Question Ryzen upgrade path...

[GreenGiant117]

Alright so I'm in a bit of a hard spot here, my desktop is awesome even 3 years on, here is the build:
Ryzen 7 1800X @ 3.9GHz
MSI Gaming Pro Carbon X370
Trident Z 3200 MHz 16GB
MSI GTX1080ti Gaming X
Samsung EVO 960 250 GB NVMe

The issue that I ran into was that when editing videos and pictures along with having a web browser open I find I am limited by RAM (chrome is a hungry browser as you guys know)
My first thought was to grab another couple 8GB sticks to get me up to 32GB, got it in and could not get my system stable at anything other than 1866MHz on the RAM, did some more testing, got other RAM to test and same results. I figured my mobo had a bad RAM slot until I found a couple articles about the early x370 boards not being able to support overclocked RAM in all 4 slots. Great, either I toss the RAM I have and get two 16GB sticks, or just deal with 16GB.

Problem is the trident Z that I have uses XMP 2.0 and has a CL of 14 anything 32GB is at least CL16, not a huge deal, probably not noticeable, but id like to stick with better numbers if I could.

The predicament I am in, is do I just upgrade the RAM and go from there, or do I wait it out and do a system update once gen3 comes out in the fall?
I know it's sort of apples and oranges here, but being able to have 4 sticks, along with the huge improved CPU performance for video/picture renders would be nice...

 

[logainofhades]

Is your motherboard's bios up to date? Bios revisions were done, that improved ram compatibility/capability.

 

[GreenGiant117]

Is your motherboard's bios up to date? Bios revisions were done, that improved ram compatibility/capability.

Yes, I have kept it up to date, it's not a software issue, its a hardware one, the motherboard cannot put out enough voltage/power to the memory to keep it stable.
As I mentioned I found at least 2 sources with the same problem and its being power/voltage related (of course I cannot find them anywhere now...)

 

[beers]

anything 32GB is at least CL16

There are kits in the market for 32G @ CL14

I found a couple articles about the early x370 boards not being able to support overclocked RAM in all 4 slots.

Where at? My CHVI doesn't have any issues running 4x16G 3200 CL14

 

[TechyInAZ]

You're issue is you are mixing RAM kits. Good chance that other kit is a completely different IC, so it is highly doubtful that both will run at anything but crazy loose timings.

With AGESA 1.0.0.6 or newer, X370 RAM compatibility is pretty good, especially at 3000-3200mhz, anything beyond that i can't speak for though.

You really need to sell your current RAM kit(s), and get a solid 3200mhz CL14 or CL16 2x16GB kit of RAM.

Also it could be your CPU, first Gen Ryzen was notorious for having to run very low RAM frequencies on 4 DIMMs. Try increasing your SOC voltage to like 1v or 1.15v. But either way I'd highly recommend going for a 2x16GB kit instead, it'll be much nicer trust me LOL.

 

[GreenGiant117]

You're issue is you are mixing RAM kits. Good chance that other kit is a completely different IC, so it is highly doubtful that both will run at anything but crazy loose timings.

With AGESA 1.0.0.6 or newer, X370 RAM compatibility is pretty good, especially at 3000-3200mhz, anything beyond that i can't speak for though.

You really need to sell your current RAM kit(s), and get a solid 3200mhz CL14 or CL16 2x16GB kit of RAM.

Also it could be your CPU, first Gen Ryzen was notorious for having to run very low RAM frequencies on 4 DIMMs. Try increasing your SOC voltage to like 1v or 1.15v. But either way I'd highly recommend going for a 2x16GB kit instead, it'll be much nicer trust me LOL.

I thought it was mobo not CPU, but that's part of the question, tried increasing the SOC, 1 was unstable, 1.15 wouldn't boot at all.

My second step was buying a matched set of RAM with the same issue, so it really does sound like the CPU is the culprit for the issues I am seeing.

There are kits in the market for 32G @ CL14

Where at? My CHVI doesn't have any issues running 4x16G 3200 CL14

True, but they're like $220+ it's a bit steep for just an increase in RAM, I'd almost rather spend $4-500 in 6 months and get next gen stuff for another 4-5 years, 3600MHz cl16 kits at 32GB are cheaper than 3200 CL14

As TechInAZ mentioned apparently it's the CPU being a gen 1 rather than the mobo, the forums I saw it in was all through searching the motherboard I have

 

[beers]

3600MHz cl16 kits at 32GB are cheaper than 3200 CL14

Correct, but that's not what you asked for here:

anything 32GB is at least CL16

So you obviously don't have your requirements in order as you are taking the stand on separate sides of your own arguemnt.

Seems more like a PEBKAC issue to me personally. But yes, the IMC on first gen Ryzen wasn't as good, I had to downclock mine to 3000 CL14 to be usable where 3200 was no go.

 

[TechyInAZ]

Hmmm interesting you mentioned 1.15v wouldn't even boot.

Try 1.05v see if that is stable at all. Just curious, sometimes with Zen you want to run lower than 1.1v on SOC for stability (just depends on the chip).

 

[GreenGiant117]

Hmmm interesting you mentioned 1.15v wouldn't even boot.

Try 1.05v see if that is stable at all. Just curious, sometimes with Zen you want to run lower than 1.1v on SOC for stability (just depends on the chip).

Unfortunately I have returned the new RAM, I believe I did try to run the gamut of voltages with varying results, best case it would run, I would stress it with Prime95 to make sure it was stable under load and I would get rounding errors there. Worst case it would boot loop until it had reset itself back to default BIOS settings.

In either case heavier loads (games and such) would crash during play, and sometimes I would get some BSOD's

 

[TechyInAZ]

Unfortunately I have returned the new RAM, I believe I did try to run the gamut of voltages with varying results, best case it would run, I would stress it with Prime95 to make sure it was stable under load and I would get rounding errors there. Worst case it would boot loop until it had reset itself back to default BIOS settings.

In either case heavier loads (games and such) would crash during play, and sometimes I would get some BSOD's

Yeah that's for the best anyways. Going with two sticks is going to save you a lot of headaches and stress testing either way.

Zen 2 is really the only AMD Ryzen architecture that can handle 4 DIMMs like a champ. Zen and Zen+ are struggle buses.

 

[GreenGiant117]

Correct, but that's not what you asked for here:

So you obviously don't have your requirements in order as you are taking the stand on separate sides of your own arguemnt.

Seems more like a PEBKAC issue to me personally. But yes, the IMC on first gen Ryzen wasn't as good, I had to downclock mine to 3000 CL14 to be usable where 3200 was no go.

Let us remember that this forum is about discussion and learning, you don't have to assume that I am being ignorant about the differences here.
Gen 2 (and presumably gen 3) is much more tolerant of wider timings, so rather than going with 3200 cl16 32GB and taking a 7-9% performance hit (depends on where you look), gen 2 takes about a 1-2% performance hit with the slower CL, and I'm guessing gen 3 will be the same if not better.

I'm just seeing where others stand on the issue I am having, and yes I am arguing both sides because I am torn on it, I want to upgrade my system right now and have the improvement, but is it worth sinking in half the money I could spend in 6 months to get a large performance increase?