Conclusions and Value

Overall, the Kingston performs better in 2D applications when it's running at 1,333MHz with its default timings, whereas the OCZ seems to run better at 1,066MHz with lower latencies. On average there's a couple of memory heavy situations, like Xvid encoding, where the Kingston is just simply faster than the OCZ. This isn't reflected in 3D where the OCZ is the faster memory across all the games we've tested here.

So which one is better? We'd have to say neither of them are in the grand scheme of things. If you do a lot of intensive 2D work then the Kingston is more likely to suit you and if you're a gamer, you might find that the OCZ is a better choice.

It's hardly surprising that they both overclock virtually identically as well, considering they use the same DRAM chips - the Kingston can handle fractionally lower latencies but the OCZ does 8MHz more at the top end. ~1,430-1,440MHz from 1,333MHz modules is hardly that much to shout about, but at least both of them are consistent. Compared to the engineering sample Corsair DHX modules, which managed to achieve 1,520MHz, but that was at CAS-9 which negates almost any frequency advantage.

The OCZ about £15 cheaper which is what, a coffee and sandwich at Starbucks? If you're the type to consider £300 an acceptable cost for memory then £15 should be neither here nor there. However, the problem that DDR3 has right now is that you can get a lot more than a coffee and a sandwich from Starbucks with the £200+ you're going to save by sticking with DDR2 for the time being. In fact, OCZ's PC2-6400 SLI-Ready Edition memory is currently available for just £60 (inc. VAT). The price difference between DDR2 and DDR3 is just still so astronomical that it makes an investment into DDR3 a very hard one to justify.

What they are though is far cheaper than the super fast DDR3 modules which retail (far) in excess of £400. You could buy a second graphics card or a much faster CPU for that price and further increase your system performance to a greater extent that just using faster memory.

With Intel's X38 and its DDR3 "optimisations" just around the corner it could be the thing that converts those who need the best of the best no matter what: i.e. those of you that have just ordered a pair of Radeon HD 2900 XTs (or a GeForce 8800 Ultra) and a Core 2 Extreme QX6850. However, neither of these modules have the Xtreme Memory Profile (XMP) that will feature on X38 and to be honest, simply overclocking a DDR2 board will negate any performance difference - the current Core 2 processors don't need a lot of memory bandwidth. We ran memory speeds with a difference of ~370MHz from top to bottom here and was there a massive difference? No.

Temperature Testing

We tested the temperature of modules by loading the memory with Orthos for 10 minutes until the heatspreader/heatsink was isothermal. No additional airflow was used, all voltages were set to default and we checked the temperatures with a thermal probe.


Despite the lower voltage used on DDR3 it runs at a consistently higher temperature. The Kingston outperforms the OCZ slightly and this is likely to simply be because there is more aluminium to dissipate the heat into. The Corsair DHX ES module is still a lower temperature than these two, but it has much larger heatsinks and the temperature jump from DDR2 to DDR3 is much greater than that of the OCZ. On the other hand the Kingston DDR3 has come out better than the hand-burning DDR2 modules.

Final Thoughts

If you're not immediately turned off by the huge price differential between DDR2 and DDR3 and have decided that you really need to build a system using DDR3, the OCZ modules are the better buy. This is purely because of the warranted extended voltage protection (EVP) and the slightly better looks.

However, the sensible amongst you will stick with DDR2 until the prices come down to more comparable levels.

Kingston HyperX KHX11000D3LLK2/2G

• Performance
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• -
• -
• 8/10

• Features
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• -
• -
• -
• -
• 6/10

• Value
• x
• x
• x
• -
• -
• -
• -
• -
• -
• -
• 3/10

• Overall
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• -
• -
• -
• -
• -
• 5/10

OCZ DDR3 PC3-10666 Platinum Edition

• Performance
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• -
• -
• 8/10

• Features
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• -
• -
• -
• 7/10

• Value
• x
• x
• x
• x
• -
• -
• -
• -
• -
• -
• 4/10

• Overall
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• -
• -
• -
• -
• 6/10

What do these scores mean?