HIKVISION U10 2x16GB 3200MHz – is it worth buying?

When looking for information on these RAM modules, you may be surprised. They are virtually unknown and difficult to find and buy. Meanwhile, it is quite an interesting proposition that offers good performance for a reasonable price. The manufacturer of this equipment is HIKVISION. You may associate it primarily with a company that has been selling smart IP cameras, NVR and DVR recorders for years. Its headquarters are in Hangzhou, China, and since 2014, an office has also been opened in Warsaw. Recently, the company has expanded its activities also in other sectors of the market, investing heavily in research and development. This is how we got to the topic of today’s review, the DDR4 HIKVISION U10 2×16 GB (dual channel) memory clocked at 3200 MHz.

 

 

The modules come in various capacities and are clocked at 3200 MHz. In my case, these are two, 16 GB each, which will work in two channels. They are not sold in a set, but you can easily combine them into a dual channel mode. The latency is CL16 and the voltage used by the memories is 1.20V.

There are three series of modules on sale. The one marked with u1 are the one without cooling and with a lower speed. The U10 series modules I have tested are faster and are passively cooled with a heat sink. In turn, the U100 series have the same parameters as the U10, they differ mainly with the backlight.

The manufacturer hid module in a rather stiff plastic box, which is an insert of a cardboard box. However, we will not find much information about it, neither on the box, in the manual, nor even on the manufacturer’s website. This is an element that should be changed as soon as possible. 

 

 

It is worth paying attention to another thing – modules are covered by the manufacturer’s lifetime warranty. If they are damaged, we can count on a refund or exchange for new ones. I used to use such a warranty from another manufacturer and it works quite well.

HIKVISION U10 DDR memories use a DIMM connector and are covered with a metal heat sink. In this particular case it is purple in color. They are not too extensive, which I quickly appreciated by mounting them in the 2nd and 4th slots of the motherboard. However, compared to the Patriots, they look quite poor.

Interestingly, the manufacturer decided not to use the popular LED backlight. Thus, it was able to provide a little lower price.

In my case, the HIKVISION DDR4 joined two already established Patriots, which I connected as 2×16 GB dual channel (also CL16, 3200 MHz). These have been working at full speed without any problems.

I tested the memory with CPU-Z, AIDA64 Extreme and Speccy. At the same time, rummaging in the settings in the bios, I decided to slightly tweak my Ryzen 3900X. I tested the stability with a 5-minute Cinebench stress test. HIKVISION easily started on the XMP-3200 profile with CL16-20-20-40 timings at 1.350V. By the way, I was tempted to raise the processor clock from 3.8 GHz to 12×4.25 GHz in the mode of using all cores at once, keeping about 71 degrees max with a five-minute test in Cinebench.  

 

 

The timings are not bad, but also not impressive, taking into account my existing Patriots, which are cheaper and achieve a result about 10-15% better. Considering the cost of one 16 GB HIKVISION 3200 MHz module, which at the time of writing this review is PLN 340 (USD~65), it is difficult to call these modules a budget ones.