Gigabyte AB350M-HD3 - XMP?

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Quite simply, does anyone know where and how I can enable XMP on the Gigabyte AB350M-HD3 motherboard?

I've searched for hours, but all I can find is related to the Gaming-3 motherboard which is of course not the same as what I currently have.

I'm basically finding my Ryzen 5 1600 seems to be under-performing in some situations (EG: currently getting 45fps in AC Origins, regardless of graphics settings), and I want to try overclocking my 2133mhz RAM.
 
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The 1600 boosts to 3.6GHz by default already, all you did was locking it to that boost clock - which doesn't change anything as the 1600 will always run at full boost until temperature or power draw limit it.

Edit: 2 RAM sticks -> runs in dual channel, with 1 stick only in single channel. This can impact overall system performance by a lot. 1 stick is not recommended in most cases.
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Did you buy RAM rated at 2133MHz or did you buy faster RAM that reverted to 2133MHz?

In the former case XMP won't help, in the latter case it might help, you can find XMP settings under the M.I.T. tab in the BIOS, under Advanced Memory Settings 😉
 
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Thank you for your response.

The Ryzen bundle I purchased came with the 2133mhz RAM (not faster that's down-clocked), and at the moment I haven't looked to buying more as the expense doesn't seem worth while (I mean, would RAM really take me from 45fps to 60fps? I'm guessing probably not, but I wanted to try overclocking it to rule this out you see).

In reality, I want to upgrade...but I'm worried about spending a good £180 more on something that might not help me in any real way.
 
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Performance increase from 2133MHz to 3200MHz is around 8-12% in CPU-bound tasks with Ryzen, so FPS would probably only increase to around 50.

You could overclock your RAM manually, you may well hit 2400MHz or, at best, 2666MHz. But RAM overclocking is more complicated than CPU or CPU overclocking, there are many values that you can change (I know about half of them). I don't feel like I could give good instructions for doing that, so I suggest searching for a guide elsewhere or open a new thread about RAM overclocking specifically, as it's not XMP related.

However, AC Origins ran very bad on AMD hardware (both CPUs & GPUs) at release, and unless they fixed it, 45-50 fps is unfortunately normal for a Ryzen 5 1600.
 
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Thanks again for your time, and I understand about not wanting to give instructions for the RAM - don't worry :)

As for AC Origins, I was aware of the possible issues with the FPS when I grabbed the game, but I looking on YouTube there appear to be other people with my same setup that get MUCH better results than I do:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPD76F4oY2Q&t=193s

For me, the point where the benchmark goes under the bridge at the town, I drop to 40fps no matter the settings, which is reflected in game and is a big pain 🙁 This is what made me want to look at overclocking.

To go slightly off topic, I tried using Ryzen Master last night to up my CPU to 3600, but I literally noticed no noticeable difference in game, which is very weird :|
 
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The 1600 boosts to 3.6GHz by default already, all you did was locking it to that boost clock - which doesn't change anything as the 1600 will always run at full boost until temperature or power draw limit it.

Edit: 2 RAM sticks -> runs in dual channel, with 1 stick only in single channel. This can impact overall system performance by a lot. 1 stick is not recommended in most cases.
 
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Solution
The 1600 boosts to 3.6GHz by default already, all you did was locking it to that boost clock - which doesn't change anything as the 1600 will always run at full boost until temperature or power draw limit it.

That's very interesting...I thought my clock speed was 3.2ghz. When I was messing around with the overclocking using the Master utility, I wasn't even able to get 3.7 to be stable - I would assume this is more my knowledge at fault than the processor, but hopefully I can try again and get maybe 3.8. I would certainly look at getting a beefy cooling system if I want to go higher than that, but I think the stock cooler is actually very good this time around! (had an FX before...)

Edit: 2 RAM sticks -> runs in dual channel, with 1 stick only in single channel. This can impact overall system performance by a lot. 1 stick is not recommended in most cases.

So potentially then it's worth be looking to get another stick? The bundle came with 1...me thinks I will be opening my case tonight to find out what make they gave me.

FYI, this was the bundle I bought in case it's relevant:

https://www.novatech.co.uk/motherboardbundles/view/mbb-16008.html

 
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First, yes, definitely get a second RAM stick, preferably the very same model you already have. If that isn't available or very expensive, just get a new RAM kit with 2 sticks and sell the old stick - that would actually be the best way overall.

When overclocking, you may have to increase the CPU voltage (aka "VCore") to be able to get stable clocks above standard. For daily use with the stock cooler, I recommend to stay below 1.35V on the Ryzen, and under 1.4V with a beefy cooler. The max overclock you can achieve will vary on every single CPU, I got my 1600 up to 3.93GHz on a beefy air cooler.
With the stock cooler, you should be able to hit 3.7-3.8GHz this way.

The R5 1600 has a base clock of 3.2GHz and a boost clock of 3.6GHz. The CPU will go down to 3.2GHz at stock settings when all cores are 100% loaded, but boost above that when doing lightly threaded workloads (most games are like this - not AC Origins tho)
 
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This is really helpful, thanks again!!

The R5 1600 has a base clock of 3.2GHz and a boost clock of 3.6GHz. The CPU will go down to 3.2GHz at stock settings when all cores are 100% loaded, but boost above that when doing lightly threaded workloads

This works completely the opposite way to what I thought - I was under the impression it would go UP to 3.6 if it was under load, and down to 3.2 if not.

So how do you know what your "true" speed is in that case? I can see the website I provided in my last message actually says the speed is 3.4, which confuses me even more 😀

(most games are like this - not AC Origins tho)

Oh, Ubisoft...
 
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Actually, a game being able to use more cores/threads of a CPU isn't a bad thing at all, usually it improves performance for CPUs with many cores/threads like the Ryzen series.

AC Origins however, while utilizing many threads, still performs poorly on AMD hardware. Cause Ubisoft always makes great PC ports *cough* *cough*
 
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Weirdly, some of their games are fine - The Division, for example, runs very well for me. I can also run Wildlands on High without issues - Far Cry 4 however runs pretty badly for me, and now this game (and obviously Unity....ALWAYS Unity!!).

I have had similar issues recently with Deus Ex Mankind Divided and Just Cause 3 (and a weird issue in Destiny 2 that only affects me when there are lots of other players on screen), and I'm really now wondering if all my issues might be resolved by the RAM point.
 
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That happened to me too. Now sadly I don't know the BIOS of your board, so you'll have to find where the RAM speed and timing settings are located by yourself.
What you'll also need is the speed and timings your RAM is supposed to run at. This is usually printed onto the packaging of your kit. Something like "DDR4-3000 CL16-18-18-38" - that's how it's written on mine.

Now, before I begin, let me state that you should have the latest BIOS to ensure maximum RAM compatibility and stability.

Okay, with the string we got from our RAM kit packagin, here's how to set them (wording of a specific setting might slightly vary)

DRAM voltage: 1.35V (standard voltage for RAM above 2666 MHz)
DRAM frequency: 3000 or 2933
tCL: 16
tRCDRD (RAS to CAS Read delay): 18 (corresponds to first 18)
tRCDWR (RAS to CAS Write delay): 18 (corresponds to first 18 too)
tRP: 18 (corresponds to second 18)
tRAS: 38
CR (Command Rate): 1T - only select 2T if you know your RAM is specified for that speed at 2T CR!

Apply those settings.
Hope the PC boots successfully. (Should only fail with DDR4-3466 or higher speeds on Ryzen, but it's a possibility.
Run a stress test of some kind that uses the RAM.
Hope it doesn't crash.

If all this completes without problems, your PC should now be running the RAM at the advertised speed!

If it crashes or doesn't even boot, you'll either have to put higher values on the tXXX settings or lower the frequency.
 
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Thank you for the extremely comprehensive reply - I will absolutely try this tonight.

I did go into the MB and enable XMP, just like I initially queried, and hoped for the best - but the computer just rebooted three times an then reset back. I figured it was a timings issue, but I looked at the box last night and couldn't spot anything.

The RAM I bought was:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0123ZBPDA/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I will say that you have definitely resolved this for me :) I don't know if my RAM was always a bit faulty all along, but AS:Origins is running like a dream now, even in the worst places I'm getting 60fps on the whole now!
 
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I think I may have found it in the product description:

8GB (2x4GB) Corsair DDR4 Vengeance LPX Black, PC4-24000 (3000), Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 15-17-17-35, XMP 2.0, 1.35V;Corsair DDR4 Vengeance LPX Ram

Does that look right? (section in bold)
 
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Do a stress test to be sure 😉

I used Cinebench R15, it always crashed during the benchmark if it was unstable. So Cinebench R15 stable = generally stable, at least from my experience. I did try timings that would boot, but crash under load.
 
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