Kingston FURY Beast RGB UDIMM 16GB Kit, DDR4-3200, CL16-18-18, 1RX8

From the moment we saw this kit while having flashbacks to other solutions with similar names, under a different brand, Kingston made the right move after selling the widely known name of the majority of their gear aimed at the mainstream gaming crowd. If we were in their shoes, we would do the same thing, rebrand the hell out of the offerings, and stay as relevant as possible. With our Fury Beast RGB, we did get a stunning-looking product, with all sorts of styling and visual cues to keep even the most discerning eye busy. The diffuser bar does a great job of eliminating hot spots while still allowing for good intensity levels. The black brushed aluminum on top of black PCBs is a nice touch, leaving the Fury name exposed from the heat spreader. Keeping with Samsung ICs is also nice, even if they are D-die. Many customers trust the IC manufacturer, and so that is another plus. On paper, the Fury Beast RGB seems ready, willing, and capable, which they are, but not in the ways we expected. The biggest issue we see overall is the placement in our charts. Out of eighteen charts, there are only five or six times where if we were Kingston, we would be proud of what we put out, compared to the similar kits in our charts. Let us do the math for you. That is a 33% success rate in all of our testing. When we look at things like that, it takes the ending of a review out of our hands. As much as we could go on and on about how slick these look, and there are multiple XMP/DOCP profiles, there is some flexibility to play around with overclocking. With or without the FURY CTRL software, there is no RGB mode or thermal reading that will change the fact that if you want bang for the buck when it comes to performance, this is not the kit to do that. Keep in mind that we realize that many kits released this late in the DDR4 game will no longer have the choicest ICs. Still, there is an expected level customers want at 3200 MHz CAS16 sticks, and we feel these do not deliver what is expected from a kit with these specifications. There is yet one last nail to help seal this box for Kingston: the cost. As we mentioned earlier, there is a lot to love visually, but is that worth a 30% increase in price over another comparable kit? That $65 range is hot right now for RGB 3200 C16 kits of DDR4, and with everything we have seen here, we see no real reason to want to spend more for this kit over another. As much as we wanted this to be a runaway success for Kingston, it appears not to be the case, and if our money were going into DDR4 at this time, we would look for another option.