Question buy RAM faster than will run it?

[coyote2]

Is there any advantage to buying RAM faster than I'll be running it?

In other words, I'm looking at a couple X570 mobos which support up to 3200 RAM speed without OC, and I'm not planning to ever overclock it, so should I just buy 3200 RAM or would RAM that could operate faster have some advantage like lasting longer?

(Incidentally I plan to have four slots filled with the max. 128GB.)

 

[CountMike]

Is there any advantage to buying RAM faster than I'll be running it?

In other words, I'm looking at a couple X570 mobos which support up to 3200 RAM speed without OC, and I'm not planning to ever overclock it, so should I just buy 3200 RAM or would RAM that could operate faster have some advantage like lasting longer?

(Incidentally I plan to have four slots filled with the max. 128GB.)

Those MBs support much over 3200MHz RAM and so does 3rd gen Ryzen. Which MBs that support 128GB of RAM are you looking at ? Most go to only 64GB with 4 slots. Higher than that only Threadripper MBs.

 

[coyote2]

Hi CountMike, thank you very much for the reply!

I do know that they support far higher than 3200MHz RAM, but from what I've read not without overclocking for the mobos I'm looking at (for the AMD 3950x I plan to buy).

As I mentioned I don't plan to overclock the RAM.

Here's two mobos I'm looking at:
ASRock X570 Creator
ASUS ROG Crosshair VIII Formula

Please please do tell me if I'm wrong about being able to put 128 GB RAM in their four slots.

FYI: I'm not a gamer I just do work. This will be my first DIY build.

 

[geofelt]

Be careful on your ram pick.
Find a supported 128gb ram kit on the motherboard QVL list.
Here is the one for the asus motherboard.
https://dlcdnets.asus.com/pub/ASUS/...G_Crosshair_VIII_Series_Memory_QVL_190801.pdf
As an alternative go to a ram web site like g.skil, corsair, Kingston... and enter your motherboard make/model in their ram selection app.
Pick an appropriate kit.
You may not have a choice on speeds.
I would not worry about longevity. Ram will usually have a lifetime warranty.

 

[coyote2]

Be careful on your ram pick.
Find a supported 128gb ram kit on the motherboard QVL list.
Here is the one for the asus motherboard.
https://dlcdnets.asus.com/pub/ASUS/...G_Crosshair_VIII_Series_Memory_QVL_190801.pdf

Oh yes I absolutely will use the QVL to find a supported kit!

As an alternative go to a ram web site like g.skill, corsair, Kingston... and enter your motherboard make/model in their ram selection app.
Pick an appropriate kit.
You may not have a choice on speeds.
I would not worry about longevity.

Thank you very much for your reply, geofelt!

My original question was theoretical: Is there any advantage to buying RAM faster than I'll be running it? (I guess, as a noob, I'm wondering if, like running my Toyota at top speed constantly wouldn't be great for the engine, having RAM faster that I'll run it would be somehow good.) I do know that given warranties my question is not a practical consideration.

Ram will usually have a lifetime warranty.

Oh hey that reminds me, I noticed the long list of Warranty Exclusions at http://www.gskill.com/warranty starting with "Wear and tear associated with normal use" (lol!). OTOH, G.Skill has in practice been cool with RAM RMAs with me. Is G.Skill's actual practice good despite the ludicrous exclusions?

 

[DMAN999]

G.Skill has an Excellent warranty on their RAM.
As long as you didn't physically damage the RAM and have a valid reason to RMA it they will replace it with a new kit.
I recently had to RMA my 16 GB TridentZ RGB 3200 MHZ kit because Asus Aura corrupted the SPD info on one stick.
I sent it back and 2 days after they received it I had a Brand New kit in my mailbox.
And as a bonus my old kit had Hynix AFC (A Die) IC's and the new kit has Samsung B Die IC's.

That was the second time in about 30 years that have had to RMA.
The first time was about 20 years ago and it was G.Skill RAM as well (I was OCing it and overvolted it, which was most likely the cause of the failure) which they replaced in a few days.
That is the biggest reason why I have bought G.Skill RAM ever since.
Other than that I have only had cheap no-name value ram in an OEM PC fail, which I threw away and replaced with G.Skill RAM.

If I was you I would buy 3600 Mhz RAM (if you can find a 128 GB kit that is compatible with your MB) and just set the XMP/DOCP profile for it in the BIOS so it runs at 3600 MHz.
Ryzen CPUS absolutely benefit from fast RAM.
So why buy 3200 MHz RAM when your MB and CPU are fully compatible with 3600 MHz RAM?


And NO running 3600 MHz RAM at 3200 MHz (or 3200 MHZ RAM at 2133 MHz) will Not make it last longer.
Other components of your PC will fail years and years before your RAM will.
I put some G.Skill DDR3 RAM in a I7-870 PC I recently threw together from pieces and parts that I had laying around gathering dust.
That RAM is at least 10 years old and still works perfectly.
And if it didn't I would RMA it.

 

[coyote2]

Thank you very much for your reply, DMAN999!

Including thanks for reassuring me that G.Skill's warranty practice is good unlike their warranty language.

You're right, I should run RAM faster than 3200. I think the honest truth is that I know absolutely nothing about doing so, and was hoping to avoid spending any time learning how. Now I just need to sit down and google myself into becoming knowledgeable.

Would you equally urge me to OC my 3950x? (I figure that won't have a lifetime warranty.)

 

[DMAN999]

Honestly, there is no real reason to OC the 3000 series CPUs unless you want to do it because you enjoy OCing.
The 3000 series CPUs perfrom at almost their limits at the stock settings and the gains from OCing are minimal.

As for running the RAM at it's rated speed, that is actually a simple process.
You will just need to enter the BIOS (usually by tapping F2 or DEL while booting) and enable the XMP Profile (called DOCP on Asus AM4 MB's) for your RAM.
Then save the settings and reboot.

When you get your system built you can just post back here and I'm sure someone will be able to help you do that.

 

[coyote2]

You will just need to enter the BIOS (usually by tapping F2 or DEL while booting) and enable the XMP Profile (called DOCP on Asus AM4 MB's) for your RAM.
Then save the settings and reboot.

Oh thank goodness, I thought I was gonna need to dump a bunch of time into it and I already have too many balls in the air! Thank you for taking the time to help me stop ignorantly fearing the unknown-to-me word XMP.

 

[coyote2]

DMAN999, can I please ask why you suggested...

If I was you I would buy 3600 Mhz RAM (if you can find a 128 GB kit that is compatible with your MB) and just set the XMP/DOCP profile for it in the BIOS so it runs at 3600 MHz.

3600 Mhz (instead of something higher, even the 4666 Mhz a motherboard would support)?

(I'll guess...is it that higher than 3600 wouldn't be as dead simple as I admit to wanting? Or was it about diminishing returns vs. RAM cost? Or?)

 

[TJ Hooker]

Be careful on your ram pick.
Find a supported 128gb ram kit on the motherboard QVL list.
Here is the one for the asus motherboard.
https://dlcdnets.asus.com/pub/ASUS/...G_Crosshair_VIII_Series_Memory_QVL_190801.pdf
As an alternative go to a ram web site like g.skil, corsair, Kingston... and enter your motherboard make/model in their ram selection app.
Pick an appropriate kit.
You may not have a choice on speeds.
I would not worry about longevity. Ram will usually have a lifetime warranty.

There aren't any 128GB kits on that QVL because 4x32GB kits (and 32GB DIMMs in general) aren't common yet.

Edit: The X570 Aorus Pro has one 32GB DIMM validated for up to 4 DIMMs in the QVL. Crucial CT32G4DFD8266.16FB1 is the RAM model.

 

[DMAN999]

DMAN999, can I please ask why you suggested...


3600 Mhz (instead of something higher, even the 4666 Mhz a motherboard would support)?

(I'll guess...is it that higher than 3600 wouldn't be as dead simple as I admit to wanting? Or was it about diminishing returns vs. RAM cost? Or?)

3600 Mhz seems to be the sweet spot for RAM speed for the 3000 series CPUs.

Best RAM & Memory Timings for Ryzen 3000 CPUs - PremiumBuilds

In this guide we show you the best performing RAM & memory speeds & latencies for Ryzen Zen 2 processors, including the Ryzen 3600X, 3700X & 3900X.

premiumbuilds.com

 

[coyote2]

Thanks very much to both DMAN999 and TJHooker for the very helpful replies!

Oh my, I wonder if I wait for more X570 boards to come out I might get more of what I want?

Because while the X570 Aorus Pro has a 128GB kit on the QVL, it lacks my next few top priorities:

• A multi-gig LAN port (it has a 1G port, and my Internet connection is 1.5Gbps)
• 8 SATA ports (it has 6)(I know I can add like 4 ports with a card, and I plan to [I didn't say cards plural because in the past I wasn't able to use more than one SATA card at a time)(I know a NAS would be smarter...but I don't want to).

(The two motherboards I mentioned above had both of these.)

On the plus side, I see that the X570 Aorus Pro is fully compatible with the cooler I want to use (https://noctua.at/en/nh-d15-se-am4/specification), unlike the motherboards I mentioned above (on both of which which that cooler would block the top PCI-e slots...not a fatal flaw since I won't be running dual GPUs).

 

[TJ Hooker]

Out of curiosity, what will this PC be used for?

 

[coyote2]

Such a good question, TJHooker!

Most basically I crave core count because I do a lot of things at once. (Over the years I've killed a couple motherboards with heat issues.)

I crave RAM because

1. Chrome hogs it (particularly the times when I need to open a ton of tabs),
2. Dragon Naturally Speaking loves it (I have carpal tunnel), and,
3. I do audio editing work, for which I love a healthy-sized RAMDisk.

However, to be honest, I could only turn on the RAMDisk when I edit audio, and perhaps 64 GB RAM would be acceptable to me when I'm only doing #1 and #2.

I also download a lot of HD content, for which I'd like to get a LAN port that supports my current synchronous 1.5Gbps b/w, particularly since I often am simultaneously doing 1 Gbps LAN transfers to my HTPC, and because I (partially because the task of switching is a challenge w/my carpal tunnel) tend to keep a PC a long time (how long? the PC I'm using lately is 15 years old! I did have a newer one but it died too long ago).

Why all the SATA ports? I like a data HDD separate from my primary boot drive, and I like separate big drives to keep daily incremental backups of both. And I have a lot of HD content on additional HDDs.

But again my question: in time could I expect to get more of what I want in a board, either a new one or existing ones starting to supporting 128 GB RAM?

 

[TJ Hooker]

I see!

Well, I think the cheapest board that meets your requirements is the Asus Strix X570-E. 8 SATA ports, 2.5 GbE (plus GbE), and it has the same Crucial 32GB DIMM (along with a few others) on the QVL list validated with 4 DIMMs. The board is also Tomshardware's current "Best High-End X570" motherboard recommendation.

It's a little pricier than the Aorus Pro, but based on the sort of build you're looking for I'm guessing that spending an extra ~$70 on the motherboard is within your budget.

 

[DMAN999]

I see!

Well, I think the cheapest board that meets your requirements is the Asus Strix X570-E. 8 SATA ports, 2.5 GbE (plus GbE), and it has the same Crucial 32GB DIMM (along with a few others) on the QVL list validated with 4 DIMMs. The board is also Tomshardware's current "Best High-End X570" motherboard recommendation.

It's a little pricier than the Aorus Pro, but based on the sort of build you're looking for I'm guessing that spending an extra ~$70 on the motherboard is within your budget.

That is the exact same MB I recommended in another thread:
https://forums.tomshardware.com/thr...quality-amd-motherboard.3525550/post-21300214

 

[coyote2]

First, I gotta say, this thread has been priceless to me, thank you!

Oh yes, TJHooker and DMAN99, that sounds like what I want!! (I'm so happy! And that it's ASUS even suits my uninformed prejudice in favor of ASUS!)

A. How did y'all come up with which board matched my weird wishlist? Is there some mobo feature selector out there, or do you simply know everything?

Personally I only could google this page anandtech.com/show/14161/the-amd-x570-motherboard-overview/38 with which I manually matched boards with both multi-gig LAN ports and 8 SATA ports. They I went to noctua.at/en/nh-d15/comp to find those first 2 had a PCI-E slot covered (er, the X570 Creator wasn't on noctua.at/en/nh-d15/comp yet so I asked Noctua support).

I hadn't yet done that with the ASUS ROG Strix X570-E Gaming, or the other two boards that also have 8 SATA ports and 2.5GB LAN (2.5G not as fast as the 2 boards I first coveted that didn't support that cooler, but exactly meets my need!):

#1
ASUS ROG Crosshair VIII Hero ATX
Hey it looks to me on https://dlcdnets.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/SocketAM4/ROG_CROSSHAIR_VIII_FORMULA/ROG_Crosshair_VIII_Series_Memory_QVL_190801.pdf
that this board also supports the (32GB) CT32G4DFD8266.16FB1 on all four slots, so perhaps this makes a 2nd ASUS board I can consider!

#2
The ASRock X570 Phantom Gaming X but I can't understand the QVL at asrock.com/mb/AMD/X570%20Phantom%20Gaming%20X/index.asp#MemoryMS
Does "2/4" in the "DIMM Socket Support" column mean it only supports it in 2 slots? (Forgive me since that seemed obvious, but if that's what it means then I'm surprised there's no "3/4" or "4/4" for any RAM on the list.)

B.
I see that the CT32G4DFD8266.16FB1 is a 2666 Mhz stick; given that we found above that I'm ignorant of anything beyond applying an XMP Profile, should I live with 2666? Or could someone point me in the direction of learning how to OC it?

 

[TJ Hooker]

A. How did y'all come up with which board matched my weird wishlist? Is there some mobo feature selector out there, or do you simply know everything?

Lol, nah I haven't got the feature sets of all X570s memorized
I also looked at the Anandtech article you linked, and Newegg has a very good filter system: https://www.newegg.com/p/pl?N=100007625 4814 601334781 600054097 601292811 601301291 601322336&Order=PRICE

The ASRock X570 Phantom Gaming X but I can't understand the QVL at asrock.com/mb/AMD/X570%20Phantom%20Gaming%20X/index.asp#MemoryMS
Does "2/4" in the "DIMM Socket Support" column mean it only supports it in 2 slots? (Forgive me since that seemed obvious, but if that's what it means then I'm surprised there's no "3/4" or "4/4" for any RAM on the list.)

When it says "2/4" it means 'with 2 or 4 slots populated', not 'only 2 out of 4 slots populated'.

I see that the CT32G4DFD8266.16FB1 is a 2666 Mhz stick; given that we found above that I'm ignorant of anything beyond applying an XMP Profile, should I live with 2666? Or could someone point me in the direction of learning how to OC it?

There should be a number of Ryzen overclocking guides out there that covery memory overclocking. I'm not sure what to expect trying to overclock a whopping 128GB worth of memory though. It looks like the ASRock board at least has 3000 MHz 32GB DIMMs on their list: CMK64GX4M2D3000C16.

 

[DMAN999]

Look here for some good info on using the DRAM Calculator for Ryzen and Thaiphoon Burner to OC your RAM:

Info - Announcing DRAM Calculator for Ryzen with an Integrated Benchmark

1usmus just released a new version of the DRAM Calculator: https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/announcing-dram-calculator-for-ryzen-v1-5-0-with-an-integrated-benchmark.255229/ Version 1.70: https://www.techpowerup.com/download/ryzen-dram-calculator/ Added functionality to read current...

forums.tomshardware.com

Their are links to Download the DRAM Calculator and Thiaphoon Burner there too.

A. How did y'all come up with which board matched my weird wishlist?
Is there some mobo feature selector out there, or do you simply know everything?

LOL, I don't even come close to knowing everything but I read a lot and there are some really knowledgeable people here that I learn from everyday.

But I just really like that MB and if I was buying an X570 that would most likely be the one I'd buy.
I currently have an Asus ROG Strix B450-F Gaming and I am Really happy with it which is what had me looking at that X570 MB as a possible future upgrade.
And it does support 128 GBs of RAM:

｜｜ASUS USA

www.asus.com

And it is on the list as compatible with a Noctua NH D15:
https://noctua.at/en/nh-d15/comp#socket_3885

 

[coyote2]

"... and Newegg has a very good filter system"

Thanks so very much, TJHooker!
Oops, right thanks, I forgot about Newegg!

When it says "2/4" it means 'with 2 or 4 slots populated', not 'only 2 out of 4 slots populated'.

Ah, great!

It looks like the ASRock board at least has 3000 MHz 32GB DIMMs on their list: CMK64GX4M2D3000C16.

Thanks, also great, 3000 feels a lot better to me than 2666.

I see that on the ASRock board's QVL, thankfully my browser gets just 5 hits on a search for "32GB"....

But the massive QVL of the ASUS Crosshair Series is another matter, with 58 hits (mostly designating kit totals or embedded in partnumbers); you wouldn't happen to have thought up a way find the 32GB sticks without looking at all 58 rows, would you?

 

[coyote2]

Look here for some good info on using the DRAM Calculator for Ryzen and Thaiphoon Burner to OC your RAM:

Info - Announcing DRAM Calculator for Ryzen with an Integrated Benchmark

1usmus just released a new version of the DRAM Calculator: https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/announcing-dram-calculator-for-ryzen-v1-5-0-with-an-integrated-benchmark.255229/ Version 1.70: https://www.techpowerup.com/download/ryzen-dram-calculator/ Added functionality to read current...

forums.tomshardware.com

Thank you very much, DMAN999!

I don't know how to thank you two! I feel like I should buy each of you a motherboard.

 

[TJ Hooker]

But the massive QVL of the ASUS Crosshair Series is another matter, with 58 hits (mostly designating kit totals or embedded in partnumbers); you wouldn't happen to have thought up a way find the 32GB sticks without looking at all 58 rows, would you?

Looks like can search for "32GB DS". DS stands for double sided, which all 32GB sticks will be. I'm not sure that will fine all of them, given that they change the format they use for the "size" column throughout the list
But I think that finds all of them. Looks like there's nothing faster than 2666 MHz.

 

[coyote2]

Looks like can search for "32GB DS". DS stands for double sided, which all 32GB sticks will be.

Nice trick, thanks yet again man!

 

[coyote2]

...the ASRock board at least has 3000 MHz 32GB DIMMs on their list: CMK64GX4M2D3000C16.

I have another noob RAM question: is there any reason I should buy it in a kit of four 32GB sticks (which I can only find OOS on the Corsair site) or can I just buy a pair of 2-stick kits (like I see on Newegg and Amazon)?