ram RAM not running at full frequency

[Mahmudul Hasan]

Hi, I have a G.Skil Trident Z 16GB single stick RAM running on my PC. It supports XMP profile. And it can boost upto 3200 Mhz. But I am getting only half of 3200 resulted in 1600 Mhz only. How can I unlock it 3200 mhz to run all the times on the PC? Thanks.

[AnirbanG007]

16 minutes ago, Mahmudul Hasan said:

Hi, I have a G.Skil Trident Z 16GB single stick RAM running on my PC. It supports XMP profile. And it can boost upto 3200 Mhz. But I am getting only half of 3200 resulted in 1600 Mhz only. How can I unlock it 3200 mhz to run all the times on the PC? Thanks.

 

 

 

It's DDR memory, so showing up a 1600 MHz is fine in CPU-Z and HWInfo as it gets doubled to 3200, but Task Manager shows the advertised freq afaik. So idk what's happening here.

 

For peace of mind, you could go into the BIOS and check if XMP is enabled, but afaik it's probably already running as intended if I'm not too wrong.

[mariushm]

The real frequency of memory sticks is half the advertised one.

So the value is correct, the actual frequency of your sticks is 1600 Mhz.

 

DDR1, DDR2, DDR3 and DDR4 are "DUAL DATA RATE" meaning they transmit data on before and after each "tick", after every "Hz" in those 1600 Mhz .. previous ram sticks only put data on the pins after the "tick".

So these dual data rate memory sticks put double the data compared to SDRAM and previous ram memories at same frequencies.

 

When DDR1 was launched, the people marketing the memory sticks wanted to make it obvious there's a performance increase compared to SDRAM figured out most people are too dumb or not knowledgeable enough to understand the sticks transfer twice the amount of data compared to old sticks, so they simply doubled the frequency on the packages and everywhere regular people see it but in reality, the sticks run at half that frequency.

Bigger numbers are better so that made sense to most people.

[Mahmudul Hasan]

1 hour ago, AnirbanG007 said:

It's DDR memory, so showing up a 1600 MHz is fine in CPU-Z and HWInfo as it gets doubled to 3200, but Task Manager shows the advertised freq afaik. So idk what's happening here.

 

For peace of mind, you could go into the BIOS and check if XMP is enabled, but afaik it's probably already running as intended if I'm not too wrong.

So, you think the RAM is operating on the right frequency at 1600 Mhz instead of 3200? I actually wished to run at 3200 Mhz.

[Mahmudul Hasan]

1 hour ago, mariushm said:

The real frequency of memory sticks is half the advertised one.

So the value is correct, the actual frequency of your sticks is 1600 Mhz.

 

DDR1, DDR2, DDR3 and DDR4 are "DUAL DATA RATE" meaning they transmit data on before and after each "tick", after every "Hz" in those 1600 Mhz .. previous ram sticks only put data on the pins after the "tick".

So these dual data rate memory sticks put double the data compared to SDRAM and previous ram memories at same frequencies.

 

When DDR1 was launched, the people marketing the memory sticks wanted to make it obvious there's a performance increase compared to SDRAM figured out most people are too dumb or not knowledgeable enough to understand the sticks transfer twice the amount of data compared to old sticks, so they simply doubled the frequency on the packages and everywhere regular people see it but in reality, the sticks run at half that frequency.

Bigger numbers are better so that made sense to most people.

What did you mean the advertised one?

[AnirbanG007]

Just now, Mahmudul Hasan said:

What did you mean the advertised one?

1600 * 2 = 3200 => advertised frequency

[mariushm]

 

9 minutes ago, Mahmudul Hasan said:

What did you mean the advertised one?

All the frequency numbers advertised on packaging, on the memory stick, everywhere, are double the actual frequency memory sticks work at.  They actually refer to the number of MT/s (mega transfers per second).

There's 2 transfers per Hz one before the "tick", one after the "tick", where each tick is one of those Hz  in 1600 Mhz ... 1600 Mhz means 1600 million ticks.  So you get 2 x 1600 million transfers or 3200 mega transfers of data.

Each transfer puts 64 bits of data on the pins of the memory stick.

 

So your  "3200" sticks work in reality at 1600 Mhz ... the actual working frequency of all DDR memory sticks is half the frequency advertised. They print the megatransfers per second value because it makes it easier to compare the performance with previous generations of memory sticks.

 

The Infinity fabric inside your CPU that connects the CPU to the memory works best up to around 1733-1800 Mhz (depending on generation of Ryzen processor) so it's actually very good that your RAM works at 1600 Mhz because it syncs nicely with the infinity fabric of the CPU.

 

So your memory sticks run at 1600 Mhz (cpu-z picture shows 1599.6 which is close enough) and that's perfect, just how they're supposed to be.

 

If you wanted to see 3200 there, you would have to buy DDR4-6400 Mhz memory sticks (and a motherboard that could actually manage those high frequencies).

 

[Mahmudul Hasan]

On 4/13/2021 at 2:30 PM, mariushm said:

 

All the frequency numbers advertised on packaging, on the memory stick, everywhere, are double the actual frequency memory sticks work at.  They actually refer to the number of MT/s (mega transfers per second).

There's 2 transfers per Hz one before the "tick", one after the "tick", where each tick is one of those Hz  in 1600 Mhz ... 1600 Mhz means 1600 million ticks.  So you get 2 x 1600 million transfers or 3200 mega transfers of data.

Each transfer puts 64 bits of data on the pins of the memory stick.

 

So your  "3200" sticks work in reality at 1600 Mhz ... the actual working frequency of all DDR memory sticks is half the frequency advertised. They print the megatransfers per second value because it makes it easier to compare the performance with previous generations of memory sticks.

 

The Infinity fabric inside your CPU that connects the CPU to the memory works best up to around 1733-1800 Mhz (depending on generation of Ryzen processor) so it's actually very good that your RAM works at 1600 Mhz because it syncs nicely with the infinity fabric of the CPU.

 

So your memory sticks run at 1600 Mhz (cpu-z picture shows 1599.6 which is close enough) and that's perfect, just how they're supposed to be.

 

If you wanted to see 3200 there, you would have to buy DDR4-6400 Mhz memory sticks (and a motherboard that could actually manage those high frequencies).

 

Thanks for the detailed explanation. Very helpful.