Questions about RAM overclocking

[PcBeExpensive]

1. If I overclock from 3200 MHz to 3600 MHz will there be a noticeable difference in gaming and scrolling through the web?

2. Is it possible to overclock RAM past the CPU's Max RAM speed?

 

Thanks in advance.

[filpo]

2 minutes ago, PcBeExpensive said:

1. If I overclock from 3200 MHz to 3600 MHz will there be a noticeable difference in gaming and scrolling through the web?

2. Is it possible to overclock RAM past the CPU's Max RAM speed?

 

Thanks in advance.

1. Not much of a difference unless your gpu and cpu could use that extra speed because the capacity that it uses is so high

2. This advice was from an old thread by @App4thatcreds to them:

To a large degree yes.

 

Obviously the higher the supported RAM speed, the better the memory controller in the CPU so the higher your chances of better overclocks. As long as your motherboard supports memory overclocking and the bios allow for setting the speed you want to run, it's 100% luck at that point.

[Light-Yagami]

11 minutes ago, PcBeExpensive said:

1. If I overclock from 3200 MHz to 3600 MHz will there be a noticeable difference in gaming and scrolling through the web?

2. Is it possible to overclock RAM past the CPU's Max RAM speed?

 

Thanks in advance.

I'll give you a quick crash course. 

 

1. It's better to have lower latency than higher frequency

2. It's better to buy higher tier memory with lower latency at the expense of frequency. 

3. RAM overclocking will give you at most 7-8% improvement if your CPU can handle it and if RAM can handle it. Usually though, it's only about 3-5%.

4. DDR4 - look for 3200/3600 CL14. DDR5 - look for 6000 CL30. 

 

Samsung RAM chips are inferior and you should avoid them.. I think the better ones are from TSMC but I'm not sure. Higher latency memory is almost always from Samsung tho..

[RONOTHAN##]

3 minutes ago, Light-Yagami said:

I'll give you a quick crash course. 

 

1. It's better to have lower latency than higher frequency

2. It's better to buy higher tier memory with lower latency at the expense of frequency. 

3. RAM overclocking will give you at most 7-8% improvement if your CPU can handle it and if RAM can handle it. Usually though, it's only about 3-5%.

4. DDR4 - look for 3200/3600 CL14. DDR5 - look for 6000 CL30. 

 

Samsung RAM chips are inferior and you should avoid them.. I think the better ones are from TSMC but I'm not sure. Higher latency memory is almost always from Samsung tho..

I don't think there's a single thing correct in this "quick crash course." 

1. Higher frequency is generally what you want, you generally want to try to get as high a frequency as you can then try to lower the timings. It gets a little complicated if you have a CPU with gear modes or things like that, where you want to max out a particular mode and tightening it up rather than maxing out the memory, but you still want to have as high a frequency as you can and deal with the slightly looser timing since the latency will be about the same. 
2. RAM is binned mostly for frequency, not really timings. A 4000 CL17 kit is a better bin than 3600 CL14, for instance, even though if you calculate latency the 4000 CL17 kit is technically higher (practically not, but still). It's a lot more complicated then you're trying to make it out to be.
3. It depends on the CPU. It can be upwards of a 20% performance improvement, or it could be in the low single digits. again, there are a lot of other factors that contribute to it. 
4. On DDR4 Samsung B die is the one that does all the super tight timings. On DDR5 their stuff isn't currently that great, but it's still not terrible either and far from the worst DDR5 you can get. TSMC doesn't make RAM. On DDR5 SK Hynix is currently in the lead with the highest clocking and tightest timing kits you can find, but it's not necessarily going to stay that way. 

 

20 minutes ago, PcBeExpensive said:

1. If I overclock from 3200 MHz to 3600 MHz will there be a noticeable difference in gaming and scrolling through the web?

Depends on the CPU. 

 

20 minutes ago, PcBeExpensive said:

2. Is it possible to overclock RAM past the CPU's Max RAM speed?

Depends on the CPU and motherboard. The motherboard needs to support memory overclocking, and the CPU needs to either have access to higher memory ratios

[PcBeExpensive]

11 minutes ago, RONOTHAN## said:

I don't think there's a single thing correct in this "quick crash course." 

1. Higher frequency is generally what you want, you generally want to try to get as high a frequency as you can then try to lower the timings. It gets a little complicated if you have a CPU with gear modes or things like that, where you want to max out a particular mode and tightening it up rather than maxing out the memory, but you still want to have as high a frequency as you can and deal with the slightly looser timing since the latency will be about the same. 
2. RAM is binned mostly for frequency, not really timings. A 4000 CL17 kit is a better bin than 3600 CL14, for instance, even though if you calculate latency the 4000 CL17 kit is technically higher (practically not, but still). It's a lot more complicated then you're trying to make it out to be.
3. It depends on the CPU. It can be upwards of a 20% performance improvement, or it could be in the low single digits. again, there are a lot of other factors that contribute to it. 
4. On DDR4 Samsung B die is the one that does all the super tight timings. On DDR5 their stuff isn't currently that great, but it's still not terrible either and far from the worst DDR5 you can get. TSMC doesn't make RAM. On DDR5 SK Hynix is currently in the lead with the highest clocking and tightest timing kits you can find, but it's not necessarily going to stay that way. 

 

Depends on the CPU. 

 

Depends on the CPU and motherboard. The motherboard needs to support memory overclocking, and the CPU needs to either have access to higher memory ratios

I current have a 5600x and a Asus ROG Strix b550-f gaming Mb. I used to be able to run RAM at 3700 MHz or 3800Mhz then when I tried to go higher the pc crashed and it no longer ran stabily at the speed again. I also don't know how to increasse voltages and stuff so might be because of that. How do I increase voltages on a ROG bios and whats a maximum voltage I should stay under?

[RONOTHAN##]

1 minute ago, PcBeExpensive said:

I current have a 5600x and a Asus ROG Strix b550-f gaming Mb. I used to be able to run RAM at 3700 MHz or 3800Mhz then when I tried to go higher the pc crashed and it no longer ran stabily at the speed again. I also don't know how to increasse voltages and stuff so might be because of that. How do I increase voltages on a ROG bios and whats a maximum voltage I should stay under?

The main voltages that matter for memory overclocking on Ryzen 5000 are SOC and DRAM. The SOC voltage you want to set to 1.15V and leave it, it's safe up to 1.2V but most chips sweet spot somewhere between 1.1 and 1.2V, so 1.15V should be good enough for most CPUs. DRAM voltage depends more on the actual memory chips present on the memory sticks than anything else for what's safe, some are good up until 1.6V, others you don't want to set above 1.35V. There are multiple ways to figure out what memory chips you've got, Thaiphoon Burner can read it for most memory setups, but if you've got Corsair, G.Skill, or to a lesser extent Crucial and Kingston you can read the label to figure it out. 

 

There are a couple other voltages that can matter like the VDDG voltages and the 1.8V rail, but every single time I've tried to change them from auto it it's gotten worse or it hasn't helped get full stability, so I wouldn't personally mess with them. 

 

No idea where those voltage settings are, I don't have an ASUS AM4 board. They should be somewhere in the overclocking menu, but I don't know where specifically. 

[Light-Yagami]

1 hour ago, RONOTHAN## said:

I don't think there's a single thing correct in this "quick crash course." 

1. Higher frequency is generally what you want, you generally want to try to get as high a frequency as you can then try to lower the timings. It gets a little complicated if you have a CPU with gear modes or things like that, where you want to max out a particular mode and tightening it up rather than maxing out the memory, but you still want to have as high a frequency as you can and deal with the slightly looser timing since the latency will be about the same. 
2. RAM is binned mostly for frequency, not really timings. A 4000 CL17 kit is a better bin than 3600 CL14, for instance, even though if you calculate latency the 4000 CL17 kit is technically higher (practically not, but still). It's a lot more complicated then you're trying to make it out to be.
3. It depends on the CPU. It can be upwards of a 20% performance improvement, or it could be in the low single digits. again, there are a lot of other factors that contribute to it. 
4. On DDR4 Samsung B die is the one that does all the super tight timings. On DDR5 their stuff isn't currently that great, but it's still not terrible either and far from the worst DDR5 you can get. TSMC doesn't make RAM. On DDR5 SK Hynix is currently in the lead with the highest clocking and tightest timing kits you can find, but it's not necessarily going to stay that way. 

 

Depends on the CPU. 

 

Depends on the CPU and motherboard. The motherboard needs to support memory overclocking, and the CPU needs to either have access to higher memory ratios

I was trying to give a definitive answer that is generally correct for most applications. Many people here tend to just say "it depends" and then go about their day. I agree with you, but dude just wanted some answers. Hardware Unboxed did memory scaling benchmarks, anyone can take a look and apply HU's findings to their needs.