New MSI Ryzen Overclocking

[Thinkfreely]

So for those of you who overclock, you know that overclocking Ryzen ram has been an absolute shit show (This coming from a guy using nothing but Ryzen). However leave it up to a great company like MSI to provide a solution.

Recently my Asus Crosshair am4 motherboard bricked itself ( Will link my post on it here 

 

Because of this I decided to purchase a cheaper board with MSI as I am doing a build for my wife, so could use it while I wait for the RMA. However I may not go back after the ease of overclocking, specifically the ram. MSI has come out with a technology called A - XMP which is exactly what it sounds like. XMP profiles are one click options you pick out of the bios that has been designed and tested to overlock the ram with a simple click of a button. However it hasn't been working well as all these ram kits were tested using Intel CPUS. A-XMP is a profile designed for specifically Ryzen. Was able to one click my ram to 3200, with very minimal voltage increase (Left on Auto, then messed with it as was stable at 1.35 soc with a .6 offset). CPU is also clocked to 3.9 right now (1700x I lost the silicon lottery).

 

For those of you still planning Ryzen builds, I fully endorse MSI boards over any other for this reason. I generally have picked them for the last 4-5 years, but now more then ever they have seemed to be the best about fixing and pre-empting issues with Ryzen, and unless you plan on doing SLI (350 boards only do Crossfire with the exception of 1-2 boards) there is no reason to get a 370 chipset. Board I bought cost $80 on sale, the one that bricked was $250. It was shocking how easy the overclocking was and how no hassle it went, especially after all the headache I have gone through with the other board.

[Damascus]

What is the exact board you got?  I've been considering Asrock

[Thinkfreely]

Just now, Damascus said:

What is the exact board you got?  I've been considering Asrock

MSI 350 PC-Mate - Got it for my wife, its just a cut down of the MSI 350 Gaming board.

[Damascus]

Just now, Thinkfreely said:

MSI 350 PC-Mate - Got it for my wife, its just a cut down of the MSI 350 Gaming board.

Sweet, I love how "quickly" ryzen has been smoothed out :3

[stealth80]

Are you sure that is a feature of the board? The profile is usually programmed to the SPD of the ram stick - A XMP, are you using Gskill Flare?

[Thinkfreely]

3 minutes ago, stealth80 said:

Are you sure that is a feature of the board? The profile is usually programmed to the SPD of the ram stick - A XMP, are you using Gskill Flare?

Nope using Corsair Ram - It's MSI specific tech http://www.fudzilla.com/news/motherboards/43171-msi-announces-a-xmp-technology-for-amd-ryzen

[Thinkfreely]

10 minutes ago, Damascus said:

Sweet, I love how "quickly" ryzen has been smoothed out :3

Just with MSI though. Asus has been a rollercoaster.

[Emberstone]

My Asus Prime B350 Plus has a similar feature called DOCP, which reads my memory's XMP profile.

 

My memory isn't on the board's QVL though, so the plain profile isn't enough to get it stable. I'm running at 2400 while I wait for future updates.

[Thinkfreely]

3 minutes ago, Emberstone said:

My Asus Prime B350 Plus has a similar feature called DOCP, which reads my memory's XMP profile.

 

My memory isn't on the board's QVL though, so the plain profile isn't enough to get it stable. I'm running at 2400 while I wait for future updates.

So it has a A-XMP profile then? Or just something else.

[Emberstone]

1 minute ago, Thinkfreely said:

So it has a A-XMP profile then? Or just something else.

It's a similar thing with a different name. It reads my memory's XMP profile and applies it.

[Thinkfreely]

4 minutes ago, Emberstone said:

My Asus Prime B350 Plus has a similar feature called DOCP, which reads my memory's XMP profile.

 

My memory isn't on the board's QVL though, so the plain profile isn't enough to get it stable. I'm running at 2400 while I wait for future updates.

Also my understanding is that DOCP is an Asus feature that allows for AMD XMP profile compatibility, but it still uses intel tech and timings. Where as A-XMP is a technology made specifically for Ryzen.

[Emberstone]

1 minute ago, Thinkfreely said:

Also my understanding is that DOCP is an Asus feature that allows for AMD XMP profile compatibility, but it still uses intel tech and timings. Where as A-XMP is a technology made specifically for Ryzen.

You're correct about DOCP; it reads the stock XMP profile. I have no experience with A-XMP, so I don't know what it does different.

 

I'd imagine it probably applies MSI-tested timings, frequencies, and voltages to supported kits?

[Thinkfreely]

5 minutes ago, Emberstone said:

You're correct about DOCP; it reads the stock XMP profile. I have no experience with A-XMP, so I don't know what it does different.

 

I'd imagine it probably applies MSI-tested timings, frequencies, and voltages to supported kits?

That would be my guess, but DOCP has been around for AMD since AM3, and I used some DOCP on my Asus Crosshair AM4 ( Ended up doing manual as it wasn't stable). Whether its a hyrbid technology, or its brand new, it works seamlessly, and the latest BIOS update increased a bunch of different rams not included in the QVL

[MageTank]

22 minutes ago, Thinkfreely said:

Also my understanding is that DOCP is an Asus feature that allows for AMD XMP profile compatibility, but it still uses intel tech and timings. Where as A-XMP is a technology made specifically for Ryzen.

It has nothing to do with this being "MSI tech". DOCP is not ASUS exclusive either, as it's just another fancy name for AMD's AMP (AMD Memory Profile). XMP (Extreme Memory Profile) has been an Intel spec for years, and has only been recently adopted by aftermarket board partners across both platforms because consumers have confused it for some sort of industry standard. It's simply an SPD profile that has a higher frequency and timing configuration saved.

 

The reason why your ram is working with this "A-XMP" profile, is because "A-XMP" uses a specific memory training method on the motherboard itself. Rather than trying to let your IMC train the memory "blind", it's setting very specific perimeters for it to train within, to not only speed up the process, but to provide a more stable result. This is not new by any means, but I will not say it's not helpful, because it is. ASUS actually has this very same tech on Intel platforms, but it uses the name "ROG Scramble". Whether or not this is present on AMD boards has yet to be seen, as I currently do not have a Ryzen board to compare. I know AM3 ASUS ROG boards had it, so I'd hope Ryzen continued with that trend. We've also been able to replicate this manually to some extent with DDR4, thanks to RTL Init tweaks.

 

MSI also has a feature on their new Ryzen boards that allows you to dictate how many training cycles your board will attempt, before resetting UEFI to default values. This, combined with their advanced training methods, should make memory "overclocking" easier on Ryzen.

[Thinkfreely]

3 minutes ago, MageTank said:

It has nothing to do with this being "MSI tech". DOCP is not ASUS exclusive either, as it's just another fancy name for AMD's AMP (AMD Memory Profile). XMP (Extreme Memory Profile) has been an Intel spec for years, and has only been recently adopted by aftermarket board partners across both platforms because consumers have confused it for some sort of industry standard. It's simply an SPD profile that has a higher frequency and timing configuration saved.

 

The reason why your ram is working with this "A-XMP" profile, is because "A-XMP" uses a specific memory training method on the motherboard itself. Rather than trying to let your IMC train the memory "blind", it's setting very specific perimeters for it to train within, to not only speed up the process, but to provide a more stable result. This is not new by any means, but I will not say it's not helpful, because it is. ASUS actually has this very same tech on Intel platforms, but it uses the name "ROG Scramble". Whether or not this is present on AMD boards has yet to be seen, as I currently do not have a Ryzen board to compare. I know AM3 ASUS ROG boards had it, so I'd hope Ryzen continued with that trend. We've also been able to replicate this manually to some extent with DDR4, thanks to RTL Init tweaks.

 

MSI also has a feature on their new Ryzen boards that allows you to dictate how many training cycles your board will attempt, before resetting UEFI to default values. This, combined with their advanced training methods, should make memory "overclocking" easier on Ryzen.

Very informative. Just sharing my experience thus far.

[MageTank]

Just now, Thinkfreely said:

Very informative. Just sharing my experience thus far.

Oh, I didn't mean to come off condescending, and I am certainly glad you are sharing your experience, as I am still looking for Ryzen owner's that are willing to manually overclock their ram and share their experience. Any information I can gather about Ryzen's memory controller (and to an extent, their various motherboard training methods), the better. 

 

I just wanted to clarify why this motherboard is working well for you, so that others are aware. I am happy MSI took this approach as well, because it's simply a better way to do it. God knows ASrock's auto-training is awful, and even for experienced overclockers, it's a mess to try to fix. It's not helped by the fact that MRC Fast Boot is always enabled by default after every UEFI reset either.

 

From what I've heard from friends of mine, the ASUS board has a superior memory trace topology, and will allow for higher memory clock speeds overall, but requires far more manual effort to make non-certified Ryzen kits work. Basically, Samsung B-Die or bust.

[Thinkfreely]

5 minutes ago, MageTank said:

Oh, I didn't mean to come off condescending, and I am certainly glad you are sharing your experience, as I am still looking for Ryzen owner's that are willing to manually overclock their ram and share their experience. Any information I can gather about Ryzen's memory controller (and to an extent, their various motherboard training methods), the better. 

 

I just wanted to clarify why this motherboard is working well for you, so that others are aware. I am happy MSI took this approach as well, because it's simply a better way to do it. God knows ASrock's auto-training is awful, and even for experienced overclockers, it's a mess to try to fix. It's not helped by the fact that MRC Fast Boot is always enabled by default after every UEFI reset either.

 

From what I've heard from friends of mine, the ASUS board has a superior memory trace topology, and will allow for higher memory clock speeds overall, but requires far more manual effort to make non-certified Ryzen kits work. Basically, Samsung B-Die or bust.

Totally, I still appreciated the information. I manually overclocked on my Asus (which again bricked), and this one as well after I tried out A-XMP so I could dial in voltage. Stable at 1.35 with a .6 offset.

[MageTank]

Just now, Thinkfreely said:

Totally, I still appreciated the information. I manually overclocked on my Asus (which again bricked), and this one as well after I tried out A-XMP so I could dial in voltage. Stable at 1.35 with a .6 offset.

.6 offset as in, it becomes 1.41 under load? Or 1.95 under load? I genuinely hope it's the first one, or you better have some active cooling on that ram, lol.

[Thinkfreely]

Just now, MageTank said:

.6 offset as in, it becomes 1.41 under load? Or 1.95 under load? I genuinely hope it's the first one, or you better have some active cooling on that ram, lol.

Yes the first haha.