Kingston HyperX T1 12GB DDR3 1600mhz Review (X58)

1. Introduction2. Kingston HyperX T1 12GB DDR3 1600mhz3. Testing Methodology and Setup4. KitGuru Photoshop Benchmark5. Adobe Photoshop CS5 Real World testing6. AIDA 647. SiSoft Sandra8. 3dStudio Max 20119. MaxxMem10. Closing Thoughts11. View All Pages

Sandybridge systems have been well received by both the press and the public, with a compelling price to performance ratio. At the higher end of the market however Intel's X58 platform still remains the performance king, and today we are looking at a high density memory kit from Kingston which is targeting more than just the performance gamer.

Due to 4GB module densities, the HyperX T1 bundle we are reviewing today will allow a full population of 24GB on mainstream X58 motherboards. Not so long ago this amount of memory would have cost well in excess of £1,000, but Kingston are managing to sell this 12GB kit for £140 inc vat.

That said, the Japan disaster may have an adverse effect on the pricing in the near future, but right now this is a fantastic deal. Kingston haven't commented on potential pricing increases down the line, but it is an educated assumption on our part.

We will put the 12GB of HyperX T1 through the usual paces today but we also want to see how doubling the memory count can enhance memory intensive programs such as Adobe Photoshop.

The Kingston HyperX T1 kit arrives in a rather large plastic protective container with specifications listed on the front.

The oversized black heatspreaders look fantastic, but be aware that they will cause fitting issues with larger CPU coolers, such as the Noctua NH D14.

Due to the density of these individual sticks, the timings are slightly looser than performance 2GB units at the same frequency. These are rated at 9-9-9-27 @ 1600mhz, still very respectable.

Today we are using the latest high end motherboard from ASUS – The Rampage III Black Edition, which we reviewed late March.

Until we updated the bios to the latest version, the Kingston HyperX T1 12GB kit would not run faster than 1333mhz.

The bios correctly tuned the DRAM voltage to 1.65v (1.66v reading above), however we manually increased the QPI/DRAM core voltage to 1.35 for added stability.

Trying to force timings and latencies any tighter proved unsuccessful. We did notice that the tRAS setting was automatically detected by the ASUS bios as 24, rather than 27 noted by the XMP-1600 profile in CPU-z.

System validation is available over here

This Kingston HyperX T1 memory didn't overclock particularly well, we did manage to increase speeds to around 1670mhz, but it made negligible difference to performance results. Extra voltage didn't really help either. We would expect most people buying this specific memory kit to run with the XMP profiles enabled so it is how we will test it today.

Test System:
CPU: Intel Core i7 990x @ 4.8ghz
Motherboard: Asus Rampage III Black Edition
Cooler: Antec Kuhler 620 H20
Chassis: Lian Li X2000F
Power Supply: ADATA 1200W
Graphics: AMD HD6990 QuadFireX
Memory: Kingston HyperX T1 12GB @ 1600
Hard Drives: Intel 128GB SSD (Boot), Samsung 2TB (storage), Crucial 128GB SSD.

Comparison memory: No Brand DDR3 1333mhz 4GB 9-9-9-24

Software:
SiSoft Sandra
Adobe Photoshop CS5 64 bit
3D Studio Max 2011
Cinebench R11.5 64 bit
Aida 64 Extreme Edition
MaxMemm

This version of the script has been thoroughly tested on Adobe Photoshop CS5 and CS4 and is compatible with Photoshop 7. It is important to document however that different versions of Photoshop give different end results. Adobe have been fine tuning the program over the years and enhancing specific filters and algorithms for better performance (some filters were rewritten during the CS2 time period). This means ultimately that comparing times with users running other versions of Photoshop is not going to give consistent results.

All results were gained from Adobe Photoshop CS5 64bit exe on Windows 7 64 bit ultimate and are marked in seconds. Lower times are better.

KitGuru PS Bench 1(4)	Standard 1333mhz 9-9-9-24	KINGSTON 1600mhz 9-9-9-24
1. Texturiser (1)	1.7	1.7
2. CMYK	1.8	1.8
3. RGB	1.7	1.7
4. Ink outlines	26.8	26.7
5. Dust & Stratches	2.8	2.8
6. Watercolor	25.3	25.1
7. Texturiser (2)	1.7	1.7
8. Stained Glass	18.7	18.6
9. Mosiac Tiles	11.9	11.9
10. Extrude	152.2	152.0
11. Rough Pastels	10.7	10.5
12. Smart Blur	87.0	86.9
13. Underpainting	31.2	31.1
14. Mosiac Tiles	11.7	11.7
15. Spherize	2.1	2.1
16. Palette Knife	18.5	18.5
17. Sponge	36.4	36.3
18. Smudge Stick	11.1	11.0
Total:	453.3	452.1

Not a huge performance increase in the filtering test, but we didn't expect the modest frequency increase to have a dramatic impact on the results.

Having a large memory count with a 64 bit operating system means that you can allocate more to Adobe Photoshop. While this will make little difference when opening small files, it can play a part in increasing performance with larger, more demanding media.

Above: Memory available to Photoshop CS5 with 6GB installed (5311MB).

Above, the ‘performance' subpanel of the main preferences pane. Here you can allocate the amount of memory you have available to Photoshop. 32 bit operating system and versions of this program are limited so we recommend the 64 bit platform for ultimate performance and memory availability.

Above: Memory available to Photoshop CS5 with 12GB installed (10913MB).

With 12GB of memory installed you have significantly more memory available to the program. This means that you can open larger (or more) files before Photoshop forces data into the application scratch disk.

We increased the memory count with both configurations, leaving a little for the system. (9,000MB for 12GB system and 4,000MB for 6GB system).

First we opened a large rendered image, and resized it to 45,000 x 54,864 pixels, creating a final image of 6.9gb in size.

With 9,000MB of memory available to Photoshop the scratch disc is never accessed, saving 5 seconds of conversion time when compared to the settings with 6GB of system memory available.

Next we changed the colour mode to CMYK, mirroring a common task required by a printing agency or newspaper. This increases the file size to 9.20GB.

With 9,000MB of memory available it took 58 seconds to complete the task. With 4,000MB of memory accessible this increased to 88 seconds. Substantial performance improvements.

AIDA64 Extreme Edition is a streamlined Windows diagnostic and benchmarking software for home users. AIDA64 Extreme Edition provides a wide range of features to assist in overclocking, hardware error diagnosis, stress testing, and sensor monitoring. It has unique capabilities to assess the performance of the processor, system memory, and disk drives. AIDA64 is compatible with all current 32-bit and 64-bit Microsoft Windows operating systems, including Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2.

Performance increases are noticeable, gaining over 1000MB/s in both read and write tests.

SiSoftware Sandra (the System ANalyser, Diagnostic and Reporting Assistant) is an information & diagnostic utility. It should provide most of the information (including undocumented) you need to know about your hardware, software and other devices whether hardware or software.

Sandra is a (girl) name of Greek origin that means “defender”, “helper of mankind”. We think that’s quite fitting.

It works along the lines of other Windows utilities, however it tries to go beyond them and show you more of what’s really going on. Giving the user the ability to draw comparisons at both a high and low-level. You can get information about the CPU, chipset, video adapter, ports, printers, sound card, memory, network, Windows internals, AGP, PCI, PCI-X, PCIe (PCI Express), database, USB, USB2, 1394/Firewire, etc.

Native ports for all major operating systems are available:

• Windows XP, 2003/R2, Vista, 7, 2008/R2 (x86)
• Windows XP, 2003/R2, Vista, 7, 2008/R2 (x64)
• Windows 2003/R2, 2008/R2* (IA64)
• Windows Mobile 5.x (ARM CE 5.01)
• Windows Mobile 6.x (ARM CE 5.02)

All major technologies are supported and taken advantage of:

• SMP – Multi-Processor
• MC – Multi-Core
• SMT/HT – Hyper-Threading
• MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, SSE 4.1, SSE 4.2, AVX, FMA – Multi-Media instructions
• GPGPU, DirectX, OpenGL – Graphics
• NUMA – Non-Uniform Memory Access
• AMD64/EM64T/x64 – 64-bit extensions to x86
• IA64 – Intel* Itanium 64-bit

Memory bandwidth increases from 21GB/s at 1333mhz to 23 GB/s at 1600mhz with the Kingston T1 12GB kit.

V2011 is the first release of 3DStudio Max to fully support the Windows 7 operating system. This is a professional level tool that many people use for work purposes and our test will show any possible differences between board design today.

Autodesk 3ds Max Design 2011 software offers compelling new techniques to help bring designs to life by aggregating data, iterating ideas, and presenting the results.

Streamlined, more intelligent data exchange workflows and innovative new modeling and visualization tools help significantly increase designers’ creativity and productivity, enabling them to better explore, validate, and communicate the stories behind their designs.

Major new features:

• Slate: A node based material editor.
• Quicksilver: Hardware renderer with multithreaded rendering engine that utilizes both CPU and GPU.
• Extended Graphite Modeling Toolset
• 3ds Max Composite: A HDRI-capable compositor based on Autodesk Toxik.
• Viewport Canvas toolset for 3D and 2D texture painting directly in the viewport
• Object Painting: use 3D geometry as ‘brushes’ on other geometry
• Character Animation Toolkit (CAT): now integrated as part of the base package
• Autodesk Material Library: Over 1200 new photometrically accurate shaders
• Additional file format support: includes native support for Sketchup, Inventor
• FBX file linking
• Save to Previous Release (2010)

We render a KitGuru custom created scene at 1920×1080 and record the time taken, lower is better.

By increasing the memory bandwidth and efficiency the time taken to complete the render is reduced by over a second.

MaxxMem2 PreView is a handy, free program to rate memory performance. It can be downloaded over here

Solid results and noticeable improvements when compared against the reference clocked 1333mhz memory.

The Kingston HyperX T1 12GB DDR3 kit is a stunning looking product, the black livery of the T1 heatspreaders are a perfect pairing with the Asus Rampage III Black Edition motherboard.

Kingston make a wide range of quality DDR3 memory with a general market focus on 1GB and 2GB density sticks. Many manufacturers will start focusing on higher density configurations as computer demands and application overheads continue to increase. Memory prices right now are as good as we can remember, although with the recent disaster in Japan there is a certainty that general market prices will rise in coming months.

The HyperX T1 kit we received for review has performed very well, although it is worth mentioning a few points. Firstly, the high density configuration means that tighter timings are inherently more difficult, so 9-9-9 is pretty much a current performance standard. While this doesn't sound particularly impressive on paper, in reality you would be hard pressed to tell the differences between this kit and one with 7-9-7 timings.

In regards to gaming, a 12GB configuration makes little to no difference when directly compared against a more typical 6GB configuration. I spent a lot of time testing many of the leading games and trying to find tangible benefits, but for now it really is not needed.

There are however, other (and rather significant) benefits.

When using a memory intensive program such as Adobe Photoshop, our testing has highlighted performance gains when opening very large files. In fact, anything which is going to force Photoshop into using the scratch disc will significantly impact performance. We experienced similar performance boosts when manipulating large images which had many layers – with a larger amount of physical memory, the system spent less time paging data back and forward from the hard disc and subsequently leaving the end user with a much more responsive and reactive interface. Obviously if you have configured Photoshop to page data to a fast Solid State Drive the data lag will not be so dramatic, but it is still noticeable.

If you are a professional, or ‘serious' amateur who needs to frequently work on large image or video files then the additional memory will positively impact overall system performance. Also if, like myself, you work with multiple screens and have many programs open simultaneously then a higher memory count will reap rewards.

At only £140 inc vat, we feel this is a fantastic upgrade and offers significant future proofing for a high powered system for both gaming and serious work. If someone had said a few years ago that you could buy 24GB of DDR3 1600mhz memory for £280, it would have seemed an almost ludicrous claim.

Pros:

• beautiful heatspreader design
• great performance
• £140 inc vat. bargain.

Cons:

• oversized heatspreaders can cause mounting issues with the largest cpu coolers (Noctua NH D14)
• timings aren't as tight as 3x2GB.

KitGuru says: Another quality memory kit from Kingston and for those who want futureproofing, or demand more memory for serious duties.

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