Sager now offering Kingston RAM - Quick Look

Sager is now offering Kingston HyperX RAM as a configurable option in their laptops. LPC-Digital provided me with a sample to show you NBR folks a quick look with some basic details.

Haswell notebooks are supposed to only accept DDR3L RAM, which are 1.35V compared with traditional 1.5V, so these will work with Haswell machines, no problem. They are also switchable and can be used at 1.35V or 1.5V which will be determined by your system. Kingston has a history of quality components, and their computer memory products especially, so it's good to see this now being offered as another option in addition to the Hynix or Samsung modules that typically are offered with their laptops. However Haswell can also manage 1866MHz RAM, which these modules are only 1600MHz, so hopefully the faster modules will be available in the near future, but I doubt the slight difference in RAM speed will be noticed by most users' activities.

The RAM has HyperX stickers on it, no heatsink, although most RAM heatsinks in laptops are pointless anyhow, and only take up space sometimes making it difficult to install the RAM at all. These modules will be covered under whatever warranty you purchase with your Sager notebook.

Here's images of the RAM free and installed in my NP7338:








Specifications:
Model: KHX16LS9P1K2/16
Specs: http://www.kingston.com/datasheets/KHX16LS9P1K2_16.pdf
DDR3L 1600MHz
Timings: 9-9-9-27
1.35V


Here's info on the RAM modules as reported by HWInfo64 and CPU-Z:
HWInfo64 (click to enlarge)


CPU-Z




Below are the benchmark results from AIDA64 and PassMark Performance Test 8.0:

AIDA64:



PassMark Performance Test 8.0:

TEST	Result
Memory Mark	2498
Database Ops (K ops per sec)	87.5
Read Cached (MB per sec)	26377
Read UnCached (MB per sec)	13719
Write (MB per sec)	9291
Latency (ns)	26.2
Threaded (MB per sec)	21705

It's difficult to say much about RAM without comparing a number of other brands and speeds and latency configurations. Unfortunately the limited BIOS of the Sager's don't allow overclocking or changing RAM timings, so it's not possible to push the limits and see how well it can perform using the stock BIOS. However, thanks to Prema's modded BIOS, I plan on doing a more detailed analysis at a later time, comparing different speed RAM (from 1066 to 2400MHz), varying CAS latencies, single vs dual channel configurations, and resulting effects with IGP 3D gaming, video/audio encoding, rendering, as well as 3D gaming with a discrete GPU (GTX 860m). In the mean time I hope this information at least answers any basic questions about the Kingston RAM itself.

 

You tried using XTU to see if they do 1866mhz?

 

Those timings are awesome!

This is what mine came with



I know they are 8GB sticks and should be expected to have higher timings but 11 is higher than I would have expected.

 

Yep, no success.

 

11 is standard for sodimm 1600mhz. Cl9 1600mhz is high performance.

 

I would have thought 10 would be standard on 8GB sticks but I'm the one that just had to have 32GB so oh well. :thumbsup:

If all else is equal, my memory is just fine.

Overall: 2570
Database OPs: 94.3
Read Cached: 28849
Read Uncached: 12917
Write: 9891
Latency: 30.2
Threaded: 22050

I'm guessing the higher performance is due to quad channel? I'm happy sacrificing a bit of latency if that's the case.

 

Pffft 1600MHz CL9, get a load of this:



Yup that's 2400MHz CL12

 

That, sir, is a broken image

EDIT: He fixed it and now I look stupid XD

 

Also 2.4k club here

 

I've never seen such fast RAM >_>

I'm going back to my little corner now lol

 

What RAM is that? Is that the Samsung LV?

 

I'm using the Corsair Vengeance 2133 kit, although I definitely lucked out on the silicon lottery since this was the only 1 out of the 4 kits I bought that could do 2400. (returned the other 3 kits to Amazon, so if you see a used one say hi )

Back on topic: I've used Kingston HyperX 1600, 1866, and GSkill and Corsair 2133 ram. From my limited experience it seems that Kingston has the best performance at stock with not much variability, but the chips are binned close to their limits and so there's not much room for OC. GSkill and Corsair seem to have more variability between kits, but there's more potential for OC if you get lucky with the silicon. Although I think the GSkill Ripjaws 2133 2x4GB kit uses Samsung chips, so it's just rebranded Samsung ram.

One thing I can say with confidence is that for Haswell, memory speed (bandwidth?) seems to matter a whole lot more than timings. And this appears to be corroborated by independent testing.

 

Yep, Samsung 1600Mhz 1.35v. Have 4 of them and they all do 2.4k

 

Yeah those Samsung chips OC like no tomorrow. The GSkill ram I have (which uses Samsung's 340 HYKO chips btw) can actually do 2400 CL11. I got lucky with this particular kit though, as it can do 1866 CL9, 2133 CL10, and 2400 CL11 (default is 2133 CL11). If the memory controller was capable enough, I suspect this particular kit might be able to pull off 2666 given enough tweaking.

 

I have three sets of them. Too bad they only made 4GB modules. And I can't get any of them to do 2.4k

 

TRFC of 278 :/



There we go

 

I tried, best I could do is 260. The GSkill could do 170 but that was it.

 

Do you guys really see any tangible performance increase in your everyday tasks when using 2400MHz RAM, compared to 1600MHz? I know that Haswell CPUs love high memory bandwidth, but is there really much of a difference? Would there be a comparable difference on Ivy Bridge CPU?

 

No tangible difference for what I do, it's really just for benchmarking with a side of "because I can".

Actually now that I read your post again, going from 1600 to 1866 made the system feel ever so slightly more responsive. Whether it's an actual improvement or just the placebo effect I can't say for sure. 2133 seems to be the sweet spot for 24/7 use and moderate overclock. 2400 you're pushing the memory controller to its limits; the chip appears to run hotter, and I found it actually slightly degraded processor performance.

 

I wonder if we'll ever see 2400MHz DDR3 So-DIMM's before DDR4 hits the market. It would be nice to have 16GB modules at 2400MHz, but that's probably asking too much considering most of the resources are going into DDR4 now.

 

Kingston was testing an ES sample of 2400MHz CL13 2x4GB sodimms, but not sure if it's still in development right now.

Also, fast ram is useless if the memory controller can't support it. I had the opportunity to play around with a 4700MQ and the most it would do is 2200. Meaker tells me Intel doesn't bin for IMC but usually the better the chip the better the IMC, but anything beyond 1600 is just a bonus since it's not officially supported.

 

I think haswell is 1866mhz now but yes they do not test faster speeds of each chip since they don't spec for it.