run at 676MHz at 4 - 4 - 4 - 10 latency timings. However, most motherboards only support PC2-5300 memory (667MHz), so, unless you overclock your CPU, you won't be able to run this kit at its maximum guaranteed frequency.

Although there was almost no performance difference between the kits in this Labs test in our Core 2 test rig, the KHX5400D2K2/2G performed well in our Athlon 64 test rig, due to its relatively low latency timings. It was faster than the other two Kingston kits in the F.E.A.R. benchmark, despite running at a lower frequency. In contrast, its comparatively low bandwidth limited its performance when running the SuperPI 32M test.

Unfortunately, increasing the voltage and dropping the latency timings didn't enable us to overclock the KHX5400D2K2/2G. Given that none of the three HyperX kits would overclock, Kingston's claim that these modules are aimed at enthusiasts seems pretty ridiculous.

Whatever the reason behind its lack of overclockability, there's little reason to buy the KHX5400D2K2/2G.

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