Question Can manual adjustment of DDR5 RAM timings be harmful ?

[nick1232]

Hi there, this question appeared for a couple of times in many forums, but it was usually mostly related to DDR4, if you are DDR5 expert or at least you know something more of it's work than basic overclocker please share your view on how you see changing of timings may affect memory in a long run. I think timers which are set in EXPO/XMP are fine but there is also additional settings in AGESA which is usually called 'Competitive' and 'Aggressive' profiles and you can set completely manually what many prop overclockers do.

Can decreasing of timings or sub-timings (I mean different refresh cycles and similar things they are usually set bu those AGESA profiles) be harmful and lead to faster memory degradation? From what I understand if you use too strict timings that increases amount of cycles your memory modules performs through a single clock, but I am not sure. Some people claim that low timings require more voltage to be applied but if you do not increase voltage that is possibly a mistake.

 

[Lutfij]

It shouldn't or wouldn't though you need to understand that timings are like the gears/cogs in an engine, if you get them wrong or are off by a small margin, it can cause system instability.

You should, however, make sure you're on the latest BIOS version before you tweak anything in BIOS in terms of undervolting or overclocking.

Some people claim that low timings require more voltage to be applied but if you do not increase voltage that is possibly a mistake.
If you tighten the timings, that will add stress to your oprocessor's memory controller and will also need more voltage to be pumped throught he IC's on your ram(kit. If you lax the timing,s you will end up with slower timings and less voltage to pull it off but takes stress away from the memory controller.

What sort of rams are you working with? Motherboard's make and model?

 

[nick1232]

It shouldn't or wouldn't though you need to understand that timings are like the gears/cogs in an engine, if you get them wrong or are off by a small margin, it can cause system instability.

You should, however, make sure you're on the latest BIOS version before you tweak anything in BIOS in terms of undervolting or overclocking.

Some people claim that low timings require more voltage to be applied but if you do not increase voltage that is possibly a mistake.
If you tighten the timings, that will add stress to your oprocessor's memory controller and will also need more voltage to be pumped throught he IC's on your ram(kit. If you lax the timing,s you will end up with slower timings and less voltage to pull it off but takes stress away from the memory controller.

What sort of rams are you working with? Motherboard's make and model?

CPU is 7800x3d 2200 FCLK, my mobo is ASRock B650 Pro RS, latest stable BIOS. Kingston Fury Beast Black AMD [KF556C36BBEK2-64] 5600 via EXPO. I wonder if I could benefit from timings as well. Some people say x3d is not sensitive to those kinds of things. But I am still interested and before I try it, I want to know if it is potentially harmful.

 

[SkyNetRising]

Can decreasing of timings or sub-timings be harmful and lead to faster memory degradation?

No not really.
Timings too aggressive will introduce stability issues or will fail POST.

But ... excessive DDR voltage can absolutely damage cpu memory controller and cause degradation.

 

[kanewolf]

CPU is 7800x3d 2200 FCLK, my mobo is ASRock B650 Pro RS, latest stable BIOS. Kingston Fury Beast Black AMD [KF556C36BBEK2-64] 5600 via EXPO. I wonder if I could benefit from timings as well. Some people say x3d is not sensitive to those kinds of things. But I am still interested and before I try it, I want to know if it is potentially harmful.

Is a few percent improvement worth the risk? Is having to reinstall everything as a consequence of unstable RAM worth it? Some definitely say YES!!! But those are the same mindset that likes 20PSI boost in a Honda. You get bragging rights, but your everyday experience doesn't really change.

 

[nick1232]

No not really.
Timings too aggressive will introduce stability issues or will fail POST.

But ... excessive DDR voltage can absolutely damage cpu memory controller and cause degradation.

I understand about voltage and do not touch it. EXPO set it 1.25 V which is completely fine and withing specs. CPU is set to 1.200 v what I can consider as a little undervolting, taking into account they started to supply it with 1.35 then dropped to 1.3. It works fine as well.

 

[nick1232]

Is a few percent improvement worth the risk? Is having to reinstall everything as a consequence of unstable RAM worth it? Some definitely say YES!!! But those are the same mindset that likes 20PSI boost in a Honda. You get bragging rights, but your everyday experience doesn't really change.

Some people tested 7800x3d with different memories 5200-6000, and it appeared that it is limited by FCLK, memory clock stops having signification effect on performance after 5600. So they suggest to use timings instead...

 

[nick1232]

I run it on competitive timings for second day, I also performed stress tests for hours and a couple of benchmarks, they confirmed my system is stable and timings DO IMPROVE performance significantly with 7800x3D. I do not understand why some people think they don't matter or matter a little. I did not try Aggressive profile, but Competitive with FCLK 2167 works faster than FCLK 2200 with regular timings and so far it is completely stable.