Threadripper 3970x best RAM option.

[z_enzyme]

Okay, couple of questions, cause I'm lost.
 - Threadripper 3970x
 - ROG Zenith II Extreme Alpha
 - Asus 3090 GPU
 - Missing RAM (64GB is prefferable)
Intended use: Heavy programming, game development and some gaming.

TL;DR version - what ram should I get? Treat me like a noob.

Long version:
Now, what I can't seem to understand is Dual Channel vs Quad Channel - Is Quad Channel dual dual channel? So if I get 2xDual, will that work?
Second, timings. I know that the Ram timings (at least with Ryzen) is tied to the infinity fabric. Then the official site states that best timings for 3970x is 3200mhz. And that's what reviews tend to suggest.
https://www.amd.com/en/products/cpu/amd-ryzen-threadripper-3970x

But there's also a different side of the force saying that 3600mhz is best.
https://www.gamingcutter.com/ram/best-ram-for-ryzen-threadripper/
https://hearthstats.net/best-ram-for-ryzen-threadripper-in-2021-3960x-3970x-3990x/

And then there's this thing:
Frequency table (source https://www.kitguru.net/components/cpu/luke-hill/amd-ryzen-threadripper-3960x-3970x-cpu-review/)
Which I'm not sure I fully understand. Treat me as a noob here, please.

Now, I want to squese most I can from that CPU thus question. What frequency, timings and setup I should go for?

My guess would be 4 x 16GB 3200 CL14 (C14? Some have different timings like CL14-18-18-38 or CL14-14-14-34). And what about the rest of the specs? (QC, OC, DC - I have no idea what that means).

Please help.

[jaslion]

Cl16 3600mhz is the best bang for the buck. Cl15 and lower offer little extra performance BUT 3600mhz is important as that makes the ram and memory controller run in perfect sync.

 

As for ram any 4 stick set will do really. Corsair vengeance is a bit trickier so might wanna avoid that.

[Somerandomtechyboi]

3200 cl16 or 3600 cl18 is enough, 3600 cl16 and any other higher bins gets trounced by overclocked 3200 ballistix so dont bother with those

 

Basically just get 2 2x8 or 2x16 kits and you have quad channel, there is the worry of mix and match but that shouldnt matter too much anyways

 

 

if you want guaranteed not mix and match you can buy generic oem bare pcb 8gb or 16gb sticks and tell the seller to only send 1 ic type so you can go buy some bare pcb microns and get d9vpp (2400 bin rev e) or d9wfl (3200 bin rev e), downside is manual overclock but you can just punch in generic 3600 16-18-18 and let board auto the rest at 1.35-1.4v, this is cheaper and better value and also superior performance depending on what ic you choose (micron rev e are light on the imc so easy to run high speed), also 3600 cl16 or faster for dirt cheap

[PDifolco]

Get 4x16GB 3600CL16 or CL18 a bit cheaper, maybe buying 2 packs of 2x16GB of same brand  is an option as 4x packs tends to be overpriced

So you'll have optimal clock for IF, dual channel & dual rank

[freeagent]

I would be looking at C14 kits.

 

[Somerandomtechyboi]

1 minute ago, freeagent said:

I would be looking at C14 kits.

 

Imo high performance ram kits are just for fun with overclocking and bragging rights, 3600 cl18 should suffice for most builds, and the cheapest decent kit of b die ive seen is just viper steel 4400 cl19 (16gb) which is already at the price of a 3600 cl18 32gb kit

 

 

Also avoid 3600 cl16 as you can oc most 3600 cl18 to 3600 cl16 (16-18-18/16-19-19) which makes 3600 cl16 garbage other than the 16-16-16 samsung b die stuff though those are also stupidly overpriced too and theres the aformentioned viper steel

 

you can also buy bare pcb 2133-2666 samsung d die or micron rev e and also do literally the exact same thing but also with added option to run (rather pointless) 4000+ if thats even possible on tr

[freeagent]

20 minutes ago, Somerandomtechyboi said:

Imo high performance ram kits are just for fun with overclocking and bragging rights

It’s all about latency, especially with AMD. You can say 3600 C18 is “good enough”

 

Lets be real here, those timings are shit. He spent money on a Threadripper system and you want to populate slots with budget ram. If it were me who laid out the bucks to use a system like that for awhile, C18 is not where I would be looking.

 

Obviously that is just me though.

 

With C14 you don’t have to oc to get good performance, it’s already there out of the box.

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, freeagent said:

It’s all about latency, especially with AMD. You can say 3600 C18 is “good enough”

 

Lets be real here, those timings are shit. He spent money on a Threadripper system and you want to populate slots with budget ram. If it were me who laid out the bucks to use a system like that for awhile, C18 is not where I would be looking.

 

Obviously that is just me though.

 

With C14 you don’t have to oc to get good performance, it’s already there out of the box.

Not just you, I second that!

[Somerandomtechyboi]

12 minutes ago, freeagent said:

It’s all about latency, especially with AMD. You can say 3600 C18 is “good enough”

 

Lets be real here, those timings are shit. He spent money on a Threadripper system and you want to populate slots with budget ram. If it were me who laid out the bucks to use a system like that for awhile, C18 is not where I would be looking.

 

Obviously that is just me though.

 

With C14 you don’t have to oc to get good performance, it’s already there out of the box.

With c14 its useless garbage if you dont oc it to a better speed like 4000 cl14 or 3600 cl13 cause b die scales with volt and has tons of oc headroom, imo b die is only worth it if pushed over 1.6v cause its already stupidly expensive so better not waste money on an expensive pile of trash and not overclock the balls off it, though thats just me pushing the hardware very hard for extra performance so you get all the performance you paid for (laughing in 2.46v ddr3 samsung rev f because haha ram go brrrrrr)

 

If you can run 4400+ cl17 in a 4x8 or 4x16 config with micron rev e or rev b then that would still be good and alot cheaper, may even be able to run higher considering how light rev e is, though unsure about rev b. Also dual rank > single rank so considering how light rev e is if you have a t topology board then 8x8 = 64gb and you can still run 4000+ cause e die being very light on the imc, something that b die cant do (without excessive volt) cause its very heavy on the imc

[freeagent]

Everything but B-Die is garbage to me. B-Die is all I know.

 

The speeds you mentioned are not going to be daily speeds, probably not even bench speeds. Especially on Threadripper. Of course you don’t know that because you don’t own any of the hardware you talk about.

 

 

[Guest]

10 minutes ago, freeagent said:

Everything but B-Die is garbage to me. B-Die is all I know.

 

The speeds you mentioned are not going to be daily speeds, probably not even bench speeds. Especially on Threadripper. Of course you don’t know that because you don’t own any of the hardware you talk about.

 

 

Spit my coffee out bro. Too funny.

 

cheers

[freeagent]

Cheers brotha