Kingston have released their first SATA3 SSD under the HyperX brand. Boasting up to 525MB/s Read and 480MB/s transfer rates, is this the best SATA 3 SSD out there?
Product on Review: Kingston
Street Price: Approx. £400 inc. VAT GBP (At time of review
Kingston’s most recent product release just last week sees their very first SSD launch under the HyperX branding. HyperX being their premium label for enthusiasts, professionals and gamers. That isn’t all though, this is the first SSD by Kingston using the SATA3 interface. The HyperX SSD first appeared at CES 2011, at the beginning of the year but was only officially announced back in June – indicating that they were holding back and ensuring that the drive was perfect since Sandforce has had issues with Firmware in the past.
Kingston are obviously serious about the products they produce, not many companies would thoroughly test a product for some 8 months before launching. The HyperX brand is revered amongst many enthusiasts and it falls to Kingston to guarantee that their first SSD solution is one to cause plenty of publicity – for the good and not for the bad.
So, the HyperX SSD is available in two different size capacities – 120GB and 240GB. Both using the Sandforce SF-2281 Controller, something used in an assortment of popular SSDs such as the OCZ Vertex 3, Patriot Pyro and Corsair Force 3 series. Today’s product under review is of course highly anticipated, carrying the HyperX reputation it has a lot to live up to.
Kingston’s HyperX® SSD combines the latest SandForce® controller technology with premium NAND Flash, reducing load times while increasing performance and endurance. It provides high-speed SATA Rev. 3.0 (6 Gb/s) transfer speeds for larger bandwidth, which power users require for advanced gaming, multitasking and multimedia computing power. Kingston’s HyperX SSD lets users load games and applications faster, increase frames per second (FPS) and quickly transfer and edit large media files. It’s cool, silent and requires less power and no additional cooling requirements.
Features
• SandForce controller technology
• High-speed SATA Rev. 3.0 (6 Gb/s) transfer speeds
• Performance — incredible speeds for advanced gaming, multitasking, and multimedia computing power
• Reliable — much less likely to fail than a standard hard drive
• Shock-Resistant — dropping your notebook no longer means losing your data
• Cool & Quiet — runs silent and with no moving mechanical parts to generate heat
• Innovative — uses NAND Flash memory components
• Supports S.M.A.R.T., TRIM and Garbage Collection
• Guaranteed — three-year Kingston® warranty, 24/7 tech support
Full Spefiications can be found here.
Packaging & Closer Look
The HyperX is presented in a graphically pleasing box. You are left in no doubt as to what’s inside or the features this SSD endorses. The sides have some details about features whilst the back has a depiction of what to expect in the bundle.
Enticing packaging draws in attention
Opening the box up we have a feature-packed bundle that leaves you equipped for getting the most out of your HyperX. The contents consist of:
• HyperX SSD
• SSD USB Enclosure – including USB to mini-USB cable
• 2.5” fitting tray – including screws
• SATA3 – 6Gbps cable
• Hardware installation tool
• CD – installation guide and Acronis HD cloning software
The bundle is full of useful items
Observing the actual SSD, we can see the HyperX has a brushed aluminium plate in the shape of an “X” with the HyperX and respective Kingston insignia’s in either corner. The HyperX logo is etched with a cut aluminium feel to it.
A brushed aluminium plate in the shape of an “X”
The front of the HyperX SSD
Turning our attention to the rear of the SSD there are the usual mounting holes for positioning this either in the provided bracket plate or within your computer case. There is a label on the back of the SSD with serial number, standards and capacity size. Of course being SATA3 we still use the same SATA connector as we would for SATA2 and again for the SATA power also.
The back of the HyperX
Testing Methodologies
At the moment our SSD database is only small but over the coming months it will expand. So to analyse The HyperX’s performance I will be comparing it against 1 x RevoDrive X2, 1 x SATAIII SSD – OCZ Agility 3, 2 x SATAII SSDs (Kingston V+ and Corsair F40) and a traditional 3.5″ Samsung Spinpoint 250GB HDD.
The system is formatted and a fresh version of Windows is installed with just drives in place – no additional applications. Windows is then updated to the latest release. Included in the list of benchmarks are the following applications:
ATTO Disk Benchmark v2.46
AIDA64
CrystalDiskMark 3.0
Iometer
SiSoftware SANDRA
Windows 7 Boot Time Test
Test system
CPU Intel Core i5 2500K
Motherboard ASUS P8P67
Graphics ZOTAC GTX 480 AMP!
Memory 4GB Kingston HyperX Genesis CL9 1600MHz
HDD
– Kingston HyperX 240GB
– OCZ Agility 3 240GB
– OCZ RevoDrive X2 240GB
– Kingston V+ 128GB
– Corsair F40 40GB
– Samsung Spinpoint 250GB SATA-II
PSU OCZ 750W Fatal1ty
OS Microsoft Windows 7 Professional 64-Bit
Synthetic Benchmarks: ATTO Disk Benchmark v2.46
“The ATTO Disk Benchmark performance measurement tool is compatible with Microsoft Windows. Measure your storage systems performance with various transfer sizes and test lengths for reads and writes. Several options are available to customize your performance measurement including queue depth, overlapped I/O and even a comparison mode with the option to run continuously. Use ATTO Disk Benchmark to test any manufacturers RAID controllers, storage controllers, host adapters, hard drives and SSD drives and notice that ATTO products will consistently provide the highest level of performance to your storage.”
Synthetic Benchmarks: AIDA64
AIDA64 is an industry leading system diagnostics and benchmarking solution for enthusiasts PC users, based on the award-winning AIDA64 Technology. During system optimizations and tweaking it provides essential system and overclock information, advanced hardware monitoring and diagnostics capabilities to check the effects of the applied settings. CPU, FPU and memory benchmarks are available to measure the actual system performance and compare it to previous states or other systems.
Synthetic Benchmarks: CrystalDiskMark 3.0
CrystalDiskMark is a disk benchmark software that analyses different types of hard drive. Giving sequential benchmark write and read statistics in MB/s. A simple program that is very useful.”
Synthetic Benchmarks: Iometer
Iometer is based on a client–server model, where one instance of the Iometer graphical user interface is managing multiple ‘workers’ (each one representing a separate Dynamo.exe process) which are doing the I/O. Iometer performs Asynchronous I/O – accessing files or block devices (later one allowing to bypass the file system buffers).
Iometer allows the configuration of disk parameters such as the ‘Maximum Disk Size’, ‘Starting Disk Sector’ and ‘# of Outstanding I/Os’. This allows a user to configure a test file upon which the ‘Access Specifications’ configure the I/O types to the file.
Iometer allows the configuration of disk parameters such as the ‘Maximum Disk Size’, ‘Starting Disk Sector’ and ‘# of Outstanding I/Os’. This allows a user to configure a test file upon which the ‘Access Specifications’ configure the I/O types to the file.
For the purpose of this test. The 4K 50%/50% read/write file will be under the examination – reporting back on MBs per Second and Average Response Time.
Synthetic Benchmarks: SiSoftware SANDRA 2011
SiSoftware Sandra (the System ANalyser, Diagnostic and Reporting Assistant) is an information & diagnostic utility. It should provide most of the information (including undocumented) you need to know about your hardware, software and other devices whether hardware or software.
Sandra is a (girl) name of Greek origin that means “defender”, “helper of mankind”. We think that’s quite fitting.
It works along the lines of other Windows utilities, however it tries to go beyond them and show you more of what’s really going on. Giving the user the ability to draw comparisons at both a high and low-level. You can get information about the CPU, chipset, video adapter, ports, printers, sound card, memory, network, Windows internals, AGP, PCI, PCI-X, PCIe (PCI Express), database, USB, USB2, 1394/Firewire, etc.
Sandra is a (girl) name of Greek origin that means “defender”, “helper of mankind”. We think that’s quite fitting.
It works along the lines of other Windows utilities, however it tries to go beyond them and show you more of what’s really going on. Giving the user the ability to draw comparisons at both a high and low-level. You can get information about the CPU, chipset, video adapter, ports, printers, sound card, memory, network, Windows internals, AGP, PCI, PCI-X, PCIe (PCI Express), database, USB, USB2, 1394/Firewire, etc.
Real-world Benchmark – Win7 Boot
Synthetic testing is valuable in the examination of Solid State Drives. But some of the tests may not mean all that much to some readers so the final test in this review is a real world test showing the Windows 7 boot time.
In order to perform this test (and indeed all other benchmarks), a fresh install of Windows 7 Professional was installed on the HyperX – the image of this install with no additional applications or drivers was exported for importing onto each drive at the time of testing. This will provide a clean and fair environment for comparing the boot times on each of the drives. The times were monitored using a stopwatch.
In order to perform this test (and indeed all other benchmarks), a fresh install of Windows 7 Professional was installed on the HyperX – the image of this install with no additional applications or drivers was exported for importing onto each drive at the time of testing. This will provide a clean and fair environment for comparing the boot times on each of the drives. The times were monitored using a stopwatch.
Conclusion
With the introduction of SATA3 it has paved the way for price-drops on SATA2 SSDs, in many cases allowing you to invest in an SSD for less than £1 per GB – but those who demand the best transfer speeds 200MB/s just isn’t enough. SATA3 brings in superior transfer rates, although as a result this will cost you considerably more.
Kingston’s patience and fortitude has certainly paid off with the HyperX SSD it clearly showed its leadership with not only the SATA2 SSDs we have tested but also the OCZ Agility 3 that uses the same SATA3 interface and Sandforce controller. In almost every benchmark we reported a superior drive in the HyperX over the Agility 3.
It’s immediately obvious from the benchmark results that the HyperX offers astounding performance transfer rates across the board. The Windows 7 boot-up time was also an impressive feat
The one aspect that may well leave consumers with a bitter taste in their mouth is the street price. The HyperX will cost you around £200 for the 120GB model whilst the 240GB model will cost around the £400 mark. The average consumer will still be satisfied with SATA2 transfer rates but those who class themselves as an enthusiast, demanding the best and settling for nothing less then the HyperX is undoubtedly an excellent choice.
The bottom line is: Kingston’s new HyperX SSDs are blisteringly fast and come with an attractive, useful upgrade kit – if you want the best it’s right here!
Pros
+ Looks great
+ Extremely fast transfer rates
+ TRIM support
+ Very useful upgrade kit
Cons
– Cost
+ Looks great
+ Extremely fast transfer rates
+ TRIM support
+ Very useful upgrade kit
Cons
– Cost
Click here for an explanation of our awards at Vortez.net.
