Up on the review block today I’ve got the new HyperX DDR3 ram from Kingston called LoVo. The LoVo names mean low voltage, or lower than we’re already accustomed to for those of us using the Corei5/Corei7 setups. This ram will run at 1866Mhz but it will do this running at only 1.25v, but it’s timings are a bit looser than other kits of the same speed. In my testing though I put the LoVo kit up against another ‘regular’ kit of HyperX that runs tighter timings and found that even though the timings of the LoVo kit were looser the performance was virtually the same.
Specifications:
Kingston HyperX LoVo 4GB 1866MHz DDR3 Ram
Kingston now offers LoVo, or Low Voltage memory, ideal for users who can benefit from lower power and reduced heat. LoVo modules also lower ambient noise to give users a better HTPC experience. Once installed, all it takes is a few clicks to enable XMP low voltage settings.
KHX1866C9D3LK2/4GX*
4GB 1866MHz Kit of 2 for XMP – Profile 1 – low voltage
Latency timings: 9-9-9-27
Voltage: 1.35V
* Limited availability.
Kingston’s KHX1866C9D3LK2/4GX is a kit of two 256M x 64-bit 2GB (2048MB) DDR3-1866 CL9 SDRAM (Synchronous DRAM) low voltage memory modules, based on sixteen 128M x 8-bit DDR3 FBGA components per module. Total kit capacity is 4GB. Each module kit supports Intel XMP (Extreme Memory Profiles). Each module kit has been tested to run at DDR3-1866 CL9-9-9-27-2T at 1.35V (Profile #1) and DDR3-1600 CL9-9-9-27-2T at 1.25V (Profile #2). The SPDs are programmed to JEDEC standard latency DDR3-1333Mhz timing of 9-9-9 at 1.5V. Each 240-pin DIMM uses gold contact fingers and requires +1.5V. The JEDEC standard electrical and mechanical specifications are as follows:
FEATURES:
-JEDEC standard 1.5V ± 0.075V Power Supply
-VDDQ = 1.5V ± 0.075V
-667MHz fCK for 1333Mb/sec/pin
-8 independent internal bank
-Programmable CAS Latency: 6,7,8,9
-Posted CAS
-Programmable Additive Latency: 0, CL – 2, or CL – 1 clock
-Programmable CAS Write Latency(CWL) = 7(DDR3-1333)
-8-bit pre-fetch
-Burst Length: 8 (Interleave without any limit, sequential with starting address “000” only), 4 with tCCD = 4 which does not allow seamless read or write [either on the fly using A12 or MRS]
-Bi-directional Differential Data Strobe
-Internal(self) calibration : Internal self calibration through ZQ pin (RZQ : 240 ohm ± 1%)
-On Die Termination using ODT pin
-Average Refresh Period 7.8us at lower then TCASE 85°C, 3.9us at 85°C < TCASE . 95°C
-Asynchronous Reset
-PCB : Height 1.180” (30.00mm), double sided component
PERFORMANCE:
CL(IDD): 9 cycles
Row Cycle Time (tRCmin): 49.5ns (min.)
Refresh to Active/Refresh Command Time (tRFCmin): 110ns
Row Active Time (tRASmin): 36ns (min.)
Power (operating per module): 2.160 W (DDR3-1333 @ standard 1.5V)
Unboxing:
Hyper X Ram is usually Blue, but this new LoVo ram is green. It comes in a plastic package and has an identifying label on it.
Installation, Performance, Comparison
Here it is installed with my Corei5 750 on an Asus P7P55D LE Motherboard. I also have an XFX ATI 4890 video card installed. The ram has a small profile so it should fit fine with any CPU Cooler.
The only other DDR3 ram I have on hand is another 4gb set of Kingston Hyper X 1600, so that’s what i put the LoVo up against.
Now these are both Hyper X kits technically, but for the sake of the review and labeling of the charts we’ll call the blue kit ‘HyperX’ and the green kit ‘LoVo’.
This LoVo set runs at 1866Mhz, but the HyperX set run at 1600Mhz, so I lowered the clock speed a bit for comparison, and then I clocked it back up to the 1866Mhz, and then I did a bit of overclocking and got the LoVo up to 2000Mhz actually running at Cas8, but with a slight voltage bump. I couldn’t get the LoVo to run at Cas8 at stock speeds unless I upped the voltage, which kind of defeats the purpose of running at low voltage.
For all of the testing I tried to keep the clock speed of the CPU the same or close to it as possible so we were just testing the differences between the ram.
Here’s CPU-Z shots for all of the settings.
I used the BIOS and the XMP settings for the ram, with just adjusting the multiplier of the CPU to get the CPU back down to similar speeds, as close as it could get.
HyperX @1600:
LoVo @1600:
LoVo @1866:
LoVo @2000:
The HyperX blue kit runs at Cas8 with 1T, while the HyperX LoVo kits runs at Cas9 with 2T, so I was curious to see if these timings had much of an impact when the kits were running at the same speeds.
So let’s start off with Super Pi calculation to 1 Million places, lower is better of course. For this test I used Hyper Pi, and the result in the chart is the average time.
Even with both sets running at 1600 the LoVo seems a bit better, but we’re talking a very slight difference.
Cinebench 11.5 is out now so I used that for testing, but I also have results for Cinebench 10 shown as well. I started my testing with Cinebench 10 then realized I had Cinebench 11.5, but I figured why not just continue the testing..
Here’s the information from the Cinebench site as to what the results mean:
Main Processor Performance (CPU)
The test scenario uses all of your system’s processing power to render a photorealistic 3D scene (from the viral "No Keyframes" animation by AixSponza). This scene makes use of various different algorithms to stress all available processor cores.
In fact, CINEBENCH can measure systems with up to 64 processor threads. The test scene contains approximately 2,000 objects containing more than 300,000 total polygons and uses sharp and blurred reflections, area lights and shadows, procedural shaders, antialiasing, and much more. The result is given in points (pts). The higher the number, the faster your processor.
Graphics Card Performance (OpenGL)
This procedure uses a complex 3D scene depicting a car chase (by renderbaron) which measures the performance of your graphics card in OpenGL mode. The performance depends on various factors, such as the GPU processor on your hardware, but also on the drivers used. The graphics card has to display a huge amount of geometry (nearly 1 million polygons) and textures, as well as a variety of effects, such as environments, bump maps, transparency, lighting and more to evaluate the performance across different disciplines and give a good average overview of the capabilities of your graphics hardware. The result given is measured in frames per second (fps). The higher the number, the faster your graphics card.
So here’s the results for Cinebench 11.5:
Here we see the LoVo and is a bit slower than the HyperX at 1600 Speeds, but as expected as the speeds go up so does the scoring.
No chart for Cinebench 10, here’s the results for OpenGl and screen shots:
LoVo @ 1600: 8031
HyperX @1600: 8030
LoVo @ 1866: 8148
LoVo @ 2000: 8653
The results for both kits running at 1600Mhz are very close. Running the LoVo @2000 with Cas8 @1T though we see a very nice increase in score.
For the final three tests I used SiSoft Sandra 2010 portable USB Edition.
First is Cache and Memory Test:
Benchmark the processors’ caches and memory access (transfer speed).
Results Interpretation
Cache/Memory Bandwidth (MB/s) – higher results are better, i.e. faster memory bandwidth.
Speed Factor (MB/s) – lower results are better, i.e. less difference between processor cache speed and memory speed.
It looks like the lower timings of the HyperX kit do make a slight difference when running at the 1600Mhz speed. As expected though as the speed goes up the results get better.
Next is the Memory Bandwidth test:
Benchmark the memory bandwidth of your computer
Results Interpretation
Integer Memory Bandwidth (MB/s) – higher results are better, i.e. faster memory bandwidth.
Float Memory Bandwidth (MB/s) – higher results are better, i.e. faster memory bandwidth.
Running at 1600Mhz the kits are very close.
Finally we have the
Memory Latency Test:
Benchmark the latency (response time) of processors’ caches and memory
The latency of caches is measured in processor clocks (i.e. how many clocks it takes for the data to be ready) as it is dependent on the processor clock speed.
The latency of memory is measured in nanoseconds as it is typically independent on processor clock speed.
Results Interpretation:
Latency: Lower is better
Speed Factor: Lower is better
Same results again here, they’re very close even though the HyperX Blue kit is running at tighter timings.
Overall I’d have to say the LoVo kit is impressive, giving similar results even though the timings are looser.
After I was done with testing I mixed the ram together and am now running all 8gigs in my system with no issues. I’m running them at the Cas9 2T settings at 1333Mhz actually to coincide with the stock speed of the Corei5 750. Doesn’t have nothing to do with the review really, but I just though I’d toss that out there.. 
Conclusion:
This a low voltage kit of ram, but what does that mean in the grand scheme of things? Not that much really, especially if you want to overclock your system. When you’re overclocking your system you don’t necessarily care about lower voltages. IT should be noted though that even running at the lower voltages and looser timings the LoVo kit performed better or very close to the regular Hyper X kit running at a higher voltage and tighter timings, which of course is a good thing.
The low voltage part comes in of course when you want to run a lower power system, maybe something like in your office or an HTPC but don’t want to sacrifice performance. The Kingston HyperX LoVo kit performs very well at a lower voltage, and still provides decent performance. It’s a kit that I’m impressed with truly. It does overclock a bit and you can easily run it at tighter timings if you wished to.
You can run it at the normal voltages and tighten the timings and expect slightly better results than a standard kit, so it’s value is two-fold really. Those wanting a lower power kit can utilize the LoVo, or those wanting a good performing kit can still use it and expect good results with both timings and overclocking.
Pros:
+Low voltage
+Short profile
+Decent performance
+Can be overclocked/ run tighter timings
+Similar performance to a kit with tighter timings
Cons:
-None really
Ratings
Overall: 5 out of 5
Performance: 5 out of 5
Aesthetic: 5 out of 5
Build Quality: 5 out of 5
Disclosure: http://www.bonafidereviews.com/disclosure-policy/
