Overclocking

Timing and Frequency Scaling

I also test modules for voltage requirements at different CAS settings and speeds to show how well a manufacturer has binned their modules and how well they've optimized them for the best possible performance. Would tighter timings and a lower speed make this module perform better? Can we increase or decrease voltage to get more performance? When overclocking, there are many different considerations that must be taken, and this test helps with a few of those choices. For this test, I start with the default timings and a voltage of 1.50 V before figuring out the maximum speed I can achieve. I then go through the procedure with each working CAS Latency setting and each voltage interval. Different sticks are rated for different voltages, so the range I use depends on the stock voltage and how high each voltage takes me. With this set, I used a range of 1.5 V to 1.75 V.


Kingston, like some other companies, programs their SPD profiles with a lot of information, which makes testing for scaling a bit redundant. First, there are several different JEDEC profiles, as you will find on pretty much any stick out there. You can view such information easily by running AIDA64. I found the listed profiles above at the top of the list.


Then there is the 2400 MHz XMP profile labeled as the "Enthusiast" profile in AIDA64. Not only does it contain settings for 2400 MHz but it also has settings for lower dividers which will, on some motherboards, adjust timings automatically as you change the divider.


The third set of timings, the "Extreme" profile, starts with 2133 MHz as the main profile and has many more below that. This profile is quite a bit different than what I saw with the HyperX Genesis 10th Anniversary kit, with both a lower voltage and lowered timings with the HyperX Beast kit's "Extreme" XMP profile. This should prove beneficial to both users with weak memory controllers and those that like to keep power consumption and heat to a minimum while looking to keep things "snappy" and responsive.

Both XMP profiles also have configurations for higher and lower CAS settings, to enable those options should your board support it. I could not boot them as easily as expected at CAS 6, since there are CAS 6 settings in the XMP profile, and the actual scaling was a bit small. As you can see above, quite a few possible timings are already set for you to explore, and each stick should be able to run these timings at the above posted speeds without much issue. What you can get above and beyond that is going to change from set to set.


I tried to keep timings as close to the 2400 MHz XMP listings as possible with my set since those offered the best overall performance. I loosened the timings as required once I went up and ultimately landed in the same spot as on my test for maximum frequency. I was very impressed to see such incredible scaling with these sticks, but there are no 2666 MHz or 2800 MHz kits in this lineup, so some of these kits might even have greater potential than these. When it comes to overclocking memory of this speed range, the overhead is typically not as high as that offered by this HyperX Beast kit, since sticks that can do 2666 MHz or higher @ 1.65 V would obviously end up in those 2666 MHz and 2800 MHz bins Kingston doesn't offer in large numbers, unlike some other brands; that is, if Kingston offers them at all. I couldn't find any currently available and in stock Kingston kits at popular online retailers with speeds over 2400 MHz or higher, so this kit might be worth keeping an eye on if you like playing the memory lottery game for HWBoints.

Maximum Overclock

I was pleasantly surprised when I overclocked the Kingston HyperX Beast 2400 MHz C11 kit because it reached well over 2600 MHz before finally settling in at 2634 MHz. Most secondary and tertiary timings are the same as the stock 2400 MHz XMP profile, but I managed to tighten some, like setting the Command Rate to 1t instead of 2t. 234 MHz is a pretty hefty overclock—almost a full 10%. I'm sure some kits will even exceed these numbers, but some may, along the same line of thinking, not get as high. However, I do expect most kits to reach quite similar clocks due to the nature of the kit, as that is what is expected out of a product line like the HyperX Beast series. Sticks that don't make such a performance cut can easily be down-binned into the many other product lines Kingston offers, like the Genesis kit I reviewed a while ago. I am, in all honesty, pretty sure that that is exactly the case here, and these sticks do seem to be made with the same PCB and ICs as the Genesis kit, but they are, as clearly shown by the overclocks, of a completely different quality.

You'll find a bunch of benchmarks that illustrate the overclocked performance boost on the following pages. They are, again, broken into System Performance and 3D Performance sections. This section includes the results of the HyperX Beast 2400 MHz kit at the maximum overclock posted above, some of the other previously tested kits with their own overclocked numbers, and a reference JEDEC 1600 MHz set of numbers for a baseline. I will, as always, let the numbers do the talking.