By: Jonathan Kwan
November 2, 2012
One of the direct consequences of special relatively proposed by Albert Einstein back in 1905 is the concept of time dilation. Basically, it suggests the time between two events depends on the relative speed of the observer's reference frame, which can be derived from the Lorentz transformation equations. While it is true that this has been proven experimentally by scientists many times using high precision equipment, the fact is most of us are not aware of how this can be applied in daily life. Actually, it is more relevant to us than you think. For example, when a girl tells you she will be ready in five minutes, and it ends up being an hour, don't argue with her and ask her what took her so long -- it can only be explained with special relativity. In her frame of reference, it was only five minutes -- it is just yours that happened to be an hour. You see, a lot of things don't have to make perfect sense to us for it to work. Clocked at DDR3-1600 and complete with heatspreaders and all, the Kingston HyperX PnP KHX16S9P1K2/16 2x8GB SODIMM kit doubles the capacity offered by the 2x4GB kit we have reviewed last year, yet retains the same latencies. Is there a reason why we need 16GB in a laptop? For most people, no. Is there a reason why DDR3-1600 is necessary? Not really; the performance advantage over DDR3-1333 is marginal. And the heatspreaders? What? Of course they are a must. Just add the e-peen size dilation to special relativity, and we can derive the rest using the awesomeness transformation equations. The rest of the details are in this review.
Our review unit of the Kingston HyperX PnP KHX16S9P1K2/16 2x8GB DDR3-1600 laptop RAM kit came in a soft shipping envelope from the company's American headquarters in Fountain Valley, California, USA. Using FedEx International Priority, everything arrived in excellent condition for our review today. Ripping apart the package, a separate corrugated cardboard box resides inside for additional protection, so let's get down to the details.
Similar to our previous Kingston product reviews, in order to ensure the Kingston HyperX PnP laptop RAM experiences no bumps and bruises during transport, a small brown corrugated cardboard box with paper fillings were placed inside the envelope for maximum protection. Upon looking at the real meat of the package, they have revised the full sized PET shell and clear plastic cover combination to accommodate the smaller SODIMM modules. While the packaging has the exact same dimensions as its desktop memory counterparts, the interior is lined with a cavity for a snug laptop RAM fit. The highly OEM-esque overtone is carried through with no included fancy inserts at all; everything you need to know about this product is printed on the sticker that seals the package shut. Meanwhile, the two modules that make up the Kingston HyperX PnP KHX16S9P1K2/16 2x8GB kit are placed vertically next to each other behind the clear plastic cover, so we can enjoy looking at the fancy looking heatsink without opening even opening it.
Before we move on, let's take a look at the product description and specifications of the Kingston HyperX PnP DDR3-1600 2x8GB DDR3 laptop RAM, as obtained from the manufacturer's website:
Description
Kingston's KHX16S9P1K2/16 is a kit of two 1G x 64-bit (8GB) DDR3-1600 CL9 SDRAM (Synchronous DRAM) 2Rx8 memory modules, based on sixteen 512M x 8-bit DDR3 FBGA components per module. Total kit capacity is 16GB. Each module kit has been tested to run at JEDEC DDR3-1600 at a low latency timing of 9-9-9 at 1.5V. Additional timing parameters are shown in the PnP Timing Parameters section. Each 204-pin SODIMM uses gold contact fingers and requires +1.5V. The electrical and mechanical specifications are as follows:
PnP JEDEC Timing Parameters
- DDR3-1600 CL9-9-9 @ 1.5V
- DDR3-1333 CL8-8-8 @ 1.5V
- DDR3-1066 CL6-6-6 @ 1.5V
Features
- JEDEC standard 1.5V (1.425V ~ 1.575V) Power Supply
- VDDQ = 1.5V (1.425V ~ 1.575V)
- 800MHz fCK for 1600Mb/sec/pin
- 8 independent internal bank
- Programmable CAS Latency: 11, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5
- Posted CAS
- Programmable Additive Latency: 0, CL - 2, or CL - 1 clock
- Programmable CAS Write Latency(CWL) = 8 (DDR3-1600)
- 8-bit pre-fetch
- Burst Length: 8 (Interleave without any limit, sequential with starting address “000” only), 4 with tCCD = 4 which does not allow seamless read or write [either on the fly using A12 or MRS]
- Bi-directional Differential Data Strobe
- Internal(self) calibration : Internal self calibration through ZQ pin (RZQ : 240 ohm ± 1%)
- On Die Termination using ODT pin
- Average Refresh Period 7.8us at lower than TCASE 85°C, 3.9us at 85°C < TCASE < 95°C
- Asynchronous Reset
- PCB : Height 1.180” (30.00mm), double sided component
A screenshot of the memory tab in CPU-Z with Kingston's HyperX PnP KHX16S9P1K2/16 2x8GB installed. The SPD timings table in CPU-Z reads standard JEDEC specifications programmed into the memory. Using the BIOS revision 1.22, our Lenovo ThinkPad T420 laptop equipped with an Intel Core i5-2520M dual core processor used for testing had no issues detecting and working with the HyperX PnP kit and its intended speed. There were some arguments on various websites on whether or not dual core Sandy Bridge mobile processors will work with DDR3-1600 RAM; Kingston's plug and play kit shows us it can do so flawlessly, as we have proven last year with the 2x4GB kit. As you can see in our screenshot provided above, this dual channel kit runs at a frequency of 1600MHz (800MHz actual clock) in conjunction with standard 9-9-9-27 latencies. The Kingston HyperX PnP KHX16S9P1K2/16 2x8GB SODIMM kit retails for approximately $150 at press time.
Page Index
1. Introduction, Packaging, Specifications
2. A Closer Look, Installation, Test System
3. Benchmark: AIDA64 CPU
4. Benchmark: AIDA64 FPU
5. Benchmark: AIDA64 Memory
6. Benchmark: PCMark 7
7. Benchmark: 3DMark 11
8. Benchmark: PassMark PerformanceTest 7.0
9. Benchmark: SuperPI 1M, Cinebench R11.5
10. Conclusion
