Verdict: DDR3 offers frequencies the likes of which DDR2 can only dream.
Last month's arrival of the Intel P35 chipset was slightly marred by the lack of 1,333MHz FSB processors and DDR3. Both are now with us, however - we look at both quad- and dual-core CPUs on pages 49 and 51 - and this is the first set of DDR3 RAM we've seen.
This Kingston RAM, as befits the HyperX branding, is rated at 1,375MHz with latency timings of 7-7-7-20. That might sound pretty slack, but it shouldn't actually lead to any slowdown. Indeed, the F.E.A.R. and Paint Shop Pro test results were comparable with all the DDR2 RAM in this month's Labs test.
After testing at stock speeds, we established that the RAM was happy being overvolted to 1.9V (0.4V over the DDR3 spec). However, even this extra power proved to be of little help when aiming for the maximum frequency.
At its stock latency timings, MemTest threw up errors at anything beyond 1,404MHz. This is an overclock of just 29MHz, which is rubbish. We slackened the timings to 10-10-10-30 to find out if we could push up the frequency to around 1,500MHz, but alas, the Kingston was only able to hit 1,476MHz before MemTest again proffered errors; even dropping the voltage to 1.85V didn't help.
Conclusion
Since it's clear that Kingston has taken this RAM to within an inch of its abilities, it isn't overclockable unless you relax the latency timings.
It's debatable whether it's sensible to spend almost £300 on this RAM when there's bound to be better (and cheaper) DDR3 modules in a few months. However, as it lets you use excellent motherboards such as the Asus P5K3 Deluxe WiFi-AP or the Asus Blitz Extreme now, it's worth considering.
