Kingston HyperX 3K SSD 240Gb Review

Posted by Gilgamesh on May 20th, 2012

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Test Bed

EVGA P67 FTW Motherboard
i7 2600K CPU @ Stock Speed
G.SKill 8 Gb DDR3 1866 MHz F3-14900CL9D-8GBXL
EVGA Superclock CPU Cooler
PowerColor PCS+ HD7850 Video Card
OCZ ModStream Power Supply

Here is a screen shot with the AHCI driver information used for testing.

For comparison purposes we have four other SSDs. Three of these are SATA 6 Gps SSDs; OCZ Vertex 3, Vertex 3 Max IOPS, and a Crucial M4. The fourth comparison drive is a OCZ Vertex 2, a SATA 3 Gps SSD.

Before we get started with the benchmarks, I ran BootTimer.exe. The Boot Timer utility measures the time between the moment the system BIOS hands over the boot process to Windows and reaching the desktop. I got a sub 8 second time using Windows 7 Pro 64 Bit.

The Windows Experience Index rated the Kingston HyperX 3K SSD at 7.9, the maximum score possible.

ATTO

Starting off the benchmarks, we’ll use ATTO 2.46, which measures your storage drive performance using various transfer sizes, and test lengths for reads and writes. The HyperX 3K did pretty well on the read test as the file size got bigger, but smaller sizes saw it fall behind the other SATA 6 Gps drives. The write test shows the HyperX 3K starting off strong and finishing at or near the top in each category.

AS SSD

Next up is the battery of AS SSD tests. The read tests again show the HyperX 3k hanging right in there with the other comparison drives, and taking charge on the 4K test. The Vertex 3 Max IOPS was barely ahead in the Sequential and 4K-64Thrd testing. Other than the 4K write speed, the HyperX 3K put the smack down on all the other drives here, and even the 4K test was a toss up with the Vertex 3 Max IOPS.

The AS SSD access time testing reveals very little difference between all the drives actually, except for the slow write access times recorded for the Vertex 3 and Crucial M4.

AS SSD also proves a scoring system based on the read/write test results. Because of the great write scores the HyperX 3K obtained, it also managed a win in the total score tally.

CrystalDiskMark

CrystalDiskMark was next on the list of benchmarks, we’ll use all three test options (random, 0fill, and 1fill). The random read and write testing shows the HyperX 3K besting all comers except for the Vertex 3 Max IOPS, but the difference was minimal at best. The write results confirm the pattern we have seen so far, the HyperX 3K is the best of the bunch when it comes to write testing.

Other than the 4K QD32 write test, it was a clean sweep for the HyperX 3K on the 0Fill read and write testing. The Crucial M4 and Vertex 3 Max IOPS managed a slight victory in the 4K QD32 run.

Rounding out the CrystalDiskMark testing is the 1Fill read/write results. On the read test, the 4K QD32 test was the only one the HyperX 3k lost out on to the Vertex 3 Max IOPS. Other than that the HyperX 3K scored the best on all the other tests. On the write testing, similar results were recorded with only the 4K QD32 losing out to the Crucial M4 and the Vertex 3 Max IOPS, everything else was top honors for the HyperX 3K.

IOMeter

The IOMeter testing results did not fare to well for the HyperX 3K when it came to the 4K IOPS testing side of things. The write IOPS results were not too bad, but the read 4K IOPS managed to only best the Crucial M4. The 2MB IOPS testing was a different story thankfully, as the HyperX 3K was right in line with the other three SATA 6 Gps drives.

The same story was true for the 4K transfer speed testing, the HyperX 3K did fine on the write testing, but was only ahead of the Crucial M4 on the read results. The 2MB transfer speed test was a clean sweep for the HyperX 3K other than the Vertex 3 on the read test.