Review PNY XLR8 2x16GB DDR4-3200 Review: A Really Big Deal?

[Admin]

Touting 32GB capacity and prices as low as $140, does PNY now have the industry’s best high-capacity DRAM bargain?

PNY XLR8 2x16GB DDR4-3200 Review: A Really Big Deal? : Read more

 

[2Be_or_Not2Be]

If DDR4-3600 is the sweet spot for Ryzen 3000-series desktop CPUs, can we get more reviews of that speed? That's why I would buy if I'm buying a Ryzen CPU and not looking to overclock it. I'd want the lowest latency/fastest timings at its rated speed.

 

[Crashman]

If DDR4-3600 is the sweet spot for Ryzen 3000-series desktop CPUs, can we get more reviews of that speed? That's why I would buy if I'm buying a Ryzen CPU and not looking to overclock it. I'd want the lowest latency/fastest timings at its rated speed.

You'll find quite a few in the review collection:
https://www.tomshardware.com/topics/memory/reviews

Regarding the need for DDR4-3600, I think you'll find this information useful:
https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/amd-ryzen-3000-best-memory-timings,6310.html

If you don't have time to read that through both pages, here's the last chart:

 

[2Be_or_Not2Be]

Hmm... missed this before. I thought 3600 was the sweet spot for Ryzen for getting 1T (higher would only be 2T) due to the backend fabric setting everything higher than 3600 to 2T. However, from the tests shown, a lot of 3600 is at 2T already, and the highest 2T performers are still inching past the highest 1T performers.

Well, it is interesting, especially if you are looking at optimizing even to smaller percentages of improvement! Not that I worry too much about whether I'm getting 121% vs only 119%; I don't have anything that heavily memory-performance oriented anyway.

 

[Crashman]

Hmm... missed this before. I thought 3600 was the sweet spot for Ryzen for getting 1T (higher would only be 2T) due to the backend fabric setting everything higher than 3600 to 2T. However, from the tests shown, a lot of 3600 is at 2T already, and the highest 2T performers are still inching past the highest 1T performers.

Well, it is interesting, especially if you are looking at optimizing even to smaller percentages of improvement! Not that I worry too much about whether I'm getting 121% vs only 119%; I don't have anything that heavily memory-performance oriented anyway.

The sweet spot is two ranks per channel at the tightest timings you can get. The problem is that a bunch of combos won't run stably at 1T with four ranks of DDR4-3600.

If you look at two rank configurations, 3200 C14 1T is only around 1% behind 3600 C16 1T. Pretty much anything from DDR4-2933 upward will make your system rock if you can keep the timings down, and your biggest benefit comes from two ranks per channel.

 

[terroralpha]

garbage. it's selling for $155 right now. for $135 you can get the same exact kit from many other brands, gskill, geil, mushkin, team group, oloy, etc.

for the SAME price, GSkill will sell you a 2x16GB 3600MHz CL16 kit. the ideal memory for zen 2, which is the CPU architecture everyone should be buying right now anyway. i'm currently using that exact kit with my threadripper 3960X. best value on the market.

 

[Crashman]

garbage. it's selling for $155 right now. for $135 you can get the same exact kit from many other brands, gskill, geil, mushkin, team group, oloy, etc.

It's selling for $130 right now:
https://www.pny.com/anarchy-x-ddr4-red

 

[2Be_or_Not2Be]

The sweet spot is two ranks per channel at the tightest timings you can get. The problem is that a bunch of combos won't run stably at 1T with four ranks of DDR4-3600.

If you look at two rank configurations, 3200 C14 1T is only around 1% behind 3600 C16 1T. Pretty much anything from DDR4-2933 upward will make your system rock if you can keep the timings down, and your biggest benefit comes from two ranks per channel.

So let me ask you - most mini-ITX boards only have 2 DIMM slots. You mentioned a number of the larger boards with 4 slots can't run all 4 stable at 1T. Have you seen widespread problems with mini-ITX boards running 2 DIMMs in their lowest stable 1T timings at the larger capacities (2 x 16GB or 2 x 32GB)? Or are they much better than the 4 slot boards for the lowest 1T timings due to just having only 2 slots?

 

[Crashman]

So let me ask you - most mini-ITX boards only have 2 DIMM slots. You mentioned a number of the larger boards with 4 slots can't run all 4 stable at 1T. Have you seen widespread problems with mini-ITX boards running 2 DIMMs in their lowest stable 1T timings at the larger capacities (2 x 16GB or 2 x 32GB)? Or are they much better than the 4 slot boards for the lowest 1T timings due to just having only 2 slots?

I'm referring to ranks because both 2x 16GB kits and 4x 8GB kits tend to be four-rank. More ranks gives you better performance, but often won't be stable at 1T when set to DDR4-3600.

Of course Mini ITX boards often have shorter pathways, and the lack of extra DIMM slots can improve stability slightly, so your odds of supporting four ranks at DDR4-3600 1T are slightly improved. Whether that's good enough or not is a matter for experimentation.

Reminder: Ranks refer to the complete set of ICs that make up a 64-bit "side" of a module. People used to call two-rank DIMMs double-sided, but then someone came out with a four-chip DIMM that had two 16-bit chips per side with one side wired through to the interface on the other side...all ancient history now.

 

[2Be_or_Not2Be]

Reminder: Ranks refer to the complete set of ICs that make up a 64-bit "side" of a module. People used to call two-rank DIMMs double-sided, but then someone came out with a four-chip DIMM that had two 16-bit chips per side with one side wired through to the interface on the other side...all ancient history now.

Just as an aside, have you seen any testing in regards to quad-ranked DIMMs on the consumer side, especially with dual-channel boards (like the usual 2 slots on mini-ITX)? I know a past Tom's article mentioned that you want 4 ranks for the best performance, but I was wondering if anyone has tested quad-ranked DIMMs to see how the performance goes for them. I know I have some quad-ranked memory in servers, but I haven't really seen anything specifically testing them on the consumer side.

 

[Crashman]

Just as an aside, have you seen any testing in regards to quad-ranked DIMMs on the consumer side, especially with dual-channel boards (like the usual 2 slots on mini-ITX)? I know a past Tom's article mentioned that you want 4 ranks for the best performance, but I was wondering if anyone has tested quad-ranked DIMMs to see how the performance goes for them. I know I have some quad-ranked memory in servers, but I haven't really seen anything specifically testing them on the consumer side.

We tested the Zadak quad-rank DIMMs sent by Asus in a motherboard review, but you'll notice that it's being compared to two single-rank DIMMs.
https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/asus-rog-maximus-xi-gene-z390-micro-atx,5941-4.html
If you dig a little deeper by comparing the performance of other Z390 boards using four single-rank DIMMS (ie, the ATX models), you'll find that there's very little gain going from four ranks to eight.

 

[2Be_or_Not2Be]

We tested the Zadak quad-rank DIMMs sent by Asus in a motherboard review, but you'll notice that it's being compared to two single-rank DIMMs.
https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/asus-rog-maximus-xi-gene-z390-micro-atx,5941-4.html
If you dig a little deeper by comparing the performance of other Z390 boards using four single-rank DIMMS (ie, the ATX models), you'll find that there's very little gain going from four ranks to eight.

Nice to know - thanks!