Kingston's enthusiast-level drive comes with
an enthusiast-level price, at $for a 240GB 5SD and $2.08 per gigabyte - pricier
than three of this month's other contenders.
For that money, though, Kingston has put
together an extremely enticing SSD. The SandForce 2281 controller is one of the
most popular around, for good reason, and the 25nm MLC NAND memory modules are
more efficient - on paper, at least - when compared to the 32nm chips used in
the Corsair Performance Series Pro.
Kingston has also gone the extra mile when
it comes to the extras included in the box. There's a 2.5" to 3.5”
adapter, which is included with most SSDs and is vital for installing the drive
into a desktop PC. There's also an enclosure for using the drive as an external
peripheral, both SATA and USB 2.0 cables, and even a small screwdriver for
installing the drive. It's this month's most generous selection of accessories.
Performance was impressive too. Its
500.9MB/S result in our large file write test is the equal of the Corsair and
only a little behind this month's best performers and again its result of
326.8MB/s in the large file read benchmark is among the fastest on test.
Results in our small file tests were more mediocre: a small file write score of
163.8MB/S is only quicker than the Patriot Pyro SE, and a small file read
result of 29.7MB/S is slower than two other drives.
These mixed results continued in AS SSD.
Its sequential write result of 243.13MB/s is squarely in the middle of this
month's drives, and 72.4MB/S in the 4K-64 file write test is also slower - the
Corsair, for instance, ran through the same test at 152.64MB/S. The Kingston
was more impressive in the sequential read test, with a high score of
516.85MB/S, but it still wasn't the quickest - that honour belongs to the OCZ
Vertex 3, which ran through the same test at 518.12MB/S.
Our third set of benchmarks, PCMark 7's
storage tests, also returned mixed results. The Kingston's picture importing
score of 19.89MB/S was the best on test, but its video editing result of
21,73MB/s lags behind every other SSD here.
Kingston's HyperX certainly has plenty to
recommend it, not least the range of accessories. With its 2.5" to
3.5" adapter, SATA cable and even a screwdriver included in the box, it's one
of the only drives here that's truly ready to be installed and used from the
moment it's taken out of the box.
When it comes down to the important issue
of benchmarks, though, the HyperX is more difficult to recommend. While it
impressed in our standard file writing and reading tests, mediocre and middling
scores in both AS SSD and PCMark 7 mean other drives are both faster and more
consistent.
Combine the iffy performance with the high
price, then, and it's clear that this drive is just a little too expensive for
our liking. If its price-per-gigabyte was better, it would be worth considering
At the moment, it's just a tad too expensive.
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Details
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Capacity
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240GB (223GB formatted)
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Price
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$467 - ($2.08 per GB)
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Manufacturer
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Kingston
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Website
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www.kingston.com
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