First
I would like to thnak Kingston, especially Heather, for
making this review possible...
I
have to admit, a year ago I would have laughed if someone
bragged about having Kingston RAM in their machine. Because
a year ago, they would have been best known for their
line of ValueRAM, which can be obtained at a competitive
price point at major chain computer and electronics stores
worldwide. Not too impressive in the title, or retail
positioning as far as the enthusiast market goes. I had
always looked elsewhere for quality memory… Samsung and
Hynix being my chips of choice, and Geil, OCZ and Corsair
being the familiar enthusiast brands, yes, I am a RAM
snob shopping either online or at my local independent
PC shop to get hold of higher quality, yet somewhat “exclusive”
brands. That is, until now. Now it seems that you can
find stable, high speed RAM at the big chains, from a
major manufacturer. Kingston has introduced high end RAM
in the form of “HyperX” and from where I sit, I can see
a new contender in the performance RAM circle.
One
thing I have to mention is that Heather at Kingston is
one of the easiest PR reps to deal with. I filled out
an online form on a Monday evening, and after a few friendly
emails, FedEx was knocking at my door Wednesday morning
delivering a 1 GB kit of their new PC4000. I wish they
were all as prompt, congenial and helpful as her!
So,
what exactly did FedEx have in the little white box? Here
it is…
Yep,
two sticks of RAM.. with classy blue heat spreaders. This
is PC4000 which translates to 500MHz DDR. Fast. Period.
Here
is a shot with the sticks out of the packaging. I can’t
wait to install them; but first I have to re-bench the
XtremeDDR that currently populate the slots. Of course,
we geeks love to bench and re-bench our systems, so it’s
more like a treat than a chore. (*I
was concerned with the "Evaluation" sticker
since I didn't want a "cherry picked" sample
that performs outstandingly, so I asked Heather what it
was all about and she assured me that it was for inventory,
and RMA purposes only and that all of their review samples
come from the assembly lines)
Let's
see what the manufacturer has to say about their product...
