AMD specific RAM, is there such a thing?

[Bender Blues]

Ran across a few posters talking about it in other places.

The talk is ram in allowing the AMD FX8350 Black Edition (which is what I have) to run at its maximum without being ram bottle necked.

https://forums.anandtech.com/threads/gigabyte-ga-78lmt-usb3-r2-owners-thread.2535702/ (Showing AMD SPECIFIC RAM) 

 

I have two sticks of 8gb.

1) Patriot ddr3 8gb pc3 12800 1600mhz CL11

2) Some random off name brand with the same specs.

Mobo: Gigabyte 78LMT USB3 R2

 

Do I need to replace my sticks with specific AMD sticks? Or are there better sticks I could get to pull the most out of this AMD cpu? Because right now, I'm trying to get everything I can out of it with my 1070ftw until I replace mobo/cpu/ram.

 

Thank You!

 

 

 

[Valkyrie Lenneth]

theres no specific intel or amd ram sticks, unless ur talking about a xmp profile exclusive to intel or amd, but there isnt, its basicly called marketing ,  when looking for ram sticks u want to look for best mhz to cas ratio,   lowest cas with highest mhz = best sticks usually ,  3200mhz with cas 16 would be worse then 3400 cas 16 for example,

 

however if u have a fx8350,  that cpu itself is one big bottleneck  , might aswell go ryzen and dont waste any penny on that 8350

[porina]

From memory there was a time where some sticks would only work on AMD platform. I didn't have those and I don't recall the details, but it involved some unusual configuration that allowed them to work on AMD but not Intel of the time. These days the differences are minimal even if they're marketed towards a given platform.

[Bender Blues]

1 minute ago, Valkyrie Lenneth said:

theres no specific intel or amd ram sticks, unless ur talking about a xmp profile exclusive to intel or amd, but there isnt, its basicly called marketing ,  when looking for ram sticks u want to look for best mhz to cas ratio,   lowest cas with highest mhz = best sticks usually ,  3200mhz with cas 16 would be worse then 3400 cas 16 for example,

 

however if u have a fx8350,  that cpu itself is one big bottleneck  , might aswell go ryzen and dont waste any penny on that 8350

TY. And thanks for the cas to mhz, didn't know. 

I know, the 8350 is a bottle neck big time 

 

Just read that the mobo will default to 1333mhz if the timings etc aren't changed in the bios. So 1600 has been a waste. Will look at cpu-z for timings etc.

[Valkyrie Lenneth]

5 minutes ago, porina said:

From memory there was a time where some sticks would only work on AMD platform. I didn't have those and I don't recall the details, but it involved some unusual configuration that allowed them to work on AMD but not Intel of the time. These days the differences are minimal even if they're marketed towards a given platform.

probably was in amd64 era coz amd was the only 64bit chip at the time

[Kilrah]

Just marketing, cashing in on people seeing "designed specifically for X" and buying since they think it might be better.

I actually have a set of G-Skill fortis "Designed specifically for use with the AMD Ryzen platform" in my 9900K build, cause since that stupid marketing tends to work backwards (nobody cares so they don't sell) they were actually the cheapest offering of their specs 

[porina]

7 minutes ago, Valkyrie Lenneth said:

probably was in amd64 era coz amd was the only 64bit chip at the time

Did some more searching. It was DDR2 era, and the modules in question used higher density chips. Hard to get solid reference to this as there are so many noisy posts saying it isn't a thing.

 

BTW I think I first heard of the issue in some LTT video, but no realistic chance of finding it again...

[Bender Blues]

8 minutes ago, porina said:

From memory there was a time where some sticks would only work on AMD platform. I didn't have those and I don't recall the details, but it involved some unusual configuration that allowed them to work on AMD but not Intel of the time. These days the differences are minimal even if they're marketed towards a given platform.

 

3 minutes ago, Valkyrie Lenneth said:

probably was in amd64 era coz amd was the only 64bit chip at the time

 

Just now, Kilrah said:

Just marketing, cashing in on people seeing "designed specifically for X" and buying since they think it might be better.

I actually have a set of G-Skill fortis "Designed specifically for use with the AMD Ryzen platform" in my 9900K build, cause since that stupid marketing tends to work backwards (nobody cares so they don't sell) they were actually the cheapest offering of their specs 

OK. Please explain this to me. In the four ram slots, two black, two gray. I have each stick in gray slots (thats dual channel isn't it?!) Its One black closest to CPU / gray / black / gray.

 

Why am I only seeing half of the 1600mhz sticks in cpu-z? (800). Jesus, am I in dual channel?! 

 

1st stick showing slot 3:

 

2nd stick showing slot 4:

 

 

[mariushm]

DDR3 and DDR4 will work on AMD just fine. Some memory sticks may be "optimized" for Intel processors, but nevertheless they'll work on AMD motherboards and processors.

 

In the past, with DDR2, there were some Intel chipsets which could not work with ALL kinds of memory sticks. The tiny memory chips on the memory stick had to be arranged a certain way on the ram stick.

AMD motherboards and chipsets supported an alternative way of arranging the tiny memory chips on the memory sticks, which allowed manufacturers to use smaller capacity, cheaper to make memory chips to create big capacity sticks.

So for example, you could make a ram stick with 16 x 128 MB chips to get 2 GB, but on Intel you have to use 8 x 256 MB chips to get the 2 GB, and those 256 MB chips were more expensive.

 

That's why you see on eBay listings "For AMD systems" - it just means that most of the Intel chipsets of that era will not be able to work with those sticks, but AMD, possibly Via as well, would work with those sticks just fine.

 

[Valkyrie Lenneth]

1 minute ago, Bender Blues said:

 

 

OK. Please explain this to me. In the four ram slots, two black, two gray. I have each stick in gray slots (thats dual channel isn't it?!) Its One black closest to CPU / gray / black / gray.

 

Why am I only seeing half of the 1600mhz sticks in cpu-z? (800). Jesus, am I in dual channel?! 

 

1st stick showing slot 3:

 

2nd stick showing slot 4:

 

 

slot a2 and b2 should be ur slots, ur seeing half because its double data rate  <   1600mhz ram = actually 800mhz and ur sticks show that their not the same sticks and its really bad to mix ram with different cas latencies ( which u got now )

[mariushm]

It's not "really bad", the bios will configure the slower timings for both sticks, and the first stick will just run with more "relaxed" timings , working perfectly fine.

You'd only have problems if the ram sticks need different voltages to operate at a specific frequency - in that case bios will default to picking the fastest preset for both, where the voltage is standard 1.5v  (1.2v for DDR4)

 

You should look into the motherboard manual (you should find it online if you don't have printed copy) to put the memory sticks in dual channel mode. I think you're supposed to put them both in same color slots and it's usually better to put them in the pair further away from the processor, in your case probably the gray pair (slot 2 and 4).

On most motherboards, slots are like this : 

[channel 1, slot 1][channel 1, slot 2][channel 2, slot 1][channel 2, slot 2]

so for dual channel, you want to put a ram stick in each channel, so one would go on [channel 1, slot 2] and [channel 2, slot 2] 

 

The memory actually runs in reality at half the frequency you see written on marketing texts.

So, if your ram is advertised as 1600 Mhz, it will actually run at 800 Mhz.

Your memory sticks are both 1600 Mhz sticks - one will use the JEDEC #7 profile (11-11-11-28-39 timings) and the other will use either the XMP-1600 or the AMP profile (10-10-10-27-39) but because the other stick is slower, the BIOS will choose to use the slower timings for both sticks (11-11-11-29 -39)

 

This is not related to dual channel - dual channel simply tells the processor and memory controller to read and write from both memory channels at the same time. For example, if the processor has to read 1 MB from memory, you'll read 512 KB from first channel and 512 KB from second channel, in parallel, so reading that 1 MB of information takes half the time to complete.

 

They advertise double the real frequency because of how DDR2 and newer ram sticks transfer data... they put 2 bits of information on each pin at every cycle (Hz), twice as much as with DDR and older ram sticks.

So to make it easier to compare performance with DDR and older ram sticks, when they invented DDR2 and newer, they simply decided to advertise double the real frequency.

 

 

 

[Bender Blues]

Just now, mariushm said:

The memory actually runs in reality at half the frequency you see written on marketing texts.

So, if your ram is advertised as 1600 Mhz, it will actually run at 800 Mhz.

Your memory sticks are both 1600 Mhz sticks - one will use the JEDEC #7 profile (11-11-11-28-39 timings) and the other will use either the XMP-1600 or the AMP profile (10-10-10-27-39) but because the other stick is slower, the BIOS will choose to use the slower timings for both sticks (11-11-11-29 -39)

 

This is not related to dual channel - dual channel simply tells the processor and memory controller to read and write from both memory channels at the same time. For example, if the processor has to read 1 MB from memory, you'll read 512 KB from first channel and 512 KB from second channel, in parallel, so reading that 1 MB of information takes half the time to complete.

 

They advertise double the real frequency because of how DDR2 and newer ram sticks transfer data... they put 2 bits of information on each pin at every cycle (Hz), twice as much as with DDR and older ram sticks.

So to make it easier to compare performance with DDR and older ram sticks, when they invented DDR2 and newer, they simply decided to advertise double the real frequency.

 

You should look into the motherboard manual (you should find it online if you don't have printed copy) to put the memory sticks in dual channel mode. I think you're supposed to put them both in same color slots and it's usually better to put them in the pair further away from the processor, in your case probably the gray pair.

 

wow thanks for that, lots to remember, printed out.

 

The manual for this mobo isn't a good thing. Even in the manual when looking for max mhz ram, it says to refer to the gigabyte website. Uh yeah, theres nothing there.

 

This is where the sticks are at. AND as said by @Valkyrie Lenneth think I just need to buy matching 1600 mhz sticks together. Do timings hinder a lot of performance?

Heres where the sticks are:

 

[mariushm]

See my edit post above. If you put them in the two gray slots, you're fine.

 

Also, the manual is here: https://download.gigabyte.com/FileList/Manual/mb_manual_ga-78lmt-usb3_v.6.0_e.pdf

 

See page 9 and 10:

 

[Bender Blues]

15 minutes ago, mariushm said:

See my edit post above. If you put them in the two gray slots, you're fine.

 

Also, the manual is here: https://download.gigabyte.com/FileList/Manual/mb_manual_ga-78lmt-usb3_v.6.0_e.pdf

 

See page 9 and 10:

 

OK just looked, TY.

So if my timings dont match on the sticks, which they aren't, is that a decent hinder on performance? If so, just going to go buy two matching 1600mhz low cas sticks.

 

And like I mentioned hehe, that reference to go the the website, its right there in your shot. Well when your there and you get to the product page, THERE ARE NO specific memory speeds etc, it refers you to the manual 

 

 

[mariushm]

Yes, there is.

If you go on the website, you have there a link "Support list" : https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/GA-78LMT-USB3-rev-60/support#support-doc

You'll find there a Memory compatibility list.

 

Note that there's several revisions of the motherboard, there's gonna be a document for each of the revisions. The revision of your motherboard is in a corner of your motherboard (usually that's the place on Gigabyte boards) and you can switch between revisions from near the top of the page :

 

 

But again, look at the date of the document.

There's thousands of ram sticks and models. Gigabyte tests some ram sticks when they make the boards, they test the old ram sticks and maybe a few more when they make a new revision, and maybe they add more ram sticks for a few months after the board is made.

They have no way of testing ALL ram sticks and every new ram model made... so the memory lists are basically just informative, to get some idea about what the motherboard can handle.

 

Your motherboard has an ancient chipset, 760g, made sometime around 2008... it will support up to 1866 Mhz and higher sticks just fine but  will auto configure them to 1600 Mhz.

The memory lists won't help you and you won't find there exact timings for ram sticks. For you, it's best to use the timings suggested in those profiles you see in CPU-Z.