Verdict: Hype to the power of X
For a long time now Kingston has been the ultimate troll-basher on tech forums. Just the mention of a rig fitted with its memory is enough to spark grudging respect in all but the most ardent of troublemakers.
So when I found out we had 1GB of PC4000 Kingston DDR (2 x 512MB), I was naturally keen to see what it could do. Its polished blue heat-spreader looked the business and we installed it eagerly, expecting to push back the boundaries of overclocking and get Kingston-powered troll-slapping results. We were swiftly thwarted. At 500MHz, using SPD timings, nothing, zip, nada - the computer blankly refused to POST.
Unphased, we steadily dropped the front side bus until we could run a stable benchmark. As it turned out, the '500MHz' Kingston actually only ran at 450MHz on our 865PE-based EPoX EP-4PDA2+ board. We discovered that, apparently, 865PE and nForce2 boards have problems running Kingston's PC4000 memory. The speeds stated for these boards were actually 480-490FSB - somewhat lower than the advertised performance.
However, Kingston says the memory will run happily on an 875P chipset, which adds PAT and ECC memory support on top of 865PE's features. This is baffling, as these are non-ECC DIMMs and PAT isn't deeply involved with memory latencies or speeds.
We also tried relaxing the memory timings to try to reach 500MHz and finally managed to get a stable 480MHz (with timings at 3-4-4-8). It's still not the performance it should be - after all, it's rated at 500MHz.
CONCLUSION
Kingston has a way to go with the design of its PC4000 memory. We couldn't get the stated 500MHz speed, even with relaxed latencies. It's more hyperbole than HyperX - if you want 500MHz memory, buy the Corsair modules, or stick to slower memory running at faster timings.
