3200mhz vs 3600mhz RAM (or other) best for AMD 3900x?

[Liborio]

As the title suggests, looking for opinions around best RAM frequency for a 3900x as ive heard mixed things.

3200mhz vs 3600mhz (or other) best for AMD 3900x?

[IC4]

Cl14 3200 and cl16 3600 are basically the same. If you got 3600 cl 15 though that is the most optimal. Anything higher than 3600 is a performance loss due to infinity fabric not being 1:1

[Liborio]

46 minutes ago, IC4 said:

Cl14 3200 and cl16 3600 are basically the same. If you got 3600 cl 15 though that is the most optimal. Anything higher than 3600 is a performance loss due to infinity fabric not being 1:1

Right so 3600 is ever so slightly better. Nothing to do with Intel or AMD? Ive heard 3200 works nicer with AMD and it doesnt like 3600 - this is false? Its simply....3600 is slightly better than 3200 regardless of Intel or AMD?

[xg32]

1 minute ago, Liborio said:

Right so 3600 is ever so slightly better. Nothing to do with Intel or AMD? Ive heard 3200 works nicer with AMD and it doesnt like 3600 - this is false? Its simply....3600 is slightly better than 3200 regardless of Intel or AMD?

for zen 2 3600 is the sweet spot, though if ur getting a 400dollar cpu it makes sense grabbing something that's not bottom bin

 

match thiswith something from ur motherboard's memory qvl,

 

 

[Liborio]

12 minutes ago, xg32 said:

for zen 2 3600 is the sweet spot, though if ur getting a 400dollar cpu it makes sense grabbing something that's not bottom bin

 

match thiswith something from ur motherboard's memory qvl,

 

 

Thanks. I have a 3900x with 2x8GB 3200mhz. Kicking myself now, i shouldve gone with 3600 in that case.

[Tweedilderp]

This is with my G.Skill FlareX 3200MHz CL14 rated sticks (2 pairs of 8GB).  Hit or miss if your IMC can hit 1900fclk (~15% of 3900X's can hit it) but these are considered low-binned B-Die's and still perform well when dialled in right.  I have posted the aida64 numbers as well as the zen timings and ryzen master settings (made in BIOS, I don't configure anything with master).

 

Also I'll share what someone in the AMD reddit posted, A German gentleman was kind enough to create an extensive grid with synthetic and game performance numbers for each subtiming as well as a couple of BIOS options like gear down, see below via the link:

 

https://www.hardwareluxx.de/community/threads/ram-timings-und-deren-einfluss-auf-spiele-und-anwendungen-amd-update-23-05-2020.1269156/

 

and for those not wanting to have chrome (who doesnt like a good RAM hog?) translate a page, see the table below for the game-related numbers:

 

[Liborio]

2 minutes ago, Tweedilderp said:

This is with my G.Skill FlareX 3200MHz CL14 rated sticks (2 pairs of 8GB).  Hit or miss if your IMC can hit 1900fclk (~15% of 3900X's can hit it) but these are considered low-binned B-Die's and still perform well when dialled in right.  I have posted the aida64 numbers as well as the zen timings and ryzen master settings (made in BIOS, I don't configure anything with master).

 

Also I'll share what someone in the AMD reddit posted, A German gentleman was kind enough to create an extensive grid with synthetic and game performance numbers for each subtiming as well as a couple of BIOS options like gear down, see below via the link:

 

https://www.hardwareluxx.de/community/threads/ram-timings-und-deren-einfluss-auf-spiele-und-anwendungen-amd-update-23-05-2020.1269156/

 

and for those not wanting to have chrome (who doesnt like a good RAM hog?) translate a page, see the table below for the game-related numbers:

 

Wow i appreciate your response and time to add to the thread. In saying that, that is above my technical understanding of this field so im not sure what to take from it and how to apply it to myself in relation to my question? Are you able to "dumb it down" for me?

[Haro]

2 hours ago, Liborio said:

3200mhz vs 3600mhz (or other) best for AMD 3900x?

Depends on the cas latency 

You will rarely stumble upon an FCLK limitations with zen 2 and the imc is pretty decent 

At this point it would be the quality of the IC's 

If it was cl14 for the 3200 and cl16 for the 3600 

I would go for the 3200, as I personally prefer less latency over frequency

[Tweedilderp]

7 minutes ago, Liborio said:

Wow i appreciate your response and time to add to the thread. In saying that, that is above my technical understanding of this field so im not sure what to take from it and how to apply it to myself in relation to my question? Are you able to "dumb it down" for me?

WARNING! lol I started off by wanting to give a quick breakdown then in turned into The War on Peace rofl....I am so sorry for grammatical errors or if I left out anything, I have a sleep disorder and have been awake 3 days so my structuring and grammar will be god awful, forgive me  

 

 

I'll try as I am just a self-taught dude and by no means an overclocking "pro" or even an enthusiast lol.

 

The 3900X is made up of 2x 6-core dies, the IO chip is what they communicate through, but this is much slower compared to Intel's current method.  

 

The interconnect is basically the fabric clock (fclk) and if that matches up in a 1:1 ratio with the RAM (half the RAM MHz as it is double data rate) then data/communication between the 2 dies will be smooth and will improve performance in almost any task/program (except cinebench...im lookin' at you ya cheeky bugga!).  So what people are saying is 3600 on the RAM is the most likely you will hit and in some cases 3733 which is the true sweet spot if you cannot get your fabric clock to 1900, so instead of 1900 you would be settling for 1866.  

 

The higher the half-ram speed and fabric clock speed that can me matched 1:1 will increase performance by a lot, especially in games, but then RAM has a secret weapon, you can increase it's throughput by lower the (SPD as seen in some BIOS') timings and subtimings.  The grid above shows the base performance at the top, and then the letters on the left are the types of timings you can adjust, it shows the % and fps increase in games for each individual timing (timing = letters on the left) if you lower them.

 

When timings were explained to me when I was 13 years old...jeez 20 years ago haha, It was explained like ping because back then not many people had a good one.  Lowering the ping gave you a more responsive and fluid experience and from my basic understanding that is pretty much what lower the timings is doing, giving a more fluid data handover through the interconnect (fabric that the 2 dies communicate with) which in turn speeds tasks being executed.

 

So at the moment apart from niche RAM kits and tweaker's paradise E-Kits, B-Die RAM is the most favored as it allows an easy overclock of the RAM and tightening (lowering) of the timings.  As you see in my example my kits went from 3200MHz to 3800MHz by increasing the stock voltage from 1.35v to 1.42v.  A lot of people like myself coming from Intel saw memory overclocking as some voodoo taboo as it only impacted games like fallout4 and didn't help the CPU out TOO much unless you got crazy high frequency kits.

 

Now with the advent of multi-die chips like the 3900X and 3950X, the enthusiasts have led the way with extracting every minor performance gain they can out of the Zen 2 lineup.

 

But you still have your group of users that still just prefer stock, or use a PBO or static overclock and call it a day with standard flarex (I was like that til I saw my 2080 ti being under-utilized).  What I recommend if possible is to look around at RAM if you're still deciding on what kit to get and remember that not all B-Die is created equally, some are binned or laid out differently and will just perform better....for a much higher price.

 

I suggest while shopping around to consult the site I will link below, it allows you to find out if a kit is B-Die or not (in a timely manner).  This is only to prevent you the headache that is poorly binned micron memory like my old 2x16GB G.Skill ripjaws from 3-4 years ago, they're trash and always will be, no matter the volts you throw at it you can't tweak them to be better, they now reside in my home theatre plex PC.  B-Die can be cheap, like my flarex, and will give you the easiest time if you do decide to overclock it one day without going bald from BIOS-reset stress.

 

The Site (I know it's github but it's the most easily reference-able I could find):

 

https://benzhaomin.github.io/bdiefinder/

 

Now you won't find a massive leap between say 3600MHz CL15/16 and 3200MHz CL14 RAM just at stock unless you get a G.Skill Neo kit that is 3600MHz CL14, but those are mostly out of stock everywhere now thanks to human malware.

 

I would say get yourself a B-Die kit that suits your budget and is within that range of 3000-3600 with timings under CL18/19 and then if you feel like dipping your toes in the deep end later down the track, then do a lot of research and start your journey, but always write down changes as it's possible RAM instability could cause a BIOS reset which is an issue for motherboards that don't have a dual BIOS with a BIOS selector switch.

 

But even if you cannot get your hands on a kit like that, be happy with the speeds you have, if it can overclock further then by all means push the speed.  And if not speed then try and lower tRAS, tFAW or tCKE.  They will have a bigger impact on a lower quality kit than trying to overvolt the crap out of it to get a higher raw clock speed from RAM.

 

 

With owning ryzen I suggest any memory test done should be with memtest or karhu RAMtest, memtest is done from a bootable USB (if you haven't used it before watch tutorials) and karhu used to be free but is now paid I think, that is done within windows.  Leave memtest overnight to check for errors and karhu can be left to run to %1000 or in my case I ran it to %10000 which took a few hours. 

 

Regardless of any of that though, make sure you have a plan A RAM kit and plan B RAM kit when you're looking to purchase at the least.  Being able to research and look at reviews and users experiences for both will most likely give you a clear indication of what kit you will want and make the purchase pill easier to swallow (my logic is weird I know!  )

 

But once you have your baby fired up for the first time that is when you need to check a couple of things, you need 2 tools/programs if you plan to memory tweak with ryzen without as much of a headache.

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1st Thaiphoon Burner:

 

http://www.softnology.biz/files.html - Freeware Version

 

Open this and click the "Read" dropdown and select the first stick (it recognizes each stick of RAM) and it will show a little hardware list of that stick, then click report, scroll down to the bottom of the report and click "show delays in nanoseconds".  This will convert it so the 2nd tool can read the report.  Now click on export and select "Complete HTML Report" or this will not work.

 

**Note - If you decide to buy 2 kits for example 2 kits of 2x 8GB sticks I suggest doing a report for each stick and number them like 1-2-3-4 etc..**

 

2nd DRAM Calculator for Ryzen:

 

https://www.techpowerup.com/download/ryzen-dram-calculator/

 

Fire this bad boy up (created by 1usmus who also made a ryzen power plan for good boosts) and input your setup specs, CPU, chipset (X370/X470/X570 etc..) and all that, if you aren't sure what to put in there are many tutorials on youtube regarding this program.  But once all that is entered you will see "import XMP" down the bottom.  Click this and select the particular report for a stick and you can choose safe or fast, this program gives you rough targets it thinks you can reach and you can even click compare timings to see how low compared to stock it might be possible to go.  One thing I do suggest though when doing this the first time if you have never tweaked RAM on ryzen is to keep gear down mode on, Buildzoid also recommends this so you don't chase your tail trying to figure out what made it unstable when you first start out.

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Anyways all that is a BIG "what if?" and I just wanted to give as much info as I could, sorry if it was overwhelming and a wall of text I just don't check back on forums too often as I travel a lot and don't want to leave out anything from my experience.  I hate it when people are vague and leave you hanging and never respond...you know...the "last seen 2 years ago" kinda people.

 

 

[Haro]

1 minute ago, Tweedilderp said:

The interconnect is basically the fabric clock (fclk

The FCLK is not the interconnect 

The FCLK is how fast the Interconnect communicates with the ccxs / ccds

3 minutes ago, Tweedilderp said:

would say get yourself a B-Die kit that suits your budget and is within that range of 3000-3600 with timings under CL18/19

B die would be cl16 -16-16 

At these timings your looking at a micron IC kit or something

 

Just a little correction haha

[Liborio]

@TofuHaroto @Tweedilderp

Wow guys, thanks heaps for the info.

 

As i just bought my current RAM which is 2x8GB 3200Mhz CL16, im going to stick with them for now and possibly upgrade to 32GB of some sort in future. This is really helpful for when i do that.

 

Cheers.

[Tweedilderp]

18 minutes ago, TofuHaroto said:

The FCLK is not the interconnect 

The FCLK is how fast the Interconnect communicates with the ccxs / ccds

B die would be cl16 -16-16 

At these timings your looking at a micron IC kit or something

 

Just a little correction haha

Haha cheers mate, Next time I have had sleep and see my post I'll add it to my list of thoughts/mistakes to keep me awake at night  

 

Least you can tell I am an Intel pleb who has migrated to AMD rofl.

[Mateyyy]

39 minutes ago, TofuHaroto said:

If it was cl14 for the 3200 and cl16 for the 3600 

I would go for the 3200, as I personally prefer less latency over frequency

If you get a 3200 CL14 kit though, it's likely B-die, so just overclock it to 3600 CL14 and just get the best of both worlds haha

[Haro]

3 minutes ago, Mateyyy said:

If you get a 3200 CL14 kit though, it's likely B-die, so just overclock it to 3600 CL14 and just get the best of both worlds haha

You know how to get around things  

Yea did not think of that haha

[Liborio]

26 minutes ago, Mateyyy said:

If you get a 3200 CL14 kit though, it's likely B-die, so just overclock it to 3600 CL14 and just get the best of both worlds haha

Why would you need to overclock RAM at that level? If youve got 3200,3600 etc why would you not just to it to what its rated? There wouldnt really be a use case to go past its rated frequency? 

 

Example: i have 3200 Mhz and have XMP profile enabled, upped the voltage to 1.35V to support the new frequency value. Why would i need to go past 3200 Mhz? It wouldnt improve gaming or anything, just reduce the life of the sticks for no reason?

 

Sorry just trying to get a better understanding.

[Haro]

4 minutes ago, Liborio said:

There wouldnt really be a use case to go past its rated frequency? 

Some performance benifits 

Not a whole lot but some 

4 minutes ago, Liborio said:

just reduce the life of the sticks for no reason?

No it won't 

Soc at 1.1 and dram at 1.35 won't decrease anything 

Heck soc at 1.2 and dram at 1.4 won't 

[Liborio]

2 minutes ago, TofuHaroto said:

Some performance benifits 

Not a whole lot but some 

No it won't 

Soc at 1.1 and dram at 1.35 won't decrease anything 

Heck soc at 1.2 and dram at 1.4 won't 

I see, im not so much concerned about the voltages at that rate but more so at what frequency you run it at. Example, if i have a 3200Mhz RAM and overclock it to run at 3600Mhz, is that not bad for it? Like overclocking anything (GPU,CPU), youre reducing the life of it because its running at a higher stress than intended?

[Haro]

7 minutes ago, Liborio said:

is that not bad for it?

No

 

7 minutes ago, Liborio said:

youre reducing the life of it because its running at a higher stress than intended?

Nope

[Mateyyy]

12 minutes ago, Liborio said:

Why would you need to overclock RAM at that level? If youve got 3200,3600 etc why would you not just to it to what its rated? There wouldnt really be a use case to go past its rated frequency? 

 

Example: i have 3200 Mhz and have XMP profile enabled, upped the voltage to 1.35V to support the new frequency value. Why would i need to go past 3200 Mhz? It wouldnt improve gaming or anything, just reduce the life of the sticks for no reason?

 

Sorry just trying to get a better understanding.

Just to get the most performance out of your chip, since Ryzen is so memory dependant. The point of diminishing returns for Zen 2 is 3800MHz memory, so 1900MHz on the FCLK, but that's pretty hard to get on most chips, hence why 3600MHz is considered the sweet spot. And anything over 1900MHz FCLK is like yeah, good luck, hence why there's no point in going with 4400MHz memory or other high frequencies on Zen 2, because in turn you'll just be losing performance in reality. For Intel though this isn't the case, just go for the highest frequencies you can get.

 

Higher than 3200MHz could improve gaming, because you'd be increasing the FCLK clock along with it (again, up to 1800MHz or 1900MHz in some cases). With DDR4, you're not going to reduce the lifespan of your memory sticks if you run them even at 1.4-1.45V 24/7. 1.5V is considered the top limit for DDR4, and it doesn't make much sense to go 1.5V with B-die for example since afaik it's quite temperature sensitive, so even a minor heat output bump could affect its stability. Over 1.5V is where you get into degradation territory, but nobody goes that high with voltages on DDR4 for a daily system, you just go that high if you're trying to set records or whatever.

[Liborio]

7 minutes ago, Mateyyy said:

Just to get the most performance out of your chip, since Ryzen is so memory dependant. The point of diminishing returns for Zen 2 is 3800MHz memory, so 1900MHz on the FCLK, but that's pretty hard to get on most chips, hence why 3600MHz is considered the sweet spot. And anything over 1900MHz FCLK is like yeah, good luck, hence why there's no point in going with 4400MHz memory or other high frequencies on Zen 2, because in turn you'll just be losing performance in reality. For Intel though this isn't the case, just go for the highest frequencies you can get.

 

Higher than 3200MHz could improve gaming, because you'd be increasing the FCLK clock along with it (again, up to 1800MHz or 1900MHz in some cases). With DDR4, you're not going to reduce the lifespan of your memory sticks if you run them even at 1.4-1.45V 24/7. 1.5V is considered the top limit for DDR4, and it doesn't make much sense to go 1.5V with B-die for example since afaik it's quite temperature sensitive, so even a minor heat output bump could affect its stability. Over 1.5V is where you get into degradation territory, but nobody goes that high with voltages on DDR4 for a daily system, you just go that high if you're trying to set records or whatever.

Right so even though i have 16GB 3200Mhz CL16 RAM, i dont really have to kick myself for not getting 3600Mhz because i can just overclock my current RAM to run at that with 0 risk?

[Haro]

Just now, Liborio said:

because i can just overclock my current RAM to run at that with 0 risk?

Yes assuming your voltage is within reason 

So soc at 1.2 and Below and dram at 1.4 and below ( preferably 1.35)

[Liborio]

13 minutes ago, TofuHaroto said:

Nope

In addition to my above question, if thats the case, why would anyone ever buy anything higher than say 3000Mhz if they can just overclock the frequency at no risk?

[Haro]

1 minute ago, Liborio said:

if thats the case, why would anyone ever buy anything higher than say 3000Mhz if they can just overclock the frequency at no risk?

The IC's on the kit could be Lower quality 

And 3000 to 3600 is a pretty decent overclock 

So we don't know if the imc can handle it as well

[Liborio]

Just now, TofuHaroto said:

Yes assuming your voltage is within reason 

So soc at 1.2 and Below and dram at 1.4 and below ( preferably 1.35)

Got it, so im really considering this then.

 

My current setup is XMP enabled running at 3200Mhz, SOC voltage: 1.1V DRAM: 1.35V.

 

How would i go about that?

[Liborio]

1 minute ago, TofuHaroto said:

The IC's on the kit could be Lower quality 

And 3000 to 3600 is a pretty decent overclock 

So we don't know if the imc can handle it as well

Hmm okay im not too familair at all with the term imc so i cant comment further but thank you