With motherboards and CPUs utilizing higher memory bandwidth, it comes as no surprise that performance memory kits are becoming the norm. Still, with so much choice out there it’s important to realize that not all kits perform the same, despite having similar specs on paper.
Both Kingston and Apacer happened to drop their latest memory kits in our office recently, so what better way to test them both than pit them against each other?
Apacer Armor Series
The Apacer Armor Series is the newest performance based DDR3 memory from the company, with complete Intel XMP support. Our testers were the 8GB DDR3 PC3-17000 kit which costs AED 200. The kit comes with two 4GB sticks capable of running at 2133MHz and CAS latency of 11-11-11-30 @ 1.65V. The Apacer Armor Series have a slim profile heatsink which goes up 1-inch, making them ideal for large CPU coolers. They look decent and work very nicely to keep heat in check.
Kingston HyperX Beast
On the other side we have Kingston’s latest entry into the HyperX series, with the new HyperX Beast memory. This tester unit came as the 8GB DDR3 PC3-17000 kit costing AED 215. The kit consists of two 4GB sticks capable of running at 2133MHz and CAS latency of 11-12-11-30 @ 1.60V. The HyperX Beast have large heatsinks on them that go up 1.55-inches, as has been typical of the HyperX series in the past.
Benchmarks
For testing these memory kits the following testbed was used:
While the Apacer Armor 8GB kit started off with a speed of 1600MHz [CL at 9-9-9-24] (default for Ivy Bridge), the Kingston HyperX Beast ran at 1333MHz. This was quickly remedied in the BIOS by selecting 1600MHz[CL at 9-8-9-24] in XMP Profile 2. Profile 1 sets it up straight to 2133MHz. The Apacer Armor just had one option for XMP, which was 2133MHz.
Conclusion
It’s nice to see both Apacer and Kingston perform on par with each other. However, with the short height the Apacer Armor has an edge on Kingston. That said, the difference between these two memory kits in real world is negligible.
We’re talking about nanoseconds here, and general performance differences between the two kits won’t be noticeable. Still, it’s nice to know that if you’re building a high-end gaming system, that your memory is not causing any bottlenecks. Both Apacer Armor and Kingston HyperX Beast memory kits perform incredibly well, and you cannot go wrong with either company. Perhaps the only thing to consider, given the small price difference, is that Apacer comes with 3 years warranty, while Kingston gives lifetime coverage.
