Question Asrock A620 6000mt performance worse than 4800mt ?

[FiatDemise]

Hi, I just built a pc to mine Monero with xmrig. I got ram rated for 6000mt, but when go into the bios and change the DRAM Profile Setting to use that, I get worse performance, a lower hashrate from xmrig.

Motherboard: ASRock 620I LIGHTNING WIFI
CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 7900
RAM: G.SKILL Flare X5 Series (AMD Expo) DDR5 RAM 32GB (2x16GB) 6000MT/s CL30-38-38-96 1.35V

The BIOS has two settings I've been experimenting with:
DRAM Profile Setting - has values JEDEC 4800 and EXPO 6000
DRAM Performance Mode - has values AMD AGESA Default, Competitive, and Aggressive

With ram at 4800 and AGESA default settings, I get a hashrate of 10k-13k. At Expo 6000 AGESA default I get 6k-11k. At Expo 6000 Aggressive I get 5k-10k.

Based on some YouTube videos, I expected to see 1-2k higher hashrate from using Expo 6000 Aggressive settings, but for me it gets much worse.

Could it be due to the 6000mt speed not being officially supported by this CPU? I see conflicting information on this, with some saying that 6000mt is great for this CPU series.
https://www.amd.com/en/products/apu/amd-ryzen-9-7900

 

[helpstar]

update the bios of the motherboard and try again

 

[zinkles]

The timings of the RAM are important just as much as its speed.
Lower timing RAM with higher MHz (clock speed) can give you better hashrates.

 

[FiatDemise]

update the bios of the motherboard and try again

I updated to the latest, non beta bios version 2.02, no change. There are two, more recent versions, both are beta though. Do you think it would be worthwhile to get the very latest one?

https://pg.asrock.com/mb/AMD/A620I Lightning WiFi/index.asp#BIOS

 

[kanewolf]

I updated to the latest, non beta bios version 2.02, no change. There are two, more recent versions, both are beta though. Do you think it would be worthwhile to get the very latest one?

https://pg.asrock.com/mb/AMD/A620I Lightning WiFi/index.asp#BIOS

I think you need to research what AGESA 1.1.0.2b contains. It is possible that it will improve your memory performance. I do see references to improved memory performance a high clock speeds with that AGESA version.

 

[FiatDemise]

The timings of the RAM are important just as much as its speed.
Lower timing RAM with higher MHz (clock speed) can give you better hashrates.

The two settings I mentioned affect a ton of timings. I might get into and manually set the individual timing settings if I have to, just want to exhaust easier options first.

 

[FiatDemise]

Updated bios again, this time to latest beta version, 2.08.AS01 that has the AGESA ComboAM5 1.1.0.2b. Small improvement for Expo 6000 Aggressive, now at 6k-11k. 4800 AGESA remained at 10k-13k.

 

[FiatDemise]

I got a suggestion to run a memory bandwidth test. I'm running Ubuntu, found this program called mbw.
https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/32517/how-can-i-observe-memory-bandwidth

Running that showed much better results for 6000 vs 4800, values like 21k vs 17k MiB/s. So, maybe I don't have a ram/mobo issue, but something more specific to xmrig.

 

[zinkles]

I got a suggestion to run a memory bandwidth test. I'm running Ubuntu, found this program called mbw.
https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/32517/how-can-i-observe-memory-bandwidth

Running that showed much better results for 6000 vs 4800, values like 21k vs 17k MiB/s. So, maybe I don't have a ram/mobo issue, but something more specific to xmrig.

^
|

The timings of the RAM are important just as much as its speed.
Lower timing RAM with higher MHz (clock speed) can give you better hashrates.

 

[FiatDemise]

Solved my DDR5 4800 vs 6000 ram mystery. With low profile cooler, my system was getting to tjmax limit (85C) quickly and power was throttled to not go any higher. At 6000 mt, ram requires 1.35V instead of 1.1V, which I think translated to extra heat, and made it throttle sooner. I replaced the cooler with stock Wraith Prism, big bump in hashrate, and then switching to 6000 mt showed real benefit. These measurements were taken 10 minutes after mining started.

Low Profile cooler 4800 AGESA, room temp 69F
Tccd1 85C: 12,085 hashrate / 90 watts = 134.3

Wraith Prism 4800 AGESA, room temp 72F
Tccd1 64C: 14,802 hashrate / 125 watts = 118.4

Wraith Prism 6000 Aggressive, room temp 72F
Tccd1 64C: 15,660 hashrate / 131 watts = 119.5