Question Motherboard OC 3200mhz Ram

[Deleted member 2947362]

I have a gigabyte B350 gaming motherboard, in the motherboards spec sheet it says the motherboard supports up 2666mhz ram but 2933mhz and 3200mhz are stated to be an overclock for the motherboard.

I'm a bit confused to what has to be overclocked on the motherboard for it to be able to run at ddr4 3200mhz?

The memory controller is built in to the CPU these days (has been for a long time now) the AMD Ryzen 5 5600 officially only supports these memory speeds and configs.

2 X sicks of ram at 3200mhz in either dual rank ram or single rank sticks of ram.

Or 4 x sticks of ram for DDR4 2933 but only single rank sticks of ram.

Or 4 x sticks of ram at DDR4 2666mhz but only dual rank sticks of ram.

I know that it can use higher speed ram but these are what AMD officially say are the correct ram speeds and configs for the CPU memory controller to work in spec.

https://www.amd.com/en/products/cpu/amd-ryzen-5-5600

So why and what part of the motherboard does it have overclock to support DDR4 3200Mhz if the CPU's memory controller is built into the CPU and run's at that speed natively ?

Or is it more to do with the amount of PCB layers and copper content of the motherboard ?

 

[Lutfij]

You'll need to get to the latest BIOS version for your motherboard and you should be good to go with overclocking the ram to DDR4-3200Mhz.

 

[geofelt]

All ram will boot at the basic 2666 speed.
Operating faster to the higher spec of the ram is technically overclocking, requiring higher than stock voltage.
The motherboard spec of 2666 speed is the speed at which the motherboard will boot to bios.
Once in the bios, you can then specify a higher speed that the ram supports.

Ryzen is very picky about ram, Safest is to pick a kit of the speed and capacity that you want from the motherboard ram QVL list.

 

[Deleted member 2947362]

I thought maybe it was because this motherboard dates back to 2017 the CPU memory controllers on the first gen Ryzen CPU's only supported up to 2666mhz so anything faster the motherboard classes it as an OC lol

I'm also confused with corsair ram, I know the ram is rated at DDR4 3200-cl16-1.35v when using XMP

So does that mean the IC's corsair use for their DDR4 3200mhz XMP spec'd ram kit's are just JEDEC spec DDR4 2133mhz that's been tested to run at cl16 3200mhz with higher voltage?

Or

Are the IC's really JEDEC spec cl22 ddr4 3200mhz with higher voltage to keep it stable at cl16 1.35v when using XMP?

or simply put are the IC's real DDR4 3200mhz or overclocked DDR4 2133mhz?

 

[geofelt]

Ram is binned.
Those sticks that are capable of faster than the default 2133@1.2v will be sold as higher speed ram and fetch a higher price.
To get those higher speeds, the ram must be set to use a higher voltage such as 1.35v. Technically an overclock over 1.2v.
RAM sticks will have one or more speed profile info embedded in the sticks themselves.
It will not only include the speed, but also the timings and voltage.
In an Intel motherboard, the specs are installed when you specify a XMP profile in the bios.
On amd systems, it is not called XMP but the function is the same.
On capable motherboards, all of the individual specs can be set. That is what ram overclockers will do.

 

[Deleted member 2947362]

Ahh ok thanks for the info

Before I upgraded to the corsair DDR4 3200Mhz 32gig kit the system came with 4 sticks of Team Group Elite DDR4 2400 cl16 1.2v single rank ram.

That stuff reached DDR4 3200 albeit at cl22 no problems even at 1.2v with all four sticks installed with my R5 5600 CPU but with the old R5 1600 CPU that was in this system before I upgraded it wouldn't go over DDR4 3000

I did read somewhere that single rank ram modules overclock better than dual rank but dual rank can go higher density like 64gig on 1 stick.

Think I'm going to keep that Teamgroup elite kit, it was bought back in 2017 by the person who first owned\built this PC (I bought it second hand cheap) it's proved cheap ram can overclock really well and last the tests of time.

Oh I just add that the Teamgroup elite Ram was 2 different 2x4gig 8gig kits not a matched set 4x4gig.

one set I remember used Hynix IC's and the other 2x4gig kit used some other brand IC's I cant remember, but I hadn't heard of them before.

All this kind of fly's in the face of what recommended when selecting ram. not matched kits, using all four Ram slots on the motherboard when over clocking, cheap B350 chipset motherboard and could still can run at 3200mhz at 1.2volts when using the r5 5600 CPU or 3000mhz when using the R5 1600 CPU.

Prity much just about everything they don't recommend lol

Yet almost 6 years later it's working just as it should when gaming, benchmarking, stress testing, browsing or whatever it's been used for.

Testimony to a home built budget PC ! I take my hat off to the chap who originally selected the parts to build it lol

Edit (again)

I'm going to see if this corsair kit will run stable at 1.2volts 3200mhz Cl22, I'll just turn off XMP change ram speed manually to 3200 leave all timings on auto and voltage on auto

If the Teamgroup Elite DDR4 2400 ram can do it, I'm sure the better quality Corsair ram can.
I'll run through the same tests I did on the Teamgroup Elite ram for a couple of weeks just to see if it can run at 1.2volts and still be stable, albeit at a lose cl22.

 

[Rick_S]

I have a gigabyte B350 gaming motherboard, in the motherboards spec sheet it says the motherboard supports up 2666mhz ram but 2933mhz and 3200mhz are stated to be an overclock for the motherboard.

I'm a bit confused to what has to be overclocked on the motherboard for it to be able to run at ddr4 3200mhz?

The memory controller is built in to the CPU these days (has been for a long time now) the AMD Ryzen 5 5600 officially only supports these memory speeds and configs.

2 X sicks of ram at 3200mhz in either dual rank ram or single rank sticks of ram.

Or 4 x sticks of ram for DDR4 2933 but only single rank sticks of ram.

Or 4 x sticks of ram at DDR4 2666mhz but only dual rank sticks of ram.

I know that it can use higher speed ram but these are what AMD officially say are the correct ram speeds and configs for the CPU memory controller to work in spec.

https://www.amd.com/en/products/cpu/amd-ryzen-5-5600

So why and what part of the motherboard does it have overclock to support DDR4 3200Mhz if the CPU's memory controller is built into the CPU and run's at that speed natively ?

Or is it more to do with the amount of PCB layers and copper content of the motherboard ?

Did you turn on the XMP in the BIOS settings? I didn't see a mention of it. It has to be done in the BIOS itself.
No memory will go faster than that without the XMP turned on. For some reason, MBs are always shipped with it turned off.

 

[Deleted member 2947362]

Did you turn on the XMP in the BIOS settings? I didn't see a mention of it. It has to be done in the BIOS itself.
No memory will go faster than that without the XMP turned on. For some reason, MBs are always shipped with it turned off.

Thanks for advice although I already know this and not really what I was asking.

I was more asking the question of why this (my) motherboard and some others class ddr4 3200 as an overclock.

For example :

You can buy JEDEC spec (cl22-22-22-52) 1.2V DDR4 3200mhz 1.2v (like micron and others make)

The max native official speed of the 5th series (Zen 3) AMD Ryzen memory controller is DDR4 3200mhz

My motherboard officially only supports max 2666mhz ram or up to DDR4 3200(OC) so my motherboard class running DDR4 3200 Ram as an overclock in order to run the ram at DDR4 3200mhz.
But nothing is being overclocked on the CPU or RAM. I just find it confusing considering the memory controller is built in to the CPU and is designed to run at 3200Mhz same as JEDEC spec cl22-22-22-22-52 DDR4 3200 RAM.

So what exactly is being overclocked on the motherboard given the example above?