Memory not reaching its promised speed

[friedrichmaagk]

Hey,
Today I finally decided to try fixing the speed of my memory (G.Skill Aegis 16GB DDR4-CL16 3000). As can be seen from the model, it should run at a speed of 3000MHz, but it never did. Since I built this computer 2.5 years ago, it always ran at 2133MHz. I've tried using the XMP-Profiles of my motherboard (MSI X370 Gaming Pro Carbon), which resulted in BSODs and 30 minute boot loops where the mainboard's debug LED reported a GPU error.
Today, I tried overclocking this kit manually for the first time. I've set it to 3000MHz and a voltage of 1.3V. Both the Windows Task Manager and CPU-Z said that it would be running at 1500MHz, which I'd think is normal because DDR stands for double data rate. I've asked some friends and all of them told me that their task managers showed the "real" memory clock speed.
I continued with some benchmarks and noticed a drop in performance. Cinebench R20 dropped from about 3300cb to 2626cb. I've also tried Cinebench R15, where the score dropped from 1320cb to 1211cb.
After resetting both the memory clock and voltage to the stock setting, which is "Auto" for both, the performance actually improved in comparison to the 3000MHz setup, but it is still worse than before doing anything. Now, the Cinebench R20 multi-core score is 2836cb and the Cinebench R15 score is 1256.

Does anybody know what's the matter with my memory? Currently, I'm thinking about selling this kit and buy a used one to replace it.

[Fasauceome]

1 minute ago, friedrichmaagk said:

Today, I tried overclocking this kit manually for the first time. I've set it to 3000MHz and a voltage of 1.3V. Both the Windows Task Manager and CPU-Z said that it would be running at 1500MHz, which I'd think is normal because DDR stands for double data rate. I've asked some friends and all of them told me that their task managers showed the "real" memory clock speed.

task manager reports the rated speed of 3000, CPU-Z will show 1500.

 

1 minute ago, friedrichmaagk said:

I continued with some benchmarks and noticed a drop in performance. Cinebench R20 dropped from about 3300cb to 2626cb. I've also tried Cinebench R15, where the score dropped from 1320cb to 1211cb.

what about non-cinebench performance? it's pretty much not dependent on memory speed at all.

[friedrichmaagk]

 

18 minutes ago, Fasauceome said:

task manager reports the rated speed of 3000, CPU-Z will show 1500.

Actually, both task m

anager and CPU-Z showed 1500. The screenshots show the current settings (set to 2133MHz)

 

 

20 minutes ago, Fasauceome said:

what about non-cinebench performance? it's pretty much not dependent on memory speed at all.

I didn't test real world performance yet, but I'd say it has to do something with the memory if the performance drops just one reboot later.

[CommanderAlex]

What processor do you have in your motherboard? Earlier Ryzen generations can be very sensitive to RAM timings until Ryzen 3000 series. 

[Mark Kaine]

Something is wrong obviously, my msi board has 2 different XMP profiles, 1 will crash within minutes (while being somehow 'faster') and the second one works just fine, literally 1 click OC. 

You should check that. 

 

And here's what it looks like in taskmanager. 

 

[friedrichmaagk]

6 hours ago, Mark Kaine said:

Something is wrong obviously, my msi board has 2 different XMP profiles, 1 will crash within minutes (while being somehow 'faster') and the second one works just fine, literally 1 click OC. 

You should check that. 

 

And here's what it looks like in taskmanager. 

 

Here you can see what it looks like in my task manager. You see that it shows 1067MHz when I set it to 2133MHz.

[friedrichmaagk]

7 hours ago, SpiderMan said:

What processor do you have in your motherboard? Earlier Ryzen generations can be very sensitive to RAM timings until Ryzen 3000 series. 

 

It is an AMD Ryzen 1700, but how can the performance drop after setting and resetting the memory clock speed and voltage?

[CommanderAlex]

5 hours ago, friedrichmaagk said:

 

It is an AMD Ryzen 1700, but how can the performance drop after setting and resetting the memory clock speed and voltage?

Have you tried clearing CMOS? This may be an issue with turbo boosting features in BIOS setting voltages with [Auto] and changing depending on load through the test. I would clear CMOS, set XMP profile to match the rated speeds of the memory sticks you bought, save settings and try it out again. 

 

5 hours ago, friedrichmaagk said:

 

Here you can see what it looks like in my task manager. You see that it shows 1067MHz when I set it to 2133MHz.

~Snipped photo~

That's perfectly normal as since you have two memory sticks, its running DDR (Double Data Rate) so 1067x2 ~= 2134. 

[friedrichmaagk]

9 hours ago, SpiderMan said:

Have you tried clearing CMOS? This may be an issue with turbo boosting features in BIOS setting voltages with [Auto] and changing depending on load through the test. I would clear CMOS, set XMP profile to match the rated speeds of the memory sticks you bought, save settings and try it out again. 

 

That's perfectly normal as since you have two memory sticks, its running DDR (Double Data Rate) so 1067x2 ~= 2134. 

I know that DDR stands for double data rate, but I see many task managers where the memory clock speed is for example 3200MHz.