Kingston HyperX FURY 4GB 1600MHz DDR3 CL10 DIMM - Black (HX316C10FB/4)

First things first. The shipping (because the shipping is obviously a critical part of the Amazon experience). I ordered this from antonline because their feedback seemed so overwhelmingly positive. I didn't really expect the shipping to be all that fast (especially for free shipping) and it wasn't. It took several days. Which is not terrible (in the context of the fact that Amazon orders seem to be taking longer and longer these days).The problem was the tracking. It was fairly accurate in when it said it was going to be here but it was also pretty vague. For a few days, it just said "Shipped" and "In transit" or something like that. I had no clue where it shipped from or where on earth it was. I could only use the vague estimate of "It'll probably be there sometime between these five days" to try and know when to be ready for it.And I mean, let's be honest here. This isn't a pack of socks. This is a delicate computer part. It's not terribly expensive but it's 40 bucks. It's not the kind of thing you want to play around with.Well, OK. So, at the end, it took about 4 days and Amazon's tracking info didn't really give me any specific details of exactly where it was until the very last day when it was out for delivery. If I hadn't been home that day, I would have obviously missed the delivery.SO......the product itself? Seems fine. I'm not super knowledgeable about RAM or specs or any of that. But here is my basic system (for reference).Motherboard - Gigabyte G1 Sniper A88X (With the latest F11 BIOS)APU - AMD A10 7860KSamsung 850 Evo SSDSeasonic 550 watt Gold PSUThe memory I was replacing was 6 gigs of generic Kingston 1600 RAM that came with a system I bought years ago. Much was made of the fact that you should just be able to pop this HyperX Fury in and have your BIOS change all the settings for you. Which is true (kinda). It did indeed show up as 1866 RAM as soon as I rebooted.However, I wasn't all that sure I was getting better performance. In fact, something about the system seemed a bit laggy. I thought this was probably just my imagination but I started looking around in the BIOS. I noticed the Northbridge frequency was set at 1600. I started doing some benchmarks just to see if I could see any performance drop and I did notice that it said the RAM was slower than it should be.I debated whether or not to risk raising the northbridge frequency as I had heard somewhere that it should be at least equal to your RAM speed. I don't know where I read that and couldn't find it again when I was looking for it. But I finally tried it and the benchmark scores definitely went up for the RAM. So I can only assume that you will not get the advertised speed out of this RAM if your northbridge frequency remains at 1600 (Someone please comment on this and let me know if I'm right or wrong here).Of course this site I was using for benchmarks was comparing my scores to those everyone else was getting with the same RAM. It is likely most of those people were overclocking their systems to the max. Still, the RAM scores I was getting right out of the gate were well below what seemed normal and they jumped considerably when I changed the northbridge to 1900.I even tried reloading the optimized defaults for my motherboard so the BIOS would automatically choose the settings for the APU and RAM. The northbridge frequency auto set itself to 1600 on this MB. So I don't really know if this is correct to change this setting. Don't take my word for it because I don't know anything, really. Just that I got significantly better scores when I changed the freauency. I did not change the frequency for the RAM, as I wanted to see if the northbridge setting seemed to be the bottleneck and it appears to be.

This RAM is perfect for my application. I was running an AMD A10-7800 (3.5 - 3.9 GHz) with embedded Radeon R7 GPU and an 8GB module of single channel, 1600MHz, CL11, 1.35V value-RAM, and I wanted to add an 8GB module to get to 16GB. However, I have read that AMD APUs with embedded GPUs, work better with dual channel RAM (double bandwidth, 128 vs 64 bit), but that requires matched modules. Also, mismatched memory typically runs at it's worst value (lowest speed, highest CL, single channel, never mix different voltages). I found my motherboard would handle 1866MHz but there were no memory adjustments available in the BIOS. When I saw this RAM on sale for under $70 it looked too good to be true - higher speed, lower CL, dual channel, PnP, low profile heat spreaders. So I gave it a try. Results: I am really impressed with this memory. The PnP feature of this RAM was perfect (no BIOS adjustments required). After easy installation, CPU-Z showed the RAM clocked at 1866MHZ, CL10, 128 bit, 1.5V, dual channel mode. My overall benchmark score improved 25% & my graphics score improved 40%. My 3D modelling rotations are now completely fluid. I can now move between multiple open tabs on the internet very quickly (with background graphics running). All videos are smooth with no noticeable jitter. My Windows 10 system boots up and shuts down faster. My system is running very stable with this RAM (ie no system hang-ups, no unexplained re-boots, no BSOD). The heat spreaders on these modules are attractive, sturdy, low profile, and are not hot-to-the-touch while running. I have been using this RAM heavily for only 2 days so I cannot speak to long-term reliability, but the Kingston's life-time warranty allays any reliability concerns (keep receipt of purchase). However, just to be sure, I will keep my old 8GB module in an ESD bag just in case I ever need to send the new modules back for a warranty replacement.Note: This RAM will automatically set itself to the highest speed allowed by the motherboard and CPU (up to 1866MHz). So if it only runs at 1600 or 1333 MHz in a given system, that is a CPU/motherboard limit, not a limit of this RAM. I have read that this memory will be stable when over-clocked up to 2400MHz, but that may require a slight voltage increase which I am unable to do in my BIOS.Summary: I would highly recommend the Kingston HyperX Fury 16GB memory upgrade kit to anyone who has a DDR3 system with embedded GPU (graphics share system memory). AMD APU users should find the most benefit but those with Intel CPUs with embedded GPUs should also fare well.