Ram for Ryzen 1600x?

[Zack_Hill]

Hello,

 

Recently, I purchased an Asrock AB350 Pro4 as well a Ryzen 1600x to along with a Sapphire RX 480 Nitro. My next purchase is the RAM, and I'm having a lot of trouble with what ram speed to purchase, as there have been some issues with regards to that. I've seen reviews that state that Ryzen shows significant increases in performance when faster memory is thrown at it because of the CCXs, but I'm skeptical as to what I should buy. On the newegg product page for the motherboard, it has some ram speeds listed, with 2666 being the highest. Does this mean that I cannot go above that speed at all? I'm thinking that 16gb of Corsair LPX 2666mhz will be fine. Also, I know that motherboard manufacturers are releasing bios updates that could potentially fix the RAM issues. My concern is that if I buy RAM that is too fast, how will I be able to update the bios.As an aside, I am not familiar with ram timings or die specifications. 

 

Thanks for all the help!

 

Corsair LPX memory: https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820236041&cm_re=ddr4_2666-_-20-236-041-_-Product

Mobo: https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157761

 

[PCGuy_5960]

Get G.Skill Flare X 3200MHz

[SeanAngelo]

10 minutes ago, Zack_Hill said:

Hello,

 

Recently, I purchased an Asrock AB350 Pro4 as well a Ryzen 1600x to along with a Sapphire RX 480 Nitro. My next purchase is the RAM, and I'm having a lot of trouble with what ram speed to purchase, as there have been some issues with regards to that. I've seen reviews that state that Ryzen shows significant increases in performance when faster memory is thrown at it because of the CCXs, but I'm skeptical as to what I should buy. On the newegg product page for the motherboard, it has some ram speeds listed, with 2666 being the highest. Does this mean that I cannot go above that speed at all? I'm thinking that 16gb of Corsair LPX 2666mhz will be fine. Also, I know that motherboard manufacturers are releasing bios updates that could potentially fix the RAM issues. My concern is that if I buy RAM that is too fast, how will I be able to update the bios.As an aside, I am not familiar with ram timings or die specifications. 

 

Thanks for all the help!

 

Corsair LPX memory: https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820236041&cm_re=ddr4_2666-_-20-236-041-_-Product

Mobo: https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157761

 

G.Skill Flare

[paddy-stone]

Go with what the motherboard maker has listed as supported speed (upto), it'll either run at that speed with XMP profile, or it'll auto adjust itself to run at a lower speed. At most all you will have to do is go into the BIOS and enter the speed manually. And a BIOS update most likely will come along to fix any ram issues.

Basically if you don't think you can do the above, buy intel instead, AM4 is a new platform and will have issues, albeit minor ones at the moment and I think will not be a problem.

[knightslugger]

Even if you buy memory that is rated (key word) for a higher than supported by the MB speed, ALL DDR4 will run at 2133MHz. So it WILL WORK. How well will depend heavily on the state of the BIOS implementation and the board itself as well as your timings.

 

the faster the better in my experience... but also the most COSTLY...

[Zack_Hill]

2 minutes ago, paddy-stone said:

Go with what the motherboard maker has listed as supported speed (upto), it'll either run at that speed with XMP profile, or it'll auto adjust itself to run at a lower speed. At most all you will have to do is go into the BIOS and enter the speed manually. And a BIOS update most likely will come along to fix any ram issues.

Basically if you don't think you can do the above, buy intel instead, AM4 is a new platform and will have issues, albeit minor ones at the moment and I think will not be a problem.

Hello,

Everyone above seems to want me to get the G.SKill Flare x which is $175 vs the Corsair LPX which is $120. Is the only differences between these two sets of RAM the speed or does the RAM timing have a large effect on how it performs? I've already purchased the CPU and board so I can't really go intel now. 

[Zack_Hill]

4 minutes ago, knightslugger said:

Even if you buy memory that is rated (key word) for a higher than supported by the MB speed, ALL DDR4 will run at 2133MHz. So it WILL WORK. How well will depend heavily on the state of the BIOS implementation and the board itself.

Well, if my board only supports memory speeds up to 2666, then I can't go any higher than that correct? And if that's the case, why should I buy the G.Skill Flare X like everyone above is suggesting? 

[knightslugger]

@Zack_Hill No the FlareX has lower CAS latency and latency has a very large effect on the responsiveness of RAM. remember, the 3200 MHz is more to do with throughput than response. the longer Ryzen has to wait, the worse performance you will get so if it doesn't have to wait as long, and the throughput of that response is higher, you will get more performance.

[knightslugger]

1 minute ago, Zack_Hill said:

Well, if my board only supports memory speeds up to 2666, then I can't go any higher than that correct? And if that's the case, why should I buy the G.Skill Flare X like everyone above is suggesting? 

Much Much Much lower CAS latency.

[Zack_Hill]

Okay, so I would be buying the G.SKill Flare X for it's better CAS latency, not necessarily for it's clock frequency. In that case, I would have to underclock the ram frequency to the max supported speed by my motherboard, correct? 

[knightslugger]

Just now, Zack_Hill said:

Okay, so I would be buying the G.SKill Flare X for it's better CAS latency, not necessarily for it's clock frequency. In that case, I would have to underclock the ram frequency to the max supported speed by my motherboard, correct? 

no, you're not underclocking the ram, it's just not overclocking as high as it COULD if the MB supported it.

 

anything over 2133 MHz is overclocked.

[Zack_Hill]

Just now, knightslugger said:

no, you're not underclocking the ram, it's just not overclocking as high as it COULD if the MB supported it.

 

anything over 2133 MHz is overclocked.

Oh okay. So if the max supported speed is 2666, I can manually set this ram to run at that speed if I wanted to? Thank you guys so much for the help! 

[knightslugger]

1 minute ago, Zack_Hill said:

Oh okay. So if the max supported speed is 2666, I can manually set this ram to run at that speed if I wanted to? Thank you guys so much for the help! 

yes, absolutely, providing AGAIN, if the BIOS is up to snuff.

 

With the same bank of RAM I used in my 6700k build below, i can only eek out 2966 out of my Ryzen build. even still, my CB15 score went up to 1700 pts. after getting the RAM to post at 2966 using a CAS of 16-16-16-36, and it will not post at 3200MHz 16-18-18-36.

 

very very sensitive.

[Zack_Hill]

1 minute ago, knightslugger said:

yes, absolutely, providing AGAIN, if the BIOS is up to snuff.

Alright, thank you for clearing all this up. Should I get the G.skill flare x 2400mhz kit with a CL of 15 or the 3200mhz kit with a CL of 14?

Edited April 12, 2017 by Zack_Hill

[knightslugger]

4 minutes ago, Zack_Hill said:

Alright, thank you for clearing all this up. I'm sure they'll get a fix in sooner or later. 

Ryzen has proven that faster memory can make it unbelievably powerful for the cost.

 

I about ***T myself when i saw 1700 pts. on CB15. nearly double the (rendering) computer at the same price as an Intel i7 6700k.

 

...and it's only getting better...

[Spuriae]

All DDR4 will work at the minimum speeds, though you'll want to get a kit with Samsung B-die IC's (G.skill 3000MHz+ with 14-14-14 timings and a few others) if you want to overclock significantly. There are cheaper kits like this or this that will work just as well as Flare-X.

 

@knightslugger Ryzen's RAM problem is tight tertiary timings. CAS is a good proxy for these, but isn't the thing that's actually improving performance. Frequency matters more than CAS because the Ryzen "infinity fabric" is synchronized to memory.

 

 

[Zack_Hill]

3 minutes ago, Nimrodor said:

All DDR4 will work at the minimum speeds, though you'll want to get a kit with Samsung B-die IC's (G.skill 3000MHz+ with 14-14-14 timings and a few others) if you want to overclock significantly. There are cheaper kits like this or this that will work just as well as Flare-X.

 

@knightslugger Ryzen's RAM problem is tight tertiary timings. CAS is a good proxy for these, but isn't the thing that's actually improving performance. Frequency matters more than CAS because the Ryzen "infinity fabric" is synchronized to memory.

 

 

I've never even overclocked my CPU because I'm too worried I'll screw something up. Is overclocking RAM an easy task? 

[Spuriae]

1 minute ago, Zack_Hill said:

I've never even overclocked my CPU because I'm too worried I'll screw something up. Is overclocking RAM an easy task? 

It's very simple, and it's almost an expectation on this platform. Just enable the default AMP/XMP profile for the RAM in your bios and it'll overclock itself.

 

RAM can be painlessly overclocked even higher, especially B-die modules which almost always go above 4000MHz on LGA1151 despite only being labelled 3000 or so. That said, Ryzen for now is limited to 3200MHz, so just using the default memory profile isn't going to lose you a significant amount of performance.

 

It's virtually impossible to screw things up permanently when overclocking RAM as long as you make sure your system is stable before finalizing the overclock. It's a quite fun and free way to get extra performance.

[knightslugger]

I found i had to learn a few things before venturing into the RAM Timings portion of the BIOS. even then, i have no idea what i'm doing... but whatever it is it worked.

 

and at this point, "if it aint broke, don't try to fix it" is a good policy for me.

[Zack_Hill]

7 minutes ago, Nimrodor said:

It's very simple, and it's almost an expectation on this platform. Just enable the default AMP/XMP profile for the RAM in your bios and it'll overclock itself.

 

RAM can be painlessly overclocked even higher, especially B-die modules which almost always go above 4000MHz on LGA1151 despite only being labelled 3000 or so. That said, Ryzen for now is limited to 3200MHz, so just using the default memory profile isn't going to lose you a significant amount of performance.

 

It's virtually impossible to screw things up permanently when overclocking RAM as long as you make sure your system is stable before finalizing the overclock. It's a quite fun and free way to get extra performance.

Hello,

 

Alrighty sounds great! I'll update this thread if I run into any issues while doing it. Thank you to everyone who replied and helped! 

[knightslugger]

37 minutes ago, Nimrodor said:

Just enable the default AMP/XMP profile for the RAM in your bios and it'll overclock itself.

D.O.C.P. has been an epic failure on my system.

[Spuriae]

43 minutes ago, knightslugger said:

D.O.C.P. has been an epic failure on my system.

Is your LPX Hynix?

[knightslugger]

7 minutes ago, Nimrodor said:

Is your LPX Hynix?

***K if I know...

[paddy-stone]

2 hours ago, Zack_Hill said:

Hello,

Everyone above seems to want me to get the G.SKill Flare x which is $175 vs the Corsair LPX which is $120. Is the only differences between these two sets of RAM the speed or does the RAM timing have a large effect on how it performs? I've already purchased the CPU and board so I can't really go intel now. 

 

If you really want to play it safe, you could pick from the QVL  http://www.asrock.com/mb/AMD/AB350 Pro4/#Memory

 

But IMO, the lowest you'd get it to run would be 2133 anyway, so not a big loss... and once the updates come in it should be as simple as updating BIOS and then setting ram at XMP profile. Some people have said they can get the LPX to go to 3200Mhz, while others have said they have problems getting to POST at higher frequencies and have had to settle for 2400 or whatever. It's a tough call for anyone at the moment, there's no magic solution to this problem and we just have to wait for the BIOS updates.

 

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