INTRODUCTION

   Regardless of what your priorities are when out in the market for a new DDR4 RAM kit 5 things always matter in the end, capacity/amount, frequency, cost, timings and of course looks (and probably in that order for most people). Personally, as I’ve pointed out a number of times in the past i may put extra weight on capacity but i do realize that not everyone's like me and so i always try my best to balance things when looking for new kits to review/test. To that end today with me i have one of the most popular dual-channel DDR4 RAM kits in the market today, the Fury RGB 32GB 3200MHz (HX432C16FB4AK232) by HyperX.

   HyperX is the gaming division of Kingston Technology Company, Inc., the world’s largest independent memory manufacturer, with the goal of providing gamers, PC builders, PC, console and mobile power users with high-performance components. For 16 years, the HyperX mission has been to develop gaming products for all types of gamers – high-speed memory, solid state drives, headsets, keyboards, mice, charging accessories for console players, USB flash drives, and mousepads – to the gaming community and beyond. The award-winning HyperX brand is known for consistently delivering products that deliver superior comfort, aesthetics, performance, and reliability. HyperX gear is the choice of celebrity ambassadors, pro gamers, tech enthusiasts, and over-clockers worldwide because it meets the most stringent product specifications and is built with best-in-class components. HyperX has shipped over 70 million memory modules, 10 million gaming headsets and one million keyboards worldwide.

   As already mentioned in one of my past reviews the Fury RGB line of DDR4 modules by HyperX is XMP 2.0 certified and is currently available in 8/16GB single, 16/32GB dual and 32/64/128GB quad-channel kits with frequencies all the way up to 3733MHz (2400/2666/3000/3200MHZ/3466/3600/3733MHz), CAS latency timings set as low as 15 (2400/2666/3000MHz CL15 - 2666/3200/3466MHz CL16 - 3600MHz CL17 - 3733MHz CL19) and voltages up to 1.35v (2400/2666MHz 1.2v - 3000/3200/3466/3600/3733MHz 1.35V). Between the low-profile black heatspreaders HyperX has placed single rank 16GB A-Die memory chips by Hynix (for this specific kit - some of the kits have memory chips by Micron and perhaps others), their very own patent-pending infrared sync technology (ensures that the selected RGB effect is in sync with every module of the kit) and a RGB LED bar with a total of 8 effects and full compatibility with all the popular mainboard sync technologies (including ASUS AURA Sync, GIGABYTE RGB Fusion, MSI Mystic Light Sync and ASRock RGB Sync). Typically, HyperX covers the entire Fury RGB line of DDR4 RAM with a limited lifetime warranty.

SPECIFICATIONS AND FEATURES

THE FURY RGB 32GB DDR4 3200MHZ CL16 KIT

The kit arrived inside a plastic blister package held together by a red tape on which we find the product serial number and barcode.

A small case badge and the warranty and installation guide are placed in the package.

For their Fury RGB line of DDR4 modules HyperX has used black aluminum heatspreaders which have their logo and product line name on one side and a small sticker containing the serial number, frequency, timings and voltage requirement on the other.

To showcase the low profile heatspreaders (41.24mm top to bottom) i placed the Fury RGB right next to the Crucial Ballistix Gaming and Neo Forza MARS modules.

The plastic LED bar at the top has the HyperX logo on it (unfortunately i don't know the exact number of LEDs beneath it).

Here you can see just how the modules look on the Z390 DARK.

Here you can see what the popular Thaiphoon burner software reports about our Fury RGB DDR4 kit.

NGENUITY SOFTWARE

The NGENUITY Beta can be install via the Microsoft Store and so once you launch it will detect compatible hardware.

In case it doesn't detect your RAM, you will need to go into the settings menu and enable memory support as seen above.

Once you do that you will be able to select the RAM and adjust its RGB effects (for some strange reason only the rainbow effect could be selected - perhaps due to the fact that the Z390 DARK doesn't support RGB?).

You can also adjust the speed and brightness levels of the effects.

TEST BED

TESTING METHODOLOGY

   Thanks to XMP (2.0) profiles the only thing one needs to do in order to run this RAM kit at its advertised frequency, timings and voltages is to choose/enable it from within the Bios and reboot. That being said if you're into overclocking you may not wish to use the main XMP profile but instead to choose your very own frequency, timings and voltages to achieve even higher performance numbers and that's exactly what we'll also be doing during our DDR4 tests. To be more specific aside testing each kit with its XMP profile we will also be upping the voltages (up to 1.4V max – even though most kits can function at higher voltages I don’t recommend doing so) and frequencies (200MHZ increments) until we find the maximum achievable stable frequency. We also thought about upping voltages and reducing timings instead of increasing the frequency of the modules as high as it can go (always stable and without going over 1.4V) but the end results are pretty much identical.

   As for the how we'll be testing each DDR4 Quad/Dual-Kit to arrive in our lab well there aren't that many benchmark programs that only test RAM (or at least RAM and CPU without anything else coming into play) but we got most of them and so you will be seeing results from following benchmarking programs, AIDA64 Engineer Edition, Cinebench Release 20, MaxMemm2 (because we are getting low performance numbers this doesn't seem to play well with our test rig - probably because of the X299 architecture - but we decided to include it regardless), Passmark Performance Test 9, Sisoftware Sandra Titanium and WPrime v1.55. All tests are performed on a fresh Windows 10 Pro installation (complete with all updates until the day of this review) and are repeated a total of 6 times after which the average numbers get recorded into our charts.

* In addition to Quad-Channel tests since March 2020 I’ll also be using the brand new Z390 test rig (check above) for Dual-Channel RAM tests.
** Since May 2020 three game benchmarks (Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, GEARS 5 and Metro Exodus tested on the X299 system at 1080p resolution and with the ASUS ROG RTX2060 OC set at Gaming Mode) have also been added in the charts.

TEST RESULTS - XMP PROFILE / DUAL CHANNEL

TEST RESULTS - OVERCLOCK / DUAL CHANNEL

By just upping the voltage to 1.37V I got to 3400MHz with the default timings while at 1.39V I got up to 3600MHz which is not bad at all (even higher this kit should be able to hit 3800MHz).

CONCLUSION

   Just like with the 64GB quad-channel kit I reviewed last year the 32GB dual-channel kit of today’s review performed very well both at default and OC speeds. Yes, it may not be the fastest kit out there (especially now with some 5GHz ones making their debut) but it does represent a good choice for people who either don’t have motherboards that support speeds over 4GHz or who simply don’t care about frequencies. On top of that the low-profile heatspreaders ensure that you will have no issues with most components like CPU coolers (air and liquid). As for the RGB lighting well it may not have worked properly with the Z390 DARK but even the rainbow effect looks nice, especially compared to modules that have none (if you want more detail on the RGB settings of the NGENUITY software you can always check my 64GB quad-channel review here).

   It’s no secret that the lack of availability combined with high demand have resulted in prices skyrocketing recently and this is especially evident in the electronics market. Luckily RAM prices haven’t increased that much but still with a price tag currently set at USD191.99 inside the USA (Amazon.com) and at 185.90Euros inside the EU (Amazon.de) the Fury RGB 32GB DDR4 3200MHz CL16 kit by HyperX is just a tad more expensive than expected. Price aside however (since I don’t expect the current state of the market to last that long) this is a fast, good looking kit with good OC potential and low-profile heatspreaders and that’s why it gets the Golden Award.

PROS

- Build Quality
- Top RGB LED Bar (AURA Sync, GIGABYTE RGB Fusion, MSI Mystic Light Sync & ASRock RGB Sync Compatible)
- NGENUITY Software (8 Available Lighting Effects)
- Overall Performance (Up To 3600MHz CL16)
- Short Heat Spreaders (Reduced Possibility of Clearance Issues)
- Limited Lifetime Warranty

CONS

- Current Price (For Some)
- NGENUITY Software (Windows 10 Only / Motherboard Incompatibilities?)