[SOLVED] "Anything above 3k MHz doesn't scale"

[Wicket Fot]

I watched JayzTwoCents' video on how not to overspend. If I understood it correctly, it states that a gamer doesn't need RAM speed over 3000 MHz and that higher speeds are for overclocking. Now, I'm planning out a build which will not be used for gaming. I was thinking about i5-11600K without overclocking and 3200 MHz RAM. Am I really not going to benefit from using such RAM rather than slower one?

 

[4745454b]

Probably not. I don't normally agree with him, but in this case I do. Anything in the 3000-3200MHz range for ram is the "sweet spot". Generally, faster ram isn't going to provide real world results. 3000MHz ram is 75% of the speed of 4000MHz, but you don't get 25% increase in frame rates by moving to 4000MHz. You'll get some increase sure. But not anything that's going to make a huge difference.

I'd like to point out that due to covid and shipping issues you should check around. Prices are crazy so it's possible that you might find 3600MHz at a deal compared to 3000 or 3200MHz. But I wouldn't search out 3600 or4000GHz ram thinking that it's going help you hit faster frame rates. As mentioned above it will help with OCing. But if you are simply turning on XMP and running it at normal speeds I wouldn't get it.

Edit: Here is a ram speed review we did.

https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best-ram-speed,5951-5.html

Lets look at 1080 as thats where most people play. Lets also compare 3000MHz to the fastest option listed, 4400. In the first game listed, shadow of the tomb raider, you can move from 139 to 152FPS. An increase of ~9%. Skip the next game as it's all the same FPS. In F1 2018 you can move from 198 to 204FPS. This is ~3%. AC:Odyssey you can go from 78 to 92FPS. An increase of ~15%. Note however that if you picked 3200MHz you'll see a much smaller increase. FC5 moves you from 137 to 154FPS, ~11%.

Things to note. This is with an Intel CPU. AMD behaves the same way AFAIK. Some games showed no or little improvement, while others showed 10%+ This gain is smaller if you look at 3200MHz vs 4000 or 4200. ~10% in some cases might be worth it to you, but in general you are better off spending the extra money on the GPU or CPU.

 

[lordmogul]

It all depends. On the game, on the settings, on the CPU, etc.

Ryzen scales pretty well, because the IF clocks with the RAM.
This is with a 6700K and dual 980 Ti
https://static.techspot.com/articles-info/1171/bench/ARMA3-p.webp
About 16% more fps going from 2133 to 3000 and around 9% going from there to 4000
And here a different game where the difference is less than 7% from 2133 to 4000
https://static.techspot.com/articles-info/1171/bench/TheDivision-p.webp
In general, the more CPU-limited a game, the more faster RAM can do, but it's not a guarantee.
Here one with a 11700K and a RTX 3090
https://www.igorslab.de/wp-content/...uki-Market-FPS-1920x1080-Raytracing-Ultra.png

https://www.igorslab.de/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Cyberpunk-2077-Kabuki-Market-FPS-2560x1440-Raytracing-Ultra.png

Memory on 4000 is faster than 3200 or 3600, but single rank 3200 beats it again. On 1440p it's maybe 3% difference between the best 4000 and the worst 3200 setup. The 1% low are about 8-11%
And those are DDR4 on Intel, so not the whole "Ryzen scales well with faster RAM"-topic. I saw tests done on DDR3 and even on DDR2 where faster memory gives better performance in CPU-limited scenarios.

Is going that fast worth the price is the real question.
Currently 3200 CL16 and 3600 CL18 can be found for basically the same as 2400 CL16, but beyond that the price starts to go up. 4000 CL18 is about 30% more expensive. And spending 30% more to get maybe 5-10% more performance in a handful of scenarios is not worth the difference.
Unless you really need to get the last out of the system or want those super impressive bench results, it's not really worth going beyond 3200 (or maybe 3600) at this point.

 

[4745454b]

I want to point out that while I haven't looked at those links, they agree with what I posted above.

About 16% more fps going from 2133 to 3000 and around 9% going from there to 4000

So in come cases it's 0-7%, while others it might go to 10%+. From two different sources. These are again with Intel CPUs however.

Currently 3200 CL16 and 3600 CL18 can be found for basically the same as 2400 CL16, but beyond that the price starts to go up. 4000 CL18 is about 30% more expensive. And spending 30% more to get maybe 5-10% more performance in a handful of scenarios is not worth the difference.

So is it worth it to spend 30% more to get 10% more performance? Probably not.

 

[Bazzy 505]

It really depends to on workload. In gear 2 mode, there a lot latency introduced due to the nature it works.
Here's a link to an article how the g1 and g2 modes work in rocket lake

DDR4 on Rocket Lake-S, Gear 1 and Gear 2 Mode Settings

Intel Gen 11 desktop CPUs include changes to the integrated memory controller. That is why we have decided to make this article, where you can know at what speeds you have to place the BMI values of Rocket Lake-S for Gear 1 and Gear 2 modes for DDR4. In order to get the most out

itigic.com

 

[JWNoctis]

It's my understanding that given the choices, the more effective one would almost always be a processor with more and faster cache, or faster solid-state storage, after you get what would be sufficient amount memory for your use case at the maximum number of channels your processor supported, of the fastest kind both in clock and latency before the knee point on the price-speed chart, as far as the memory and storage subsystems were concerned.

Anyways, what are you planning to use your build for? Some workloads are certainly very sensitive to memory bandwidth.

 

[Endre]

I watched JayzTwoCents' video on how not to overspend. If I understood it correctly, it states that a gamer doesn't need RAM speed over 3000 MHz and that higher speeds are for overclocking. Now, I'm planning out a build which will not be used for gaming. I was thinking about i5-11600K without overclocking and 3200 MHz RAM. Am I really not going to benefit from using such RAM rather than slower one?

Three things that I’d keep in mind which few people are talking about:

1. Please make sure that the memory kit is on the qualified vendor list (QVL) of your motherboard.

2. For best compatibility and longevity, I’d go with a dual-channel DDR4 kit that runs at those advertized speeds by default, at 1.2V, not with the use of XMP (1.35V).
Anything above 1.2V is an overclock!
So, it wasn’t approved by JEDEC!
Overclocked RAM kits may run into instability issues over time!

3. For memory kits that are using the XMP feature, Intel advices users to enable XMP during gaming sessions, then to go back to the default memory settings when using the PC in daily usage tasks.

 

[JWNoctis]

Three things that I’d keep in mind which few people are talking about:

1. Please make sure that the memory kit is on the qualified vendor list (QVL) of your motherboard.

2. For best compatibility and longevity, I’d go with a dual-channel DDR4 kit that runs at those advertized speeds by default, at 1.2V, not with the use of XMP (1.35V).
Anything above 1.2V is an overclock!
So, it wasn’t approved by JEDEC!
Overclocked RAM kits may run into instability issues over time!

3. For memory kits that are using the XMP feature, Intel advices users to enable XMP during gaming sessions, then to go back to the default memory settings when using the PC in daily usage tasks.

Adding to the confusion, there are certain kits up to 3200MHz where the standard JEDEC frequency, voltage, and timings are the same as the highest XMP one, which is merely retained for compatibility.

 

[Endre]

Adding to the confusion, there are certain kits up to 3200MHz where the standard JEDEC frequency, voltage, and timings are the same as the highest XMP one, which is merely retained for compatibility.

Those DDR4-3200 kits might be OK if they are Plug-N-Play and run at that speed by default, using only 1.2V.
(Kingston HyperX Fury modules are such examples).

 

[Wicket Fot]

2. For best compatibility and longevity, I’d go with a dual-channel DDR4 kit that runs at those advertized speeds by default, at 1.2V, not with the use of XMP (1.35V).
Anything above 1.2V is an overclock!
So, it wasn’t approved by JEDEC!
Overclocked RAM kits may run into instability issues over time!

Aw, man. Didn't think of that. But it seems that every kit I've been considering is DDR4-2400 by default, including HyperX Fury. I can't seem to find a RAM kit which runs at 3200 MHz by default. Can somebody please list examples?

I was about to choose Kingston HyperX Fury Black HX432C16FB3K2/32. Whether I really need 32 GB is a question for another thread. Currently I use 16 GB and I max out in certain situations. I'm at around 12 GB now without anything special going on.

 

[4745454b]

I'm not sure another thread is needed. If you hit 16GB, or even close to it, you need 32GB. I would look for a 2x16GB kit, 3000/3200, best latency you can afford, 1.35V. Might not be on the QVL, but it doesn't have to. When I bought my kit I made sure reviews mentioned it ran with my CPU. I had an X series board so I wasn't worried about it. The memory controller is now found on the CPU so the board doesn't matter as much as it used to.

 

[JWNoctis]

Those DDR4-3200 kits might be OK if they are Plug-N-Play and run at that speed by default, using only 1.2V.
(Kingston HyperX Fury modules are such examples).

Aw, man. Didn't think of that. But it seems that every kit I've been considering is DDR4-2400 by default, including HyperX Fury. I can't seem to find a RAM kit which runs at 3200 MHz by default. Can somebody please list examples?

I was about to choose Kingston HyperX Fury Black HX432C16FB3K2/32. Whether I really need 32 GB is a question for another thread. Currently I use 16 GB and I max out in certain situations. I'm at around 12 GB now without anything special going on.

Not really relevant to the question, but such modules are apparently somewhat rare outside SODIMM's intended for laptops and various other SFF PC's, few of which supported manual memory overclocking, or any memory voltage other than 1.2V, or had the cooling capacity to do much of either without rapid degradation.

They do come in at 1.2V and 3200MHz, but timings are usually relaxed when compared to regular overclocked desktop DDR4's at the same frequency, at CL22 to 20. The few - actually only one, from Patriot, in single module which I thought is inadvisable - desktop kits I could find in my brief search also fitted this pattern.

I've got such a kit to upgrade my main laptop just a while back. They are rock stable right now, but do get worrisomely warm under the laptop's metal shielding - And my laptop's BIOS redacted memory SPD and temperature data for some godawful reason.

It might be possible to replicate such combination of frequency, voltage, and timings on a good kit of desktop DDR4, even if they don't officially support such in their profile. But I wouldn't be so sure as those with official JEDEC DDR4-3200 profiles are doubtlessly binned to do so, and I had exactly zero experience in overclocking memory.

EDIT: And yes, definitely go for 32GB minimum, if you are maxing out on 16GB. Also do check if the 16GB modules are single- or dual-ranked, as dual-ranked modules (or double the number of single-ranked modules, i.e. 8GB each in kits of 4, for that matter) can provide a small performance benefit over that of two modules of single-ranked memory.

 

[Wicket Fot]

Thanks.
So, the way I understand it, practically I can't get a RAM kit which runs at 3200 MHz by default. I have to run it in an XMP profile, which is basically overclocking. It might cause some issues.

All in all, is HyperX Fury Black HX432C16FB3K2/32 a good choice?
I can't seem to find out whether it is single- or dual-ranked.

 

[4745454b]

I wouldn't worry too much about OCing it. Xmp is there for a reason. And if it's silks as 3200MHz its rated to run at that speed. Real OCing is pushing something to a point above its rating. Running 3200MHz ram at 4000MHz is OCing.

 

[JWNoctis]

This one? Yes, I think it is dual-ranked.

Others might be able to say more about whether it's a good choice or not. My experience is too limited with those.

Certainly not a bad one to me, though!

 

[Endre]

Aw, man. Didn't think of that. But it seems that every kit I've been considering is DDR4-2400 by default, including HyperX Fury. I can't seem to find a RAM kit which runs at 3200 MHz by default. Can somebody please list examples?

I was about to choose Kingston HyperX Fury Black HX432C16FB3K2/32. Whether I really need 32 GB is a question for another thread. Currently I use 16 GB and I max out in certain situations. I'm at around 12 GB now without anything special going on.

I think that this is a good kit, and it runs at 3200 and 1.2V by default, no XMP enabling required:

https://www.kingston.com/dataSheets/HX432C18FBK2_32.pdf

I’ve found one available on eBay:
https://www.ebay.de/itm/174772427300#vi__app-cvip-panel

 

[Wicket Fot]

I think that this is a good kit, and it runs at 3200 and 1.2V by default, no XMP enabling required:

https://www.kingston.com/dataSheets/HX432C18FBK2_32.pdf

I’ve found one available on eBay:
https://www.ebay.de/itm/174772427300#vi__app-cvip-panel

If I could, I would get this RAM. However, I can't find a new one to buy. Is there perhaps another RAM kit which runs at 3200 MHz at 1.2 V by default?

 

[Endre]

If I could, I would get this RAM. However, I can't find a new one to buy. Is there perhaps another RAM kit which runs at 3200 MHz at 1.2 V by default?

I think that it can be bought from a foreign country.

 

[4745454b]

I would just get a normal 1.35V kit. You'll be fine.

 

[Endre]

If I could, I would get this RAM. However, I can't find a new one to buy. Is there perhaps another RAM kit which runs at 3200 MHz at 1.2 V by default?

This is another great memory kit from Kingston that runs at DDR4-3466 CL19 @1.2V by default:

https://www.kingston.com/dataSheets/HX426C16FB4K2_32.pdf

 

[Wicket Fot]

This is another great memory kit from Kingston that runs at DDR4-3466 CL19 @1.2V by default:

https://www.kingston.com/dataSheets/HX426C16FB4K2_32.pdf

So, if I have a motherboard and CPU which support 3200MHz, this RAM will run at 3200MHz? I find the wording in the specs frustrating. I wish I could find an explicit statement. Instead, there is a Plug N Play timing of 2666MHz and exactly the same XMP profile. Why not at least write "2666+"? This way, as someone who hasn't tried this type of RAM before, I don't know what to expect.

 

[Endre]

So, if I have a motherboard and CPU which support 3200MHz, this RAM will run at 3200MHz? I find the wording in the specs frustrating. I wish I could find an explicit statement. Instead, there is a Plug N Play timing of 2666MHz and exactly the same XMP profile. Why not at least write "2666+"? This way, as someone who hasn't tried this type of RAM before, I don't know what to expect.

Sorry I sent you the wrong link (previously).
This is the correct link:
https://www.kingston.com/dataSheets/HX434C19FBK2_32.pdf#:~:text=HyperX HX434C19FBK2/32 is a kit of two 2G,standard electrical and mechanical specifications are as follows:

(But you must check the qualified vendor list of your motherboard to see if it supports it).

 

[4745454b]

My ram isn't on the QVL. Often times the list is made and never updated. This means newer ram kits will never be on the QVL. The ram inn my system is 1.35 ram and not on the QVL. I have no issues. It doesn't HAVE to be on the QVL or 1.2v ram.

 

[Darkbreeze]

The idea that you NEED a 1.2v kit is riddled with faulty thinking. The standard is 1.35v and some DDR4 kits go all the way up to 1.45v, stock.

QVL is of course ONLY a VERY minimal test sample. It's SUGGESTIVE of what will work on any given motherboard, it is certainly not meant to be all inclusive.

Please read the guide at the following link. It may, probably won't, answer ALL of your questions, but it should at least fill in SOME of the blanks that might not have already been addressed by 4745454b and others here.

How To - Troubleshooting problems with PC memory (RAM) and XMP profile configurations

In the beginning, there was......BIOS Before you go ANY further, go to the manufacturer product page for your specific motherboard model AND revision. Revision is an important aspect because for any given motherboard there may be more than one version of that model which will be identified...

forums.tomshardware.com

It is a good primer and basic troubleshooting resource, and the best feature of it is that it offers fairly solid testing procedures if you decide to take the configuration a little further than just what is offered "out of the box" or just to ensure stability in any situation.

Jayz2cents, needs to be taken with a grain of salt. He's a commercial entity, much like Linus, and there have been a number of cases where things he has said have not just raised eyebrows but made the entirety of the enthusiast communities across the interwebs laugh their butts off. But he also is spot on sometimes as well. So, use common sense and get a general consensus and usually you won't go wrong. If you have other SPECIFIC questions, I or another veteran around here will certainly be glad to help clarify any questions like that you might have.

 

[Wicket Fot]

The idea that you NEED a 1.2v kit is riddled with faulty thinking. The standard is 1.35v and some DDR4 kits go all the way up to 1.45v, stock.

QVL is of course ONLY a VERY minimal test sample. It's SUGGESTIVE of what will work on any given motherboard, it is certainly not meant to be all inclusive.

Please read the guide at the following link. It may, probably won't, answer ALL of your questions, but it should at least fill in SOME of the blanks that might not have already been addressed by 4745454b and others here.

How To - Troubleshooting problems with PC memory (RAM) and XMP profile configurations

In the beginning, there was......BIOS Before you go ANY further, go to the manufacturer product page for your specific motherboard model AND revision. Revision is an important aspect because for any given motherboard there may be more than one version of that model which will be identified...

forums.tomshardware.com

Testing your memory configuration to verify stability

Is this step necessary if I'm only using XMP, without increasing the voltage manually?
In other words, no micro errors with XMP?