The HyperX Beast 2,400mhz memory is certainly a product that will strengthen Kingston's standing in the enthusiast sector.
Their move to a new black heatspreader can only be seen as positive, it is considerably smaller than their hugely oversized blue heatspreader adopted on many gaming grade products in recent years.
That said, the HyperX Beast heatspreader is still a little taller than similar designs adopted on competing products from G.Skill or Patriot, meaning some people with hugely oversized CPU coolers may still avoid the Kingston HyperX Beast.
Performance from this memory is commendable, particularly if you are going to be using the preconfigured XMP profile @ 2,400mhz. Kingston have also added an extra XMP profile as a safety precaution @ 2,133mhz just in case of potential incompatibility with slightly lower grade motherboards.
HyperX Beast timings may seem a little loose overall, but we can't say that performance was significantly impacted. The results are actually some of the best we have achieved to date.
The hardcore overclocking audience may want to look elsewhere as there is little headroom for manual performance tweaks. We did manage to get the memory stable at 2,524mhz although the timings needed to be loosened a little further which had a slightly negative impact on overall performance.
Kingston have clearly fine tuned this product to the limit of performance making it ideal for a wide user base. Hard core overclockers however may want to look at alternative options, such as G.Skill TridentX memory, which has hit well over 3,000mhz, or even the budget priced Samsung Green which can overclock to 2,800mhz with the right motherboard.
The buying decision has to be predominately based around the cost, and Amazon are currently selling 8GB of Kingston HyperX Beast for only £44.69 inc vat. At this price, there is no question it is exceptionally good value for money.
Pros:
- Heatspreader is an improvement.
- XMP profiles for both 2,133mhz and 2,400mhz.
- Great ‘out of box' performance.
Cons:
- Green PCB is ugly.
- very small overclocking headroom.
- loose timings
Kitguru says: A great memory kit at a very competitive price point. There is no shortage of competition for Kingston between £35 and £50 however.