Closer Look: Kingston HyperX Genesis

The Kingston KHX2133C11D3K4/16GX memory kit is delivered in a plastic tray with slots that hold the modules upright. I prefer this to the more standard practice of enclosing each module in an individual plastic shell. The Kingston tray has slots for 10 DIMMs and can be used to store memory you're not using.

The individual modules use blue-anodized low-profile aluminum heat spreaders. Kingston specs these at 30mm high, but I measure just under 32mm as shown below. I recommend low-profile memory for X79 Express systems since many CPU air coolers will extend over one or both sets of DIMM sockets.

The label provides most of the information on the memory, although it lists only the second XMP profile frequency (2133MHz) and voltage (1.65V). You can also opt to run at the JEDEC standard 1333MHz, 1.50V, or the first XMP profile of1866MHz, 1.65V. But who would want to run this memory at anything but its best?

Overall, Kingston's blue anodized heat spreaders with bright accents make for an attractive package. Too bad they won't be visible installed in your system! One of the four DIMMs (at the lower right in this image) was a slightly lighter hue than the others.

These memory modules have two XMP profiles: 1866MHz at 10-11-10-30 and 2133MHz at 11-12-11-30. Although you wouldn't expect 4GB modules to be able to run timings as tight as 2GB modules, these are still rather loose, and several competitive DDR3-2133 16GB kits advertise better timing values.

Join me as I explain my test methodology in the next section.

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