Buying Ryzen? Confused about ram? Read here

[stealth80]

Hi, I guess many people (like me) are now moving to Ryzen builds and why not. As part of this I have noticed quite a LOT of questions regarding ram, what type, how fast and compatibility. Let me try and address a few of these questions and myths.

 

1. Compatibility -

 

Whenever a new platform is released, Ryzen, X99, Athlon 64 etc there is always issues with ram support. This is (not recently) not due to the ram itself, its basically due to brand new chipset, brand new CPU and bios's and CPU instruction needing development and testing across the different multitudes of build configurations. 

Ryzen is no different, when it released hardly anyone could get high ram speeds, this isn't due to bad ram etc, it's just the bios not mature enough and the instructions within the CPU not knowing how to deal with it. We are still at the point of Samsung B Die offering the best experience with Ryzen, but that is kinda expensive - for note, Samsung B die has pretty much 100% chance of being used in Ram kits of 3200mhz and CAS Latency of 14 and 3600mhz kits using CAS latency 16. Everything else is likely to be Hynix or another form of Samsung or Micron. 

Ok, so here's whats happened (and will keep happening) AMD release new codes/microcodes which are CPU improvements to Motherboard manufacturers in the form Agesa updates. You usually hear about them before hand via AMD Community updates:

 

https://community.amd.com/community/gaming/blog/2017/04/06/amd-ryzen-community-update-3     as an example

 

Once the board makers receive these updates, they then make a new bios to implement those improvements, they are available normally as a Beta/test bios before appearing on boards official download pages - also take note that flagship boards will receive the beta bios's first and will then trickle down to the mid and low level boards.

 

So why all this information? 

 

The last 2 Agesa updates (1005 and 1006) have offered massive ram compatibility and speed improvements. The most recent, Agesa 1006 now offers us speed support of upto 4000mhz! That doesn't mean we can run 4000mhz yet, remember it is still early days. 

 

So what is my point? Don't spend money on AMD Ryzen branded ram just because of compatibility concerns, pretty much all ram will work with Ryzen to some degree, what normally happens is it will default to 2133mhz until you play around with various settings. Also note that XMP is still hit and miss - it doesn't mean your ram isn't compatible, just means you need to configure it yourselt (more later)

 

As requested I have added some shortcuts to help people find the QVL for their boards

 

Asus 

 

Crosshair 6 Extreme

 

https://www.asus.com/uk/Motherboards/ROG-CROSSHAIR-VI-EXTREME/HelpDesk_QVL/

 

Crosshair 6 Hero

 

https://www.asus.com/uk/Motherboards/ROG-CROSSHAIR-VI-HERO/HelpDesk_QVL/

 

X370  Prime Pro

 

https://www.asus.com/uk/Motherboards/PRIME-X370-PRO/HelpDesk_QVL/

 

X370 RoG Strix F

 

https://www.asus.com/uk/Motherboards/ROG-STRIX-X370-F-GAMING/HelpDesk_QVL/

 

B350 Prime Plus

 

https://www.asus.com/uk/Motherboards/PRIME-B350-PLUS/HelpDesk_QVL/

 

 

AsRock

 

X370 Taichi

 

http://www.asrock.com/mb/AMD/X370 Taichi/index.us.asp#Memory

 

X370 Fatality Gaming X

 

http://www.asrock.com/mb/AMD/Fatal1ty X370 Gaming X/index.us.asp#Memory

 

X370 Fatality Gaming K4

 

http://www.asrock.com/mb/AMD/Fatal1ty X370 Gaming K4/index.us.asp#Memory

 

X370 Killer SLI

 

http://www.asrock.com/mb/AMD/X370 Killer SLI/index.us.asp#Memory

 

B350 Gaming K4

 

http://www.asrock.com/mb/AMD/Fatal1ty AB350 Gaming K4/index.us.asp#Memory

 

 

Gigabyte

 

X370 Gaming 5 Aorus

 

http://uk.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/GA-AX370-Gaming-5-rev-10#support-doc

 

X370 Gaming K7

 

http://uk.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/GA-AX370-Gaming-K7-rev-10#support-doc

 

X370 Gaming K5

 

http://uk.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/GA-AX370-Gaming-K5-rev-10#support-doc

 

AB350 Gaming 3

 

http://uk.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/GA-AB350-Gaming-3-rev-10#support-doc

 

 

MSI

 

X370 X Power Gaming Titanium

 

https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/support/X370-XPOWER-GAMING-TITANIUM.html#support-mem-2

 

X370 Pro Carbon

 

https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/support/X370-GAMING-PRO-CARBON.html#support-mem-2

 

X370 Gaming Plus

 

https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/support/X370-GAMING-PLUS.html#support-mem-2

 

X370 SLI Krait Gaming

 

https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/support/X370-KRAIT-GAMING.html#support-mem-2

 

B350M Mortar Arctic

 

https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/support/B350M-MORTAR-ARCTIC.html#support-mem-2

 

B350 Tomahawk Arctic

 

https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/support/B350-TOMAHAWK-ARCTIC.html#support-mem-2

 

B350 Gaming Plus

 

https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/support/B350-GAMING-PLUS.html#support-mem-2

 

 

That is most of the popular boards, it's pretty easy find your board from there if I haven't included it. If you feel your board is popular or you can't find the QVL, reply to this thread and I will update it with your board.

 

 

Next, 

 

2) Speed 

 

Don't try and save $$$/£££ off your build here guys  - Ram speed is really important to Ryzen, especially in gaming. A little info here: Ryzen is basically 2 cores/cpus build on board (really basic terms here) and communicate to each other over something called "infinity fabric" This communication lane operates at exactly half of your ram speed, faster ram = lower Infinity Fabric latency = more performance.

 

Want some figures? Today I ran RIse of the Tomb Raider benchmark at 1080P on my sig rig using both 2133mhz and 3333mhz ram speeds and here's the results:

 

2133mhz

 

 

3333mhz

 

 

As you can see, that is over 30% improvement right there! 

 

I can't get my ram to run any faster as it is using Hynix and is only rated for 3200mhz (for information - this ram is still not on the QVL for my board)

 

TL/DR - BUY THE FASTEST RAM YOU CAN AFFORD - I would happily stick with the wraith cooler for a month or so if it meant the difference between 2400mhz ram + an AIO or Wraith + 3600mhz ram!!

 

 

3) Ok I bought non QVL ram and it won't post above 2133mhz

 

Don't panic!

 

Take note of the timings of the ram from the sticks eg

 

16-18-18-38-2T (could be 2CR or 2N)

 

Ok so what you want to try and do is enter the timings manually, increase SOC voltage to 1.2v and DDR Voltage to 1.35v, manually set the next speed and reboot. If it works great, go back and do this again until you get to the point where it again fails to boot.

 

Here you have 2 options:

 

1) Stick with that speed. If it is equal to or better than what your ram is tested to aka 3000mhz ram and you got 3200mhz stable great! If it is below (which a lot of people are seeing) say 2666mhz or 2933mhz then you can either wait for more bios updates and try again or try a new beta bios or

 

2) Play more with your ram! So I have my own example here:

 

My ram fails XMP above 2933mhz for what ever reason. However by adding/changing some settings

 

SOC V - 1.25v

DDRV - 1.5V (this is over volting and is at your risk if you opt to do it)

loosen my timings from 16-18-18-38-2T to 20-20-20-40-2T

 

I'm now able to boot and run 3333mhz ram on my Trident Z RGB 3200mhz ram that isn't on the QVL for my board

 

 

4) I need more than 16gb, does this affect my desired speed?

 

Ok so now I given a basic understanding of the affects of ram speed and why it is important, lets talk about capacity, because at this time, it is directly related to the officially support ram speeds. Let me explain:

 

Here is the list of officially support ram speeds from AMD - This is the fastest you can go with zero overclocking, cause yes, when you push the ram to a higher speed, it is still overclocking the CPU which as you know, depends on silicon lottery/binning and how much voltage you're willing to apply to the CPU

 

DDR4 Speed (MT/s)	Memory Ranks	DIMM Quantities
2667	Single	2
2400	Dual	2
2133	Single	4
1866	Dual	4

 

So, as you can see, the best scenario at this time for the fastest ram is go with 2x single sided dims, aka 2x 8gb (although some 8gb sticks can be double sided, do your research) - this gives us our best shot at max speeds

 

if you need 32gb, then it is best to go for 2x 16gb sticks rather than 4x 8gb as it applies less stress to the IMC (internal Memory Controller) of the CPU and will allow faster speeds as you can see above.

 

Worst case scenario is 4x 16gb sticks (double sided dims) lowering the officially supported speed to 1866mhz 

 

Remember this is prior to overclocking - You may get 4x 16gb sticks and be able to hit 2933mhz, above that is rarely heard of at this time.

 

 

 

5) I bought the fastest ram I can afford and no matter what I do, it refuses to go any faster than X speed, even though its tested to 3600/4000 etc

 

Ok so lets assume you did everything above from point 3) and your 3600mhz ram still refuses to boot above for example 3333mhz. Now this could be due to the platform needing more updates (agesa) or plain and simple, a CPU limitation. Overclocking ram (above 2666mhz) is still CPU overclocking. As we know all CPU's have a ceiling for overclocking and it may just be the case that your particular chip is not capable of running that ram. Which is unfortunate, this is just something to keep in mind with ram speed expectations.

 

 

6) Ok smart arse, what ram do you recommend then for a more "pleasant" Ryzen experience?

 

Firstly - Try and avoid 16gb Sticks like the plague and I would also avoid using all 4 dimms until more updates are released.

As I have already said, go for the fastest ram you can afford. If you want to try and avoid as many of these problems as possible, then go for Samsung B Die, heres a list of RAM that is "Probably/high chance" aka not 100% guaranteed (LOL) to be Samsung B die:

 

3200mhz

 

https://pcpartpicker.com/products/memory/#s=403200&Z=16384002&L=140

 

3600mhz

 

https://pcpartpicker.com/products/memory/#Z=16384002&L=160&s=403600

 

4000mhz

 

https://pcpartpicker.com/products/memory/#Z=16384002&L=160,190&s=404000

 

There will be other Samsung B Kits out there, just do your research.

 

7) Ram tuning

 

AMD recently did some in house testing of different variables when choosing between different ram kits at 3200mhz and above - this included DR vs SR (double rank vs single rank), 1T vs 2T and various ram timings. It can be found here, please keep in mind that is at 3200mhz and above, is don't look to swap out frequency for latency at speeds less than that when buying your ram.

 

https://community.amd.com/community/gaming/blog/2017/07/14/memory-oc-showdown-frequency-vs-memory-timings

 

TLDR: SR, 1T CAS 14 3466mhz is the fastest on this test

 

 

 

8) So, X399 is here, is anything different? What ram is best? Does Capacity affect the max speed?

 

I will answer these questions as more information becomes available - keep in mind that the information I had for X370 was first hand as I have the platform and experience. X399 I will provide information from research as I think my wife would categorically castrate me if I swapped out my 3 month X370 system for an X399 rig!! 

 

1) At this time I can't find any testing of Threadripper at different ram speeds. The only information that I have come across is Game Mode - Which basically disables half of the CPU cares to reduce ram latency. The problem is, not every game is latency sensitive, some prefer cores - so it seems to be a little hit and miss as when and when not to use it.

 

 

http://www.pcworld.com/article/3214635/components-processors/ryzen-threadripper-review-we-test-amds-monster-cpu.html

 

Hope this helps

 

Stealth

 

 

[DocSwag]

Also just wanna mention the g skill 3000 MHz cl14 are also b die, and generally are $10-$20 less than the 3200 MHz cl14 ones  

[Guest]

This is much more detail than this imo

 

[Techicolors]

7 hours ago, stealth80 said:

Firstly - Try and avoid 16gb Sticks like the plague and I would also avoid using all 4 dimms until more updates are released.

why avoid 16gb sticks? are 8gb x 2 sticks fine? 

[stealth80]

4 hours ago, Technicolors said:

why avoid 16gb sticks? are 8gb x 2 sticks fine? 

at this time they just cause a lot more issues.

[tim11111111]

 

Micron  die chips are also getting worked on.

On some of the cheapest Crucial 2133mhz sticks, some people have Overlocked the memory(tweaking timing, voltage..) to 2933mhz which is a really good speed for ryzen albeit not the best (3666-4000mhz).

Here's and example of b350 tomahawk with ~30$ 4gb crucial ram OCed to 2933 on an april realeased  BIOS https://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?topic=285450.0

The ram is this one @ newegg https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIAD7H5EX2061

Whats your take with other RAM manufacturer other than Samsung? Do you think New agesa will allow good support to OC cheap ram like this without fancy "gamer" bling?

This board (asrock pro4) also also List crucial ECC memory on the QVL which is interesting to see on B350's.

Also is there any diminishing returns in your experience after going past 3200mhz?

[stealth80]

7 hours ago, tim11111111 said:

 

Micron  die chips are also getting worked on.

On some of the cheapest Crucial 2133mhz sticks, some people have Overlocked the memory(tweaking timing, voltage..) to 2933mhz which is a really good speed for ryzen albeit not the best (3666-4000mhz).

Here's and example of b350 tomahawk with ~30$ 4gb crucial ram OCed to 2933 on an april realeased  BIOS https://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?topic=285450.0

The ram is this one @ newegg https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIAD7H5EX2061

Whats your take with other RAM manufacturer other than Samsung? Do you think New agesa will allow good support to OC cheap ram like this without fancy "gamer" bling?

This board (asrock pro4) also also List crucial ECC memory on the QVL which is interesting to see on B350's.

Also is there any diminishing returns in your experience after going past 3200mhz?

I did cover brands other than Samsung in the post and I do agree that the support will only get better and better with more Agesa updates. Going past 3200 - I've only got to 3333mhz and its with loose timings. There was a video done by mindtech blank which shows ryzen @ 4ghz with 3600mhz ram keeping pace with a 7700k

 

 

[MyName13]

Something's wrong with your benchmark, there isn't a single benchmark that shows 35+% performance gain with faster ram.

[tim11111111]

He's right, in real world games the averages increase by a noticeable amount( especially if you have a 1070 or above), but I've never seen it go to increase performance by 35%.

 

In games with lower tier GPU, the increase is less.

this dude Zio Tech compared 2133mhz vs 3466mhz(typo on 4366) with a rx 480

 

[stealth80]

7 hours ago, MyName13 said:

Something's wrong with your benchmark, there isn't a single benchmark that shows 35+% performance gain with faster ram.

Well you have seen it now, don't ask me why but it did 

[stealth80]

3 hours ago, tim11111111 said:

He's right, in real world games the averages increase by a noticeable amount( especially if you have a 1070 or above), but I've never seen it go to increase performance by 35%.

 

In games with lower tier GPU, the increase is less.

this dude Zio Tech compared 2133mhz vs 3466mhz(typo on 4366) with a rx 480

 

That's also a 1600 clock lower than mine a 480 is also a bad example as it is probably not cpu bound. 

[MyName13]

5 minutes ago, stealth80 said:

That's also a 1600 clock lower than mine a 480 is also a bad example as it is probably not cpu bound. 

And that makes it even stranger (lower clocked CPU has smaller performance gain), besides GPU doesn't matter in this case because your minimums are really low.

 

Anyway the point is that RAM doesn't matter nearly as much as others say (for gaming), it matters only if you use a powerful GPU like gtx 1080 with a low resolution.

[Vacras]

Can we get this pinned please? Really nice information for everyone considering ryzen!

well done @stealth80.

[stealth80]

44 minutes ago, MyName13 said:

And that makes it even stranger (lower clocked CPU has smaller performance gain), besides GPU doesn't matter in this case because your minimums are really low.

 

Anyway the point is that RAM doesn't matter nearly as much as others say (for gaming), it matters only if you use a powerful GPU like gtx 1080 with a low resolution.

This was a 1080 at 1080p and it matters massively for the reasons I stated in the post 

 

remember in in a year or so the average card will be better than a 1080 as gpu tech advances, so this scenario is pretty relevant 

[MyName13]

23 minutes ago, stealth80 said:

This was a 1080 at 1080p and it matters massively for the reasons I stated in the post 

 

remember in in a year or so the average card will be better than a 1080 as gpu tech advances, so this scenario is pretty relevant 

I don't think that's how things work, this is a GPU that's too powerful for 1080p which means that CPU is the bottleneck, when gtx 1080 becomes gtx 2060 then GPU will be the bottleneck.

[stealth80]

11 minutes ago, MyName13 said:

I don't think that's how things work, this is a GPU that's too powerful for 1080p which means that CPU is the bottleneck, when gtx 1080 becomes gtx 2060 then GPU will be the bottleneck.

That is how you test cpu game performance, you have to remove the gpu as the bottleneck 

[MyName13]

7 minutes ago, stealth80 said:

That is how you test cpu game performance, you have to remove the gpu as the bottleneck 

Yes, but my point is that stronger GPUs don't require stronger CPUs.

[Techicolors]

18 hours ago, stealth80 said:

at this time they just cause a lot more issues.

am i still good if i bought 16gb sticks already? 

[stealth80]

32 minutes ago, MyName13 said:

Yes, but my point is that stronger GPUs don't require stronger CPUs.

Yes but in a cpu game benchmark the a stronger cpu will achieve higher fps which was my point 

 

[stealth80]

Just now, Technicolors said:

am i still good if i bought 16gb sticks already? 

Depends what sticks and what board. The beta bios based on agesa 1006 are having much less problems 

[Techicolors]

5 minutes ago, stealth80 said:

Depends what sticks and what board. The beta bios based on agesa 1006 are having much less problems 

i checked the QVL for my board and has it listed for 3200mhz pass, Samsung die 

[Aeternalis]

I bought 2400 MHz Corsair Vengeance RAM (found here)  and have my r7 1700 on the way. If I'm able to OC the ram, what roadblocks can I expect?

 

I have the Gigabyte Gaming AB350 (found here)

[stealth80]

13 minutes ago, Aeternalis said:

I bought 2400 MHz Corsair Vengeance RAM (found here)  and have my r7 1700 on the way. If I'm able to OC the ram, what roadblocks can I expect?

 

I have the Gigabyte Gaming AB350 (found here)

I wouldn't expect too much in regards to overclocking it as it is cas 16 2400mhz. You may get a little. 

 

Get the the beta bios from this link and see how it goes with the agesa 1006

http://forum.gigabyte.us/thread/886/am4-beta-bios-thread?page=1

 

[Aeternalis]

So would it be prudent to get a better kit when I have the funds?

[stealth80]

15 minutes ago, Technicolors said:

i checked the QVL for my board and has it listed for 3200mhz pass, Samsung die 

You find that they sit at 2666mhz depends if they're dual banked dimms which pretty much all 16gb sticks are. If you look at amds official ram support it varies based on dimms used and whether they're double banked