Intel’s 12^th Generation CPUs have impressed across the board with their performance. To get the most out of them, it makes sense to pay close attention to your choice of RAM. In this article, we’ll explain how RAM specification can help improve CPU performance, show you our testing which demonstrates the effect of different RAM speeds, and then make our recommendations as to the RAM that will help you get the most out of an Alder lake 12^th Generation Intel CPU. 

DDR4 Vs DDR5

One of the features of the 12^th generation CPUs is their support for DDR5 RAM. This is dependent on the motherboard you choose, with your motherboard choice tying you to either DDR5 or DDR4 RAM.
The Case for DDR5 isn’t made out in this generation: DDR5 ram boasts impressive headline frequencies, but the timings show that it’s not a clear cut picture. This is borne out in testing, with DDR5 outperforming DDR4 in certain high memory bandwidth-intensive tasks like file compression and video rendering. DDR4, particularly well-specified faster DDR4, holds its own, particularly in gaming tests. Of course, there’s also the fact that DDR5 is three to four times as expensive as even high-quality DDR4 kits. We’re safe to say that for the 12^th generation, you should opt for a DDR4 kit unless you have excellent reasons to need DDR5, and very deep pockets as well. 

Once you’ve decided DDR4 is right for your Alder Lake Build, what then? Which is the best DDR4 RAM to choose from with this platform? We conducted a number of tests to find out the best RAM for the Intel Core i5-12400, i5-12600K, and Core i7-12700K for 2022 builds.

Testing Set up:

All of our testing was conducted on the MSI Tomahawk Z690 DDR4 motherboard (B09GLD72QH). We used an Intel i7-12700K (B09FXNVDBJ) at stock/default settings. This was paired with an EVGA RTX 3080 XC3 Ultra. Cooling was provided by an Arctic Liquid Freezer II 240 AIO (B07WSDLRVP). The power supply is a Fractal Design Ion+ 860W platinum PSU.

RAM used was: 

• Crucial Ballistix 3200Mhx CL16 2x8GB, (XMP and JDEC) (B083TRRT16)
• G.Skill Ripjaws V 3600MHz CL16 2x8GB (XMP and JDEC) (B07X8DVDZZ)
• Patriot Viper Steel 4400Mhz Cl9 2x8GB (XMP and Manual OC) (B07KXLFDL6)

Firstly, let’s define a few terms so that we can interpret our results.

MHz speed is often the headline specification of RAM, but it’s somewhat misleading in that on its own it’s not particularly helpful in determining RAMs potential for performance. It’s the frequency the RAM runs at, but more correctly should be ‘MT/s’ or Million Transfers per Second, as RAM is Double Data Rate – it is accessible twice on every clock cycle. Therefore DDR4 3200Mhz RAM actually runs at 1600MHz, which is the speed you will see in various RAM diagnostic utilities. Faster RAM has the potential to perform better, as the rate of access increases. This primarily increases Bandwidth, and to a degree also lowers latency since the memory controller is waiting less time for an available access window to transact with the RAM. However, faster isn’t always better. Very high-speed RAM (greater than 4000MHz) is difficult for memory controllers to run, and may not be stable particularly in larger capacities. If you’re looking for 32GB or 64GB of RAM, you may find you need to reduce speeds for stability.

CL timings or CAS latency are the numbers you see quoted in listings for RAM: 16-16-16-32 or similar. These lists the primary timings and they are the number of clock cycles it takes to perform certain important functions. Lower numbers are therefore better. By multiplying clock speed with CL, you gain an indication of the ‘first word’ latency of the RAM in nanoseconds. Since it’s measured in time, again lower is better.

Gear 1 vs Gear 2. This is Intel’s naming for the ratio of your memory controller speed to the RAM speed. Ideally, for the lowest latency, it should be 1:1 and this is known as ‘Gear 1’. If your RAM frequency exceeds the stable speed of the CPUs memory controller, then ‘Gear 2’ may be employed, halving the memory controller speed in relation to the RAM. This induces a latency penalty. For Alder Lake, the memory controller appears to be happy in Gear 1 up to around 4000MHz, but individual CPUs may vary. 

1. Synthetic Benchmarks

The CPU test in Time Spy is highly Multithreaded, using our 12700K to the full. As it turns out it’s also sensitive to memory speed. You can see here how detrimental to performance running 2400MHz CL16 RAM is – the score is 1,500 points down on the next set of results. This is what happens if you fail to set XMP, your RAM runs at these basic ‘JDEC’ defined speeds and that can really hurt performance.  Both 3200Mhz and 3600Mhz CL16 RAM kits are commonly available and currently cheap. You can see they perform identically in this test returning 16,000 points each.

Looking at the ‘high performance’ RAM kit, this is a 4400 MHz RAM Kit, using Samsung B-Die chips, that we tweak to further improve performance.

Firstly, at XMP settings this kit runs at 4400Mhz CL19, but in gear 2. This, combined with the looser timings, offsets the higher frequency operation. Tweaking further brings us to a 4400Mhz CL17 settings and our third-highest result. Finally, Tightening timings to 4000Mhz Cl15-16-16-36 brings us to our best score of 17026, but it’s by a marginal 100 points. All three configurations perform near identically.

Rendering is another task that can be memory intensive, but is it dependent on memory speeds? We ran a couple of tests to check.

Cinebench R20 uses a tile-based renderer to complete a scene as fast as the CPU allows.

Ordered by result, we can see that there is essentially no trend here. 60 points are well within the margin of error for Cinebench R20 and we can see that the ‘worst’ RAM specification, 2400Mhz JDEC settings are butting up against one of the best: Manually tuned RAM at 4000MHz Cl17. 2600Mhz CL16 ties 3600Mhz Cl16 as well. This test doesn’t demonstrate any coherent scaling with RAM Speed. The lesson here is that many tasks simply aren’t dependent on RAM speed, and also that you shouldn’t use Cinebench to look for performance improvements if you’re tweaking RAM!

Cinebench R23 shows similarly unhelpful results. Again, this is all within the margin of error for this test and there’s no clear trend aligning with RAM performance.

And finally, another rendering test, this time Blender, a popular 3D Creation platform.

We rendered out two scenes on the i7-12700K, with the following results:

We’ve put a bit of a spoiler here in the form of some DDR5 testing as well. You can see that the results in all three instances, 2400Mhz, 400MHz optimised, and even DDR5 at 6000MHZ is the same: This is another task that does not scale with RAM speed to any appreciable degree.

2. Gaming Benchmarks

So, some synthetic tests show memory scaling, and some don’t. But what about gaming?

Well, games as a rule respond very well to reduced RAM latency on previous intel platforms. Getting data to the CPU with less delay allows it to process the game world faster, returning higher frame rates.
We can demonstrate this using a number of tests.

1. Shadow of the Tomb Raider

Firstly, Shadow of the tomb raider makes things easy for us by showing the effects of RAM speed on the game engine thread itself, in the in-game benchmark.

Using the min, average and maximum framerates, we can see a clear trend in performance as we move up to faster RAM specifications. Whilst JDEC specification 2400MHz RAM languishes behind at 202FPS average, the 3200MHz Ram improves to 227FPS, the 3600 MHz kit to 239FPS, the 4400 MHz kit to 244FPS, and the manually tweaked 4000 MHz kit run to 257 FPS on average. Note that minimum and Maximum frame rates increase accordingly. 

Now, this is all well and good but is it representative of anything in the real world? Well, the overall FPS results of this benchmark confirm the Ram speed scaling and demonstrate the extent to which it can help:

Here, we can see that the 4400MHz Kit actually returns the highest results, with the 4000MHz RAM kits actually trailing slightly behind. The XMP 3600Mhz kit is also close to the peak result. You can again see the clear detriment of slow RAM, with 2400Mhz a clear 10% slower than any of the better options.

As for the reversal of fortunes for the 4000MHz manually tweaked ram? – Well, XMP has settings for a number of timings that we did not have time to optimise for this testing. The Render thread often acts as a limiting factor and depends more on Ram Bandwidth than latency. Overall, you can see the broad impact of tweaking RAM, but also the subtle nature of changes in timings and settings that can add noise to the results.

Nonetheless, this test demonstrates how faster RAM assists CPU performance and allows games to run with less restriction from CPU limitations, resulting in higher frame rates.

2. Rainbow 6 Siege

Again in Rainbow 6 Siege, we can see a broad trend favouring faster RAM, with 2400MHz the slowest at 500FPS, the 4000MHz and 4400MHz options posting similar results from 530-540 FPS average, and the 3600Mhz CL16 RAM kit posting the best results at 564 FPS. Again, XMP likely takes optimisations to tRFC and other secondary and tertiary settings that deliver more consistent all-round performance here. Nevertheless, such is the performance of the i7-12700K we’re really splitting hairs looking at RAM speed impacts on this benchmark.

3. Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020

Flight Sim is a Game, or simulator if you want to be serious about it, that places unique importance on the CPU performance. It’s often the limiting factor in frame rates in this game, and lifting CPU capability directly translates to more frames on screen in a lot of circumstances.

In this test, we fly a Daher at a low altitude across Manhattan and log frame rates for 3 minutes.

Here again, we see the detrimental effect using slow ram, or not setting XMP on your RAM, has on performance. 2400MHz languishes at 98 FPS. Faster RAM scales near linearly across the speeds on test, with 3600Mhz bringing a decent lift to 107 FPS, and 4400MHz and faster continuing to increase performance. Remember, with gear 2 and loose timings this 4400MHz kit isn’t the fastest RAM on test here. The effect is subtle, but the trend is clear: Faster RAM helps this title, which is unsurprising given the CPU heavy nature of performance limits in Flight Sim 2020. 

4. Forza Horizon 5

This modern AAA open-world racer has a detailed inbuilt benchmark that lets us peek under the hood and see how performance is impacted.
Firstly, we can see that the sim engine itself benefits hugely from improving RAM speeds:

This is pretty unequivocal. Going from 2400MHz JDEC specification to 3600Mhz Cl16 nets you a huge 70FPS average gain. Pushing to optimised 4000MHz RAM at CL16 makes that a 110FPS margin, over a third faster again.
Once the game has processed the world, it prepares the render to pass to the GPU, this is the CPU render stat also shown in the results:

Here we see a less dramatic but still significant performance trend: The rendering process gains around 20 FPS or 10% going from the slowest RAM to moderately well optimised 3600Mhz Cl16 RAM.

And finally, do these under-the-hood numbers make any real-world difference? Well, they can do yes, as shown by our results:

Optimising RAM sees an easy gain of around 15FPS in the overall benchmark score. 

Conclusions:

Throughout these tests, we’ve seen an overall trend of faster ram assisting performance, both in some synthetic tests and also in games. We hope you’ll excuse the somewhat ‘messy’ nature of the data. It is what it is, this is real data, and the nuances of RAM speed and timings and how they interact with different software performance is a complex web. There is no one best set of RAM for all circumstances, but you can certainly pick RAM that will give you better results more of the time. As our results consistently show, you can also pick bad RAM or fail to set it up correctly, and this can bring tangible harm to your system’s performance.

We’d also like to address the issue over the gaming benchmarks. We’ve purposefully run these tests at 1080p, High settings, to bring you data that is at least somewhat relevant. But we are still using an RTX 3080 at 1080p. It’s quite correct to say that at 1440p and up the limiting factor becomes the GPU making these results less relevant. However: What is important is that RAM speed sets a baseline for performance in many games. You buy yourself more headroom by choosing better RAM. And that’s important in demanding CPU bound situations or as a system ages. A system with bad RAM may well show performance problems where one with well-chosen RAM won’t, and that could mean the system as a whole survives another generation of graphics cards upgrades.

Alder lake CPUs are exceptionally high performance, and it would be a real shame to limit their potential with poorly chosen RAM.

Recommendations

Overall, on the basis of cost, availability and ease of set-up, we still recommend 3600Mhz CL16 RAM for Alder lake CPUs. This RAM brings you the bulk of performance improvements with a minimum of money and time invested. There are Crucial Ballistix and G.Skill Ripjaws V kits available in 2x8GB Format at under $100. They’ve got decent timings, and represent great bang for buck.

If you need 32 GB, around $150 to $180 gets you G.Skill or those Ballistix kits in 2x16Gb Format.

There are also currently Crucial Ballistix Max 4000Mhz Cl18 Kits available at around $90 for 16Gb. They also represent a nice option, as they run in Gear 1 mode and give roughly the same total latency as a 3600Mhz Cl16 kit. Grabbing those and tweaking timings downwards could yield some pretty impressive results, but they’ll work just fine at XMP.

The post Best DDR4 RAM for Intel ‘Alder Lake’ CPUs (i5-12400, 15-12600K, i7-12700K) appeared first on PremiumBuilds.

The answer is ‘usually two’ but read on to find out why!

On most consumer platforms you have the choice of motherboards with two or four slots for RAM, and RAM is sold in single sticks, kits of two or matched sets for four ‘DIMMS’ or memory modules. In this article, we’ll describe how these configurations can influence performance and point out the best options for general use and gaming. 

RAM Sticks and kits: One, two or four

RAM is sold either as individual sticks, pairs, or sets of four sticks. These sticks consist of tested and matched chips: just like a processor’s, the silicon quality and production methods vary from chip to chip and batch to batch. After testing them manufacturers construct RAM modules that will perform to advertised standards in speed and latency. Single sticks simply need to meet a quality specification, but kits will be matched to ensure stable performance: from the systems perspective they must behave identically. This is why a pair of sticks costs slightly more than a single stick in some cases, and a kit of four matched sticks are significantly more expensive than buying two paired kits. 

In order to understand why you need to know a little about how the Processor accesses memory. The Processor has an inbuilt memory controller, and in all consumer processors these are ‘dual channel’. The memory controller has two separate channels to access the memory and each of these channels is connected to one of two or a pair of four memory slots. 

Motherboard configuration

The motherboard itself has copper traces that directly connect the CPU to RAM. In most consumer motherboards these are configured in a ‘daisy chain’ arrangement, first connecting with one socket, then continuing on to the second. Each memory channel uses its own traces, one to each pair of RAM sockets. When using just two ram sticks, they go in the slots that are at the end of the trace and furthest from the CPU: This properly terminates the connection at the end of the trace and prevents signal ‘reflections’ and interference from an unterminated trace that can lead to system instability and poor RAM performance. This is why we see the ‘second and fourth slot’ configuration in most PC’s with four slots but only 2 sticks of RAM installed. When you have two sticks on the same channel RAM sticks, the signal also hits the stick at the intermediate point and can access both sticks simultaneously. With both channels active this allows you to use all four RAM slots at the same time.

Some motherboards have ‘T Topology’ where the traces split prior to the slots and then interface both slots at the same signal distance from the CPU. These are designed to be used with all slots fully populated with matched RAM, so that the RAM chips themselves are equidistant from the memory controller for identical performance. 

‘Dual Rank’ RAM moves this topology inside the stick of RAM itself, with two sets of Memory chips connected to appear in parallel to the memory controller as if they were in their own separate slots on the motherboard and connected with ‘T’ Topology. 

Peak performance and memory controller limitations:

From this you can probably conclude that when you’ve heard about ‘dual rank ram’ or ‘four stick kits’ offering maximum performance, the reason is actually the same: Both configurations allow maximal bandwidth from the memory controller to RAM. But actually, performance is a little more nuanced than that, and this configuration isn’t always optimal. 

Performance impact of Different configurations

In terms of performance, the above information should demonstrate why a single RAM stick should only ever be a last resort: A single RAM stick, even dual rank, will only ever occupy one channel of the memory controller. You are only using half of the potential bandwidth to communicate with your RAM, and this can be seriously detrimental to performance. Whilst it can be acceptable in an office or basic use PC, when on an extreme budget, or if you intend to upgrade as soon as funds allow, you can expect gaming performance to be negatively impacted by as much as 10%.  Of course, it’s possible to install a pair of ram sticks ‘incorrectly’ by placing them in adjacent slots on a 4 slots motherboard, and this introduces the same problem – only half of the potential memory controller bandwidth is utilised. Be sure you read the motherboard manual and configure your RAM as recommended for optimal performance.

In all other cases, you should seek a base configuration of two RAM sticks with matched specifications, preferably sold as a kit. Placed in the correct slots on the motherboard this will enable ‘dual channel mode’ and allow you to use the full potential of your memory controller. The very fastest RAM overclocks tend to be in this configuration as it provides the most stable configuration without subjecting the memory controller to the added stress of accessing four sticks simultaneously. Some specialist overclocking motherboards are sold with just 2 RAM slots for this reason, whilst others prefer mITX boards owing to the shorter signal path from CPU to RAM slot. 

Bridging the gap is ‘dual rank’ RAM, and this allows wide bandwidth access to four ‘ranks’ of memory modules in just two sticks. This configuration can be considered optimal for RAM performance but does impose a higher load on the memory controller which can limit the ultimate speed of the RAM. In most cases this is a moot point as the highest speeds will not be necessary for daily use, nor beneficial to a gaming system. RAM in this configuration may show a 2-5% performance uplift in benchmarks designed to highlight RAM variance, vs identical single rank RAM. However, these gains are hard to realise in actual use, where you will likely be GPU limited.

If you are seeking larger RAM capacities (64GB+) or simply want the aesthetics of four RAM sticks, then you can consider a four stick kit. You will find that the complexities of matching these kits, as well as the additional load they place on the memory controller in large capacities means that they are more expensive and rated for lower speeds. Nevertheless, overclocks approaching or exceeding 4MT/s with tight timings should be possible on high-quality kits although you will pay a hefty premium for them. In this scenario, you will be balancing your need for RAM capacity with the ultimate speed of RAM the system can sustain. Ultimately, it’s likely that CPU performance or GPU capability is the limiting factor of the system long before RAM speed holds it back.

Summary: For most people, a two-stick kit is the right option.

For most users, most of the time, 16GB of DDR4 RAM in a 2x8GB kit is optimal for gaming and general use. Speed ratings of 3600MHz at around CL16 are affordable and easy to find and should be the focus of your search for most high-performance gaming systems. Ensure you install it correctly to take advantage of dual-channel mode!

If you need 32GB for productivity or more demanding tasks, again a 2 stick kit will offer the best balance of price, stability and performance. Whilst there are some small differences between dual and single rank, they’re small and specific enough not to matter unless you’re looking specifically to overclock and maximise RAM performance.

If you seek out faster RAM or four stick kits, be aware of the limitations of the memory controller and don’t fall into the trap of overpaying. Unless you’re specifically seeking out RAM to overclock, you should aim for Ram at 3200-3600MHz rating CL16 as that’s most likely to run XMP on the latest Ryzen Zen 3 and Intel 10^th and 11^th Gen CPUs.

The post Best RAM Configurations for Gaming, Workstations & General Use?: One vs Two vs Four Sticks appeared first on PremiumBuilds.

Getting the right RAM for your build isn’t as simple as grabbing a couple of sticks off the shelf and tossing them into your build. Buying RAM for your build is actually pretty easy to get wrong. Not only does the RAM you buy have to be compatible with your entire system, but the sticks also have to be compatible with each other. This guide will go over the basics of how to pick RAM for your build and how to ensure that you get the best performance out of the type you pick.

What is RAM? 

Before I go diving into how to buy RAM, it’s good to have a baseline idea of what it does and how it functions in a system. Having this information will make it easier to make an informed decision when you do decide to spec out your next build. 

Most RAM is “DDRSD RAM.” Unfortunately, that doesn’t stand for Dance Dance Revolution. It stands for Double Data Rate Synchronous Dynamic Random Access Memory. It’s a bit of a mouthful, but it has a rather simple yet important job in any given system. It serves as a common memory bank for your computer. Your PC will pull frequently-used data from your RAM for many tasks. It’s not for long-term storage like an SSD or HDD. Your RAM works synchronously (hence the “Synchronous” in the name) with your processor. 

The faster and more efficient that this communication occurs means better performance in applications. This performance is measured by the rated clock speed of your RAM, which is measured in Megahertz (MHz). The higher the MHz the faster that a RAM module can process and exchange data.

DDR Generations of RAM

You may have noticed that different RAM modules have different prefixes such as “DDR 3” or, more commonly, “DDR4.” These numbers stand for the generation of RAM. Higher is better here. Each generation has improved upon the last with better clock speeds, better reliability, and greater power efficiency. And those generations require a compatible motherboard. DDR3 RAM is not compatible with a newer DDR4-compatible motherboard and vice-versa. The same will be true with the next iteration of DDR5 RAM and subsequent motherboards. 

However, you shouldn’t expect a complete and instant shift to DDR5 in 2021. Though 2022 will likely see many more processors and boards compatible with DDR5. For now, DDR4 is still the dominant version in the space. And, luckily, these DDR generations don’t come around very often. DDR4 should still be a reliable and functional generation for at least the next few years. 

DIMM vs SO-DIMM Form Factor

If you’re building a standard desktop PC then the RAM form factor likely won’t be an issue. Most PCs use the more popular DIMM (dual in-line memory module) size. They are the long sticks that you’re often more used to seeing in a build. They seat right into the standard 288-pin connections on your motherboard, which are aptly called “DIMM slots.”

SO-DIMM (small outline dual in-line memory module) models are made for laptops and other portable computers that use 260-pin connections. While you can’t mess up and install the wrong kind into your PC, be sure to double-check the form factor before buying. As a beginner, it’s easy to overlook the size and purchase the wrong form factor for your build. 

Clock Speed Compatibility

Here comes the trickiest bit. You need to make sure that the RAM sticks you buy have the same clocked speed and are preferably the same brand. This may sound like a no-brainer, but this is key to watch out for if you’re upgrading a system with RAM already installed. Be sure to get the same brand and clocked speed or you could run into issues. 

It’s also worth checking your CPU to see what RAM speeds it natively supports. These aren’t hard-caps, but be sure that the RAM clock speeds line up with the supported speeds of your CPU. If you’re the ambitious sort who wants to overclock your RAM, be sure to check your motherboard’s specifications for max-supported RAM speeds. However, you shouldn’t run into any issues there if you’re not overclocking.

RAM Size/Capacity

For RAM, size is important. And size is different from the form factor. More specifically, this refers to the capacity of the stick. Check your motherboard to see what the maximum capacity supported is. It can vary from as low as 32GB all of the way up to the hundreds of GBs. 

While RAM capacity and speed aren’t as crucial to gaming performance as other system components, 16GB is a decent sweet spot to shoot for. With just 8GB, you may run into performance hiccups while web browsing or using creative software. Anything higher should be reserved for specific use cases like video editing, rendering, and other intensive tasks. 

Single vs Dual-Channel Configuration

Generally speaking, you’ll get better performance out of two low-capacity sticks rather than a single high-capacity stick. Having two sticks is called dual-channel, and most motherboards actually color-code the DIMM slots to show you how to configure your RAM in this way. It doesn’t matter when using more than two sticks since the whole array of slots will likely be filled up. However, if you’re using a pair of RAM modules you will want to check your motherboard specifications to ensure that you configure them in dual-channel mode. 

This means that your RAM sticks will work together and use fewer resources as a pair compared to a single high-capacity stick. For example, two 8GB sticks in dual-channel mode will perform better than a single 16GB stick. 

FAQ

Do I Need a lot of RAM for Gaming?

No. Aside from meeting the minimum requirements to launch a game, RAM will not have much of an impact on your overall gaming performance. While you can get away with 8GB of RAM on a gaming-focused rig, it’s always good to have a little bit more for other tasks. If you’re on a tight budget, putting money towards the GPU or CPU will net better performance boosts. 

Can I Buy any RAM for my Build? 

No, you have to make sure that the clock speed, brand, and capacity are compatible with your CPU and motherboard. Additionally, make sure to get RAM sticks of the same brand, speed, and capacity for optimal performance. 

Is there a Difference Between DDR3 and DDR4 RAM?

Yes. Different generations of RAM are not compatible with previous-generation components. Make sure you are getting parts that are compatible with your RAM of choice.

The post What Type of RAM is Compatible with My Build? appeared first on PremiumBuilds.

Each component in a PC build needs to run harmoniously with each other internal piece, creating a chain of synchronicity that results in the pleasure, and utility, we receive from the PC’s performance. This performance allows us to play games at high framerates, edit photos and videos efficiently, or just sit back and watch a film on a high-resolution monitor. To best achieve this ideal state, each hardware component must be carefully chosen, in order to assure that it is connected to the most optimal pairings. 

The very first link that should be chosen, when it comes to building a PC, is the CPU; as this is the most crucial part of any setup. If you are one of the many that have opted for a Zen 2, or Zen 3, AMD Ryzen processor, then there are some key suggestions that can make a considerable difference in performance – especially when it come to the Random Access Memory that will feed the CPU with the necessary temporary memory it needs to function.

In this article, we will break down each aspect associated with these memory units, and particularly the features that tie into the architecture of a Ryzen processor. Then, we will provide suggestions for the best metrics to look for when making a purchase, as well as a couple of examples of memory kit models that contain all the best qualities needed to synchronize with a Zen 2 or Zen 3 CPU.

You may also like:

• Ryzen RAM Speed Benchmark Analysis: What is the Best RAM for Ryzen?
• Zen 3 RAM Speeds: An Analysis of the Best RAM for Zen 3

Best RAM Speeds for Ryzen

The speed of a memory unit is dependent on two factors: the clock frequency and the CAS (Column Address Strobe) latency. 

The former metric refers to the number of cycles that the memory can perform per second,  measured in MHz. Now, it is better to have the potential for a larger amount of cycles, but different types of RAM can access data from a column address in a different amount of these cycles. The less cycles needed to access this information the better, and these cycles are measured as CAS Latency (CL). 

The overall speed of a RAM unit is dependent on both of these metrics, and can be calculated by taking the CAS latency and multiplying it by the reciprocal of half of the clock frequency (in cycles). For example, a memory kit with a frequency of 3,200 MHz and a CAS of 14 cycles will have an absolute latency of:

14/(3,200,000,000/2) = 8.75 nanoseconds.

 That being said, the absolute latency may not always be the determining factor when it comes to a memory’s performance. CPUs are built in a fashion to where they pair better with certain speeds that synchronize with their own internal frequencies. When it comes to Ryzen CPUs, the determining factor is what AMD calls the Infinity Fabric – or FCLK/Fclock. For Zen 2 and Zen 3 CPUs – and the internal frequency of the Infinity Fabric is 1,800 MHz. Double this data rate (3,600 MHz) is what will optimize the synchronicity between the memory and the Infinity Fabric. 

This FCLK, or internal latency, can also be tweaked, and overclocked to 1,900 – or even 2,000 – MHz, but these frequencies may be difficult to maintain in terms of stability. So, if FCLK is left to its default 1,800 MHz, a RAM with a frequency of 3,600 MHz will be optimal – which should come with a CAS latency cap of 16 cycles. The absolute latency of this kit is 8.88 nanoseconds, but benchmarks prove that this speed actually does outperform the 3,200 MHz CL 14 kit, which has a lesser absolute latency, due to the better match it makes with the double data rate of the internal frequency of Ryzen CPUs.

Of course, the less the latency the better, but lower latency also drives the price up dramatically, and the difference in performance (at least for common applications like gaming) will be all but negligible. If you wish to overclock the FCLK, then a 3,800 MHz speed would be best (FCLK at 1,900 MHz) as overclocking further would be difficult to achieve consistently.  

Best RAM Die for Ryzen

Typically speaking, the best die for Ryzen CPUs is Samsung’s B-Die, but this will only matter if you plan on overclocking your RAM, and even then it is somewhat debatable how much it ultimately affects the performance of the memory’s overclocking potential. Other dies – like CJR’s C-Die or Micron’s E-Die – can also perform decently, but Samsung’s B-Die allows for clock speeds and latency combinations that are optimal for Ryzen CPUs.

If you’d like to know whether or not a particular RAM model has Samsung’s B-Die, and the manufacturer has not specified the die that they use on their product’s sales page, then here is a handy searching tool that allows you to filter different models and find the best choice for your needs.

Single Channel vs Dual Channel for Ryzen

Most RAM kits will come in two or more ranks, splitting the total storage accordingly. Situating the RAM in this manner creates a multi-channel memory platform. This effectively doubles the traces running on the memory bus, and doubles the width of the data channel. 

If you worry about whether or not having a single-rank RAM kit will negatively affect the performance of your setup, benchmarks show us that for the vast majority of users the differences between single and dual channel memory, in real world applications, is actually almost negligible. Where the difference in configuration does become substantial, is with simulations or compilations, as the dual channel memory displayed a performance boost that was just shy of 17%. But for applications like gaming, browsing, or general productivity – which the Ryzen CPUs are mostly geared towards – the advantage is minuscule. The deciding factor for choosing a single channel or dual channel setup should ultimately be the price associated with the two options. Also, if you are building a PC around an mITX motherboard (which only has two memory slots), you don’t need to worry about separating your initial RAM storage into two ranks. You can buy one rank, with the amount of storage you currently need, and save the second slot for a future upgrade without having to worry about impacting your memory’s performance.

Best RAM Storage Amount for Ryzen

If you’re wondering how much RAM you should purchase, the answer will depend on your usage. There is no optimal RAM storage amount for Ryzen CPUs, but there are certain guidelines you can follow to assure that your PC has enough RAM to function properly – without overdoing it. 

If you use your PC for general browsing, light office use, or competitive multiplayer games (titles of which are far less hardware demanding than triple-A releases), then 8 to 16 GB of RAM will suffice. Of course, the more RAM the better, but if you are on a limited budget, 8 GB of RAM can be a decent starting point of which you can also later upgrade depending on your needs and resources. Next, if you enjoy triple-A gaming, and want to get the most out of your PC, 32 GB of RAM would be best, as it allows for plenty of storage to be used between both the high-end gaming titles, as well as any background applications and web browsers that may be working simultaneously – and can occupy a considerable amount of RAM. Finally, if you plan on building a PC for content creation, then a minimum storage amount should be 32 GB; if you wish to avoid freezing and stuttering while editing.

So, what is the most optimal Zen 2, or Zen 3, Ryzen memory kit?

For a typical gaming build, geared towards those that care little about going through the hassle of overclocking their RAM and FCLK, the answer would be: a 16 to 32 GB kit, in two to four ranks,  with a speed of 3,600 MHz CL 16, and a Samsung B-Die. With this kit, you can have dual channel memory, with a clock frequency that has double the data rate of the Infinity Fabric, and the best performing die and a sufficient amount of memory storage.

As a general guideline, the above metrics stand true for most builds, with certain tweaks being made to accommodate different usages. If you don’t mind paying a bit extra, you can purchase a RAM with a 3,600 MHz CL 14 or CL 15 latency, allowing you to subsequently overclock the memory to 3,800 or 4,000 MHz, when boosting FCLK to 1,900 or 2,000 MHz respectively. Also, the amount of storage should be purchased solely according to your needs. Whether or not you purchase RAM in single, or multiple ranks will make little difference, so you can always buy the amount of memory you currently need, and then upgrade as your storage needs increase.

Finally, let’s see what RAM models you can but that include all the aforementioned specifications.  

If you want some RGB flare for your build, you can always go for the G.Skill Trident Z 3,600 MHz CL 16 kit. For those that prefer performance over looks, T-Force’s Dark Pro 3,600 MHz CL 16 RAM is an excellent choice, as it has an excellent five-layer heatsink to keep thermals in check, and a JEDEC RC 2.0 custom circuit for better signal transmission. 

The post What is Ryzen Optimized RAM? Maximize Your Ryzen Build Performance appeared first on PremiumBuilds.

We’ve demonstrated in our Rocket Lake RAM Speed Analysis article that RAM speeds can make a big difference to potential performance on Rocket Lake CPUs. Even in gaming, when you’re CPU limited there are quite a few FPS up for grabs if you specify a faster memory kit and ensure XMP is enabled. If you’re pushing the boundaries of performance then you can gain even more by selecting fast RAM and manually tuning timings for minimum latencies. It’s important that you balance performance with cost so that you can get the most from your 11900K, whether you want a set-and-forget XMP profile, or have the time and skill to get the most from overclockable RAM on this platform. Whilst B560 and H570 motherboards now allow RAM overclocking and higher RAM speeds, we’d recommend that anyone considering a build with Intel’s new flagship step up to the Z590 platform for maximum flexibility.  In this guide we’ll run through our recommendations for the best RAM for the i9-11900K. 

Best RAM for Intel Core i9-11900K – Our Recommendations

Best 16GB Gaming RAM Kit for i9-11900K

Crucial Ballistix RGB 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3600 CL16 – BL2K8G36C16U4BL

This kit from Crucial uses Micron E-Die modules to achieve its 3600MHz speed and 16-18-18-38 timings. Whilst it’s not the fastest RAM available, it hits the sweet spot of performance gains from RAM latency reduction and a good value price point, as well as guaranteed stability without manual tweaking. E-Die is known to have good overclocking potential so there is scope to further reduce timings if you want to dig into manual settings though. The memory controller can be set to ‘Gear 1’ mode with this RAM, keeping the memory controller clock at a fast but unstressed 1800MHz for improved performance. The kit has RGB and a clean black aesthetic that will match most motherboards. It’s also in common supply meaning you’ll be able to obtain matched DIMMS without too much difficulty if you do decide to upgrade capacity in future. If you just want to get gaming and know you’re not denting the potential performance of your CPU with slow RAM, this is the go-to kit.

Best 32GB Gaming RAM Kit for i9-11900K

G.Skill Trident Z RGB 32 GB (4 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 – B01MSBS0UT

Balancing looks with gaming performance, and also being mindful of the effect of four DIMMs on the memory controller, we recommend this 3200Mhz 4x8GB Kit from G.Skill if you want a great looking and high  performing 32GB memory kit for gaming. The increased bandwidth of four DIMMs slightly offsets the latency increase from a move to 3200MHz RAM, and you can experiment with Gear 1 vs Gear 2 mode to see which gives most performance in your set up – the difference is likely to be minimal. This is a great looking RAM kit with RGB, and 4 full DIMM slots is undoubtedly the best looking RAM configuration meaning you’ll have a build with the go to match the show but at an affordable price. Whilst higher speeds are available, there is minimal performance increase and the much higher cost isn’t justified. 

Best 32GB Productivity RAM Kit for i9-11900K

G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 – B0171GQR0C

Where RAM capacity matters most, this 2x16GB kit is a cost effective way to get 32GB and allow for upgrades should your needs expand in future. For guaranteed compatibility, G.Skill have a handy ‘reverse’ QVL where you can check with your motherboard choice that everything will work. A browse through this list confirms this kits compatibility with the vast bulk of Z590 Motherboard options. This memory will ensure ample RAM space for complex tasks like 4K video editing, photo manipulation, creative design work and CAD.

Best 64GB Power User RAM Kit for i9-11900K

Patriot Viper 4 Blackout 64 GB (2 x 32 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 – B08662S4NK

If you undertake memory intensive tasks like complex code compilation or very high bitrate video editing, you may benefit from 64GB RAM. This 2x32GB kit from Patriot gives you the benefit of fast speeds, whilst keeping 2 RAM slots free for future upgrades and managing costs. 3200MHz speeds means that Gear 1 mode is possible, and stability is guaranteed. The timings are an acceptably tight 16-18-18-36 and the simple black aesthetic will blend into most builds well. If you’d prefer a 4 stick kit then the G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 64 GB (4 x 16 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 is available at just $20 more, $359 (B0171GQNH4)

Best 16GB Overclocking RAM Kit for i9-11900K

Patriot Viper Steel 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-4400 CL19 – B07KXLFDL6

We’ve come to know and love this RAM kit, the Patriot Viper Steel -over the 9 months we’ve used it to experiment with overclocking on different CPUs and motherboards. It uses Samsung B-Die IC’s which are legendary for their flexibility and resilience to overclocking, even running elevated voltages with ease to secure that last ounce of performance. Whilst it’s not the ultimate fastest specification, it represents phenomenal value in the overclocking space at around $150, with more specialist and exclusive kits costing three times as much. The pair of 8Gb Matched DIMMs make the most stable overclocking configuration, placing lower load on the memory controller. If you want to dig under the hood to find out what makes an i9-11900K really tick, this memory kit is a great starting point to help you get to grips with ram Overclocking. Higher speed enthusiast kits are available, but tend to be three to four times as costly making this kit an excellent choice by comparison.

The post 5 Best RAM Kits for Intel Core i9-11900K Builds appeared first on PremiumBuilds.

In this article, we’ll investigate the impact of RAM speed on the Intel Core i9-11900K and i9-10850K in gaming. It’s well known that Ryzen Zen 2 and Zen 3 CPUs perform optimally with higher speed RAM, but we’ve often heard it said that ‘RAM speed doesn’t matter as much with Intel’. We wanted to test that. 

With the 11th Gen Rocket Lake CPUs Intel introduced the notion of ‘Gear 1 and Gear 2’ settings for the memory controller. This is analogous to Ryzens’s uClk setting, in which it’s important to match the memory controller clock and infinity fabric speeds to RAM speed for optimal performance. Now, Intel has also handed control of this behaviour to the end-user – or the motherboard manufacturers – so you can adjust this behaviour in 11^th generation K series CPUs. 

We’ll start by looking at RAM speeds and controlling Cas Latency, then move on to looking at Gear 1 vs Gear 2 and what that means for performance. 

The Test Setup:

Whilst testing speeds we used the ASUS ROG MAXIMUS XIII Hero Z590 Motherboard with the recent 0605 BIOS which included Rocket Lake-S specific microcode and improved memory stability and flexibility. We kept CL timings fixed at 16-16-16-32 except for the higher clock speeds where loser timings were required for stability. We used our 16Gb Samsung B-die RAM kit, capable of 4400MHz speeds but changed RAM settings to the primary timings and speeds shown.

i9-11900K & i9-10850K RAM Performance Analysis

Shadow of the Tomb Raider: i9-10850K

Looking first at Shadow of the Tomb Raider on the Intel Core i9-10850K you can see how marked the trend is.

This is the benchmark reported CPU performance, independent of GPU. Moving from 2400MHz CL16 RAM to 3600MHz with all other settings controlled yields a 30 FPS performance increase. Further increasing speed to 4000MHz and reducing latency, but by a smaller amount owing to the lift in CL timings, gives another 4% or 8 FPS average. At 4400MHz CL19 we see our highest performance at 195 FPS average, which’s 43FPS or 28% faster than the base settings. To be clear, 2400MHz or even worse 2133MHz is what will happen by default if you fail to set XMP or the XMP profile on your RAM kit isn’t stable and it resets itself. It can cost you significant performance.

Here’s Rainbow 6 Sieges benchmark, a fast-paced shooter where every FPS matters. Again, this benchmark is consistent and RAM speed-sensitive.

Here we get a slightly different trend, with the best performance at 3600MHZ CL16, and then performance softens at 4000MHz CL17 and 4400MHz CL19. Again, here our overall latency and the looser timings required to keep RAM stable at those very high speeds becomes detrimental to performance.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider: i9-11900K

Moving on to Intel’s latest CPU, the i9-11900K and using the same benchmarks, we can see the same trend with a couple of caveats. Note these tests were performed in Gear 2 mode because Gear 1 was unstable at the higher memory speeds. That’s also why 4400MHz is missing from these results, it wasn’t possible to stabilise it in the gaming benchmarks at that speed. 

Here again, we see the serious boost in performance moving from 2400MHz up to 3000MHz, then to 3600MHz adds a total of 55FPS average to the CPU performance, with corresponding hikes in minimum and maximum performance metrics. There’s a 41% boost to performance moving from 2400MHz to 3600MHz CL16.  At 4000Mhz Cl17 performance tails off marginally – again we’re approaching the limits of the memory controller and slacker secondary and tertiary timing dent performance overall. 

Confirming this behaviour in Rainbow 6 Siege, working through the same settings yields the following results:

Again we see peak performance centred around 3600MHz CL16, and a softening towards 4000MHz but were not giving much away between 3000Mhz and 3600Mhz with reasonable timings, 10 FPS or so.

And finally, just to confirm this trend and to show a little data for 4400MHz RAM on the 11900K, we were able to get the Time Spy CPU benchmark to complete at 4400MHz CL19, building the following set of results:

This is perhaps less informative aside from the fact of having that highest speed represented as it’s just a score, but it is indicative of aspects of the CPU performance and we know from another testing that this benchmark does scale well with RAM latency. It looks like we’re really at the bitter end of the memory controllers performance at these higher speeds. It would take a significant investment of time in refining RAM timings manually to, first of all, stabilise the system, and further improve performance. Nevertheless, 4400MHz CL19 does yield the highest score here but it’s not stable enough to run any games.

Gear 1 vs Gear 2

Moving on then to the question of Gear 1 Vs Gear 2 on capable Rocket Lake 11th Generation CPUs, this is a simple toggle in BIOS that runs the memory clock at either half memory speed in Gear 2, or at the same speed in gear 1. Gear 1, therefore, reduces latency, as there’s no missed cycle in communication. The penalty for this is the memory controller becomes less flexible in settings, so we’ve got limited data. Like Ryzens uCLk and FCLk settings, it also appears to be ‘unhappy’ at higher frequencies, and it wasn’t possible to stabilise behaviour at 4000MHz RAM speeds/2000MHz memory controller speeds in the time available. We satisfied ourselves with conducting A-B testing to see what kind of performance difference we could see at settings we could apply consistently across the tests. 

Here we can see small but significant performance benefits from running at Gear 1 and 3600Mhz, with a 10FPS uplift in average frame rates on Rainbow 6 Siege, and we verified this uplift at 2400MHz base settings as well although of course, overall performance is much lower due to the overall speed impact discovered above.

Finally, for a real-world demonstration of this benefit, Flight Sim 2020 is a highly demanding simulator that is frequently CPU bound. Running our standardised benchmark flight over Manhattan yields the following results:

Here, we can see that moving to Gear 1 and matching memory and memory controller speeds yields a small but valuable lift across the full suite of metrics and translate directly into improved performance.

Verdict

This set of results demonstrates how important overall memory latency, as indicated by speed and timings, is for Intel CPUs. Clearly, it can have a significant performance impact in any situation where you’re wholly or partially CPU limited. 

It highlights the importance of ensuring that your Memory is correctly set up. If you didn’t enable the XMP profile on your RAM during set up, or it’s been reset in a BIOS update or by clearing your CMOS, you could be hurting performance significantly. It takes a moment to check this using CPU-Z or Hwinfo64 and doesn’t necessitate entering BIOS. 

For both Comet Lake and Rocket Lake K series CPUs, there appears to be a sweet spot in the region of 3600MHz CL16, and that’s a good starting point for refining system performance. To clarify the settings we used here were ‘quick and dirty’ because of time constraints, with the motherboard left to decide most secondary and all tertiary settings itself. Time spent tightening those timings could yield further performance improvements, but it’s a time-consuming process and tends to offer diminishing returns, and you have to check and validate results not only for performance but for stability as well. 

For most users with K series CPUs, it seems that much like Ryzen you’re best off buying a kit of 3600MHZ CL16 RAM or something with a similar total latency, and if you do that and enable XMP you’ll have gained the bulk of the performance benefit for virtually zero effort. If you spend as much time in BIOS as your operating system, then buying even faster RAM and using the headroom to lower latency as much as possible can yield significant rewards on these CPUs.

The post Rocket Lake RAM Speed Analysis: Best RAM Speeds for Core i9-11900K (and i9-10850K) appeared first on PremiumBuilds.

We’ve had a few days with our Zen 3 Ryzen 5800X and the bulk of that time has been spent investigating the impact of RAM speed on this new architecture. Since its inception, the Zen design has shown impressive performance scaling with RAM Speed. This a function of the design of the CPU itself.

In short, the CPU cores are connected to the rest of the PC via an interconnect chip known as ‘infinity fabric’. The speed this chip is running at is instrumental to the overall performance of the CPU. Luckily, AMD has an open attitude towards allowing users to tweak settings to their heart’s content, so all of this is adjustable in BIOS. The optimum settings involve ensuring that the RAM speed matches the Infinity fabric frequency 1:1. With these two clock speeds in sync, memory access latency is reduced and you enjoy a performance boost.

Previous Zen 2 RAM Investigation Summary – will Zen 3 continue the trend?

In our previous Zen 2 Ram Speed article we demonstrated the clear performance benefits of increased RAM speed with optimum performance at 3600 and 3733Mhz, and infinity fabric at 1800 and 1866Mhz respectively (note that DDR ram being Double Data Rate, it reports speeds at twice the actual clock frequency). Once you exceeded the ability of the Infinity fabric to match RAM speeds 1:1 however things broke down with increased latency costing performance despite the improved speeds.

The benchmark tests that showed clearest scaling were 3DMark Timespy, and Shadow of the Tomb Raider. Rainbow 6 Siege’s FPS also showed strong correlation with RAM speed. 

RAM Speed Scaling on a Zen 2 CPU, the Ryzen 3600. 

In this investigation we focussed on the following questions: 

• Firstly, does Zen 3 improve our ability to lift Infinity Fabric speeds to match faster RAM?
• Secondly, does Zen 3 performance scale with RAM speed in the same way we’ve become accustomed to?
• Finally, can we use this information to make any recommendations about the best RAM for your Zen 3 system?

Overclocking RAM on Zen 3

Overclocking on the Zen 3 platform proved relatively straight forward. Using our Patriot Viper 4400Mhz memory kit, which comprises Samsung B-Die Ram with CL19 timings, we were quickly able to establish that our Ryzen 5800X was stable at 4000MHz with Infinity Fabric (Fclck) at 2000MHz. 4066MHz was not stable. We were able to tighten timings down to CL 16-16-16-34 at 4000MHz. From there we established representative RAM profiles across a spectrum of speeds to emulate widely available RAM kits. 

Zen 3 RAM Synthetic Test results: CineBench R20 and Timespy

Honing in on the benchmarks that matter we again showed that Cinebench is not a reliable indicator of performance linked to RAM: Our scores varied little with RAM speed. 

Note that the scale starts at 5000 Points: The difference between these results is small enough not to cause concern, and it’s not possible to consider this a ‘trend’ in performance owing to the marginally lower scores at higher speeds. Cinebench R20 appears almost oblivious to the RAM speed of the System with even 2133MHz not causing a significant performance deficit.

TImespy is a Dx12 based benchmark with a portion dedicated to CPU performance in isolation. It’s those scores we’re concentrating on here.

In Zen 2 we saw a strong positive trend with RAM speed from 2133MHz to 3733MHz, and we observe the same here on Zen 3: Slower RAM is a serious detriment to performance, with 3600MHz yielding much higher results. However, increasing speeds into the realms of 3800 and 4000MHz sees little if any improvement in performance with 4000MHz CL18 close but slightly behind 3600MHz and 3800MHz. Tightening timings to CL16 sees performance slacken to just under 12000 points: A very interesting results given what we thought we knew about infinity fabrics speed and its relationship to CPU performance. We don’t know the reason for this given that all things being equal these tighter timings should increase performance, or at the very least not harm it. 

Moving onto key gaming benchmarks, we looked at Rainbow 6 Siege and Shadow of the Tomb Raider. Both of these titles demonstrated the benefits of faster RAM on Zen2 and again showed the negative impact once the 1:1 infinity fabric to memory clock ratio was broken.

Zen 3 RAM Gaming Benchmarks: RAM Speed vs FPS

1. Rainbow 6 Siege

Here we again see the same performance scaling to 3800MHz, followed by a slight tailing off as RAM speed climbs higher. Tightening timings at 4000MHz helps a little. Despite maintaining a 1:1 infinity fabric ratio throughout, we’re seeing a similar but less pronounced softening of performance past 3800Mhz just as we did on Zen 2.

2. Shadow of the Tomb Raider

This game again uses DX12 and has a comprehensive benchmarking tool which gives us interesting insight into the factors affecting the game’s performance. Specifically, it breaks down performance into ‘CPU game’ and ‘CPU render’ as well as GPU performance and indicates how GPU limited the benchmark is. All tests were conducted at 1080p medium on a GTX 1080 Ti but even that induced a GPU limitation due to the prodigious speed of the Ryzen 5800X. Due to the benchmark independently reporting CPU frame rates it can be eliminated as a factor.

We once again see a similar trend here with peak performance at 3800Mhz, and then a slackening at 3933Mhz and 4000MHz. From 3600-4000Mhz performance is in the same ballpark with variances that aren’t going to be material in the real world. Note that none of these will impact gaming at normal settings: You will be GPU limited at FPS below these numbers in this detailed AAA title. 

Conclusion: 3600MHz is still the best RAM for AMD’s Ryzen CPUs

We can now set about answering the questions we posed at the outset:

Zen 3 does allow us significantly higher Infinity Fabric clocks, and with it higher viable memory overclocks. This is exciting for overclockers because of the potential performance gains it brings.

However moving on to the second question, we do not see straight forward linear scaling until the break down of infinity Fabric Clocks as we did with Zen 2: In this instance, performance tails off even with a 1:1 infinity fabric ratio despite faster ram with tighter timings and lower latencies. In the real world, these slight variances won’t be noticeable, but similarly, we are not seeing anything like the scaling from 3600MHz-4000MHz as we get from raising Ram speeds from 3200MHz – 3600MHz.

Finally, we can now make confident recommendations on the basis of these results, which are in line with those obtained by experienced overclockers: 3600MHz RAM is still the best option for Ryzen CPUs. To arrive at this conclusion we can consider firstly that performance plateaus or even tails off after that. Secondly, there is the cost and availability of RAM. Since 3600MHz became the ‘sweet spot’ for Zen 2 Manufacturers have produced a number of fantastic RAM kits and prices have dropped due to a glut of RAM supply. To obtain RAM significantly faster than 3600MHZ prices jump from around $80/16GB for 3600MHz CL16, to $100 or more for 4000MHZ CL18 which as our investigation above shows will be marginally slower on Zen 3. Finally, investigations by Gamers Nexus indicate that dual-rank DIMMs may be slightly faster, making a 32GB kit in 2x16GB Configuration at 3600MHz likely to be ideal for most people.

With all of this in mind, we make the following recommendations for RAM for Zen 3 builds in 2021:

RAM Recommendations for Zen 3 Builds

Award	Design	Model
Best All-round RAM Kit for Zen 3 Builds		G.Skill Ripjaws V 32GB DDR4-3600 CL16
Best RAM for Zen 3 Gaming Builds		Crucial Ballistix 16GB DDR4-3600 CL16
Best Enthusiast RAM Kit for Ryzen Zen 3		G.Skill Ripjaws V 16GB DDR4-4000 CL16
Best RGB RAM for Ryzen Zen 3		G.Skill Trident Z Neo DDR4-3600 CL18
Best 64 GB RAM Kit for Ryzen Zen 3		Corsair Vengeance LPX 2x32GB DDR4-3200 CL16

Best All-round RAM Kit for Zen 3

Combining all that we have learnt so far about Zen 3 Memory performance, the G.Skill Ripjaws V 32GB DDR4-3600 CL16 kit hits all the bases. Using 2 dual-rank 16Gb Sticks with 3600MHz frequency and tight 16-19-19-39 timings mean you’ll be as close to optimized as one click can get you just by enabling the A-XMP profile. 32GB RAM provides ample for productivity, the most demanding games and light creative work such as video editing. At $150 it’s reasonably priced for 32Gb, exactly double the cost of the 16Gb equivalent. This is the RAM kit we’re confident meets the needs of almost everyone looking to take advantage of the prodigious power of the Zen 3 CPUs for gaming and general use. 

Best RAM for Zen 3 Gaming Builds

Crucial is Microns commercial brand and the Ballistix 16GB DDR4-3600 CL16 kit uses Micron E-Die RAM chips to deliver the performance sweet spot at a very attractive price. 16GB is still ample for almost all games and general use and multitasking. It’s been available for some time at the $75 price point making it a very worthwhile purchase and the best value of all the popular 16GB kits. The 3600MHz speed enjoys widespread compatibility with Zen 3 CPUs, whilst the quality of the E-Die chips lend themselves to tweaking and overclocking for even more performance if the mood takes you. If not the embedded A-XMP profile will ensure reliability and stability at the rated speeds. It is a 2x8GB stick for dual channel operation and any RAM kit you consider should be a dual-stick kit because of the large performance benefit that brings. The kit ships with discreet black anodized heat spreaders that integrates well with most builds but it is also available in white or red if that better suits your preferences. With this kit just $10 more than the most basic of RAM kits from less well-established brands we see no reason to opt for anything else. 

Best Enthusiast RAM Kit for Ryzen Zen 3

If you want to explore the limits of memory overclocking on Zen 3 then there’s no substitute for the Samsung B-Die RAM that makes up this kit, the G.Skill Ripjaws V 16GB DDR4-4000 CL16 – our recommended RAM kit for enthusiast Zen 3 builds. It’s very fast RAM with tight timings at the speed, and whilst it may not work optimally with the A-XMP profile applied there’s huge scope for manually tweaking timings and exploring optimizations. B-die kits can range from $100 to $500 or more depending on binning but it’s certainly not worth getting a top tier binned kit unless you’re intent on challenging world OC records. If you want to find out for yourself exactly what makes Zen 3 run sweetest, this is the kit for you. 

Best RGB RAM for Ryzen Zen 3

We’ve got a soft spot for a set of four RAM sticks with synchronized RGB here at Premiumbuilds and the G.Skill Trident Z Neo DDR4-3600 CL18 kit certainly scratches that itch. The core specifications are solid with 3600MHz and CAS latency of 18 so your CPU will operate with a near optimum 1800MHz infinity Fabric Clock. G.Skill offer a very useful reverse QVL list so it’s easy to ensure compatibility with your chosen motherboard. The RGB can be controlled via any of Gigabytes RGB Fusion, Asus Aura Sync, MSi Mystic Light or Asrock Polychrome software so it integrates well with the rest of your RGB and doesn’t require stand alone software. The RGB elements are beautifully detailed and this kit will lend some real visual flair to your build. 

Best 64 GB RAM Kit for Ryzen Zen 3

If your primary concern is the quantity of RAM – be it for a video edit workstation or scientific computation – then the Corsair Vengeance LPX 2x32GB DDR4-3200 CL16 kit is an excellent choice. Our benchmarks show minimal performance penalties at 3200MHz – RAM latency simply doesn’t impact tasks like rendering in the same way as it does gaming – but this is still 3200MHz RAM with CAS latency of 16 and performs well enough for AMD to showcase their new top tier GPU’s using RAM of this specification. Corsair are a long-standing brand and their LPX line is ubiquitous so obtaining matched RAM for future expansion won’t be a problem. Corsair also offer a 3600MHz LPX kit but supply is patchy and with a CAS latency of 18 the actual memory latency is nearly identical to this kit. If you need to pack as much RAM as possible then sacrificing a little speed for cost and capacity makes sense which is why this kit is a great buy. 

Benchmark Notes

The tests were conducted using the Premiumbuilds test bench, which comprises a Ryzen 5800X, MSI B550 Mortar Motherboard using AGESA 1.1.0.0 Patch C BIOS. RAM used was the Patriot Viper PVS416G440C9K 4400Mhz Samsung B-die Kit. PBO was activated but no manual CPU overclocking was undertaken. Timings under test were as follows

The post Zen 3 RAM Speeds: An Analysis of the Best RAM for Zen 3 appeared first on PremiumBuilds.

AMD have announced their Zen 3 CPUs and they’re set to release on 5^th November. In this iteration they are claiming to have bested Intel in all metrics making these the most powerful consumer CPU’s available. With Ryzen 2 we found there was significant performance scaling with RAM speed increases and this is attributable to the architecture of AMD’s CPUs and the close relationship between RAM speed and the Processors internal clock speeds. In this article we’ll cast our attention to Zen 3 and examine how we anticipate the CPUs will react to RAM speed changes. We’ll use this information to make some recommendations about the best RAM for your Zen 3 based build. 

Zen 2 RAM speed scaling and how it applies to Zen 3

We conducted extensive testing of RAM speeds on Zen 2 to ascertain a number of features of Ryzen CPU performance scaling. You can read that article here, but the summary is:

• Ryzen Zen architecture demonstrates almost linear scaling with RAM speed up to the limit of the infinity fabric speeds
• The Critical feature is that RAM Speed matches the infinity fabric clock of the CPU 1:1. If it does not, performance suffers even at very high memory speeds.
• In gaming benchmarks that speed increase will only be realised where the system is CPU limited.
• At significantly higher speeds than 3600MHz two major negative impacts occur. Firstly the infinity fabric may not be able to achieve the same frequency as the RAM hurting performance. Secondly, RAM gets much more expensive, negating the value proposition of minor speed increases.

This investigation leads us to conclude that at current RAM pricing and availability, the compatibility, price and performance sweet spot is 3600MHz RAM. Timings and latency matter much less than stable clock frequency. But what can we infer from this information in respect of 3 CPUs?

Zen 3 Architectural changes

The Zen architecture is a remarkably high performance and flexible CPU design from AMD and it has undergone a number of refinements and revisions since it’s inception in February 2017. By using multiple Core Complex Clusters (CCX’s) AMD is able to scale the chips to provide the full range from 4 to 16 core consumer offerings and the Threadripper chips for the HEDT market. These CCX’s share cache memory but communicate with the system and other CCX’s via a separate interconnect chip mounted alongside to form the CPU. AMD term this IO die ‘infinity fabric’. The infinity fabric proves to be the primary limiting factor in the CPU’s overall performance because it dictates the rate at which data can be passed into and out of the CPU as well as between cores within it. Much of the generational improvements in Zen CPUs have been down to reducing memory latency problems and optimising infinity fabric.

Zen 3 has taken a large step forwards in the layout of the CCX’s, with each CCX now having full access to the entire cache memory on the same die. The fundamental layout remains unchanged though and the infinity fabric die remains the same. This chip is fabricated on a 14nm process where the CCX’s use TSMC’s highly effective 7nm process. Therefore we can surmise that there are limited improvements in the infinity fabric speeds beyond normal production refinements that occur over time.

We can therefore safely deduce that infinity fabric speeds will not increase massively in Zen 3: AMD’s performance enhancements have come from other areas.

There is another major clue left by AMD: In their own benchmarks for the exceptionally high-performance RX 6000 series GPUs the test bench systems use 3200MHz RAM in combination with their Zen 3 CPUs: Clearly, AMD are not concerned about ‘slower’ RAM negatively impacting system performance even where their commercial interests are invested in showing their products in the absolute best light. This mirrors our own investigation where whilst frame rate improvements are observable, they’re at settings levels that artificially induce a CPU bottleneck. Whilst it’s nice to optimise your CPU’s theoretical performance limits you won’t actually see appreciable performance improvements in real-world usage except in very specific circumstances.

Finally, we can look at the value of faster RAM. The following plot shows the best fit of pricing vs RAM speed, the key determinant of performance for Zen 3 CPUs, including the Ryzen 5 5600X, Ryzen 7 5800X and Ryzen 9 5900X & 5950X.

We can see from this graph the wide availability and affordability of RAM at 3600MHz, spanning CL 16 and CL18 timings and ranging from $60-$80 for the majority of 16GB kits. Between 3733MHz and 4000MHz there is a scarcity of RAM and prices increase with 4000MHz kits largely above $100. By this point we’re comfortably above the guaranteed compatibility speeds of Zen infinity fabric, meaning that XMP overclocks are much less likely to work and you’re more likely to have to dig into secondary RAM timings yourself to find stable overclocks. Finally, RAM at higher speed confers no performance benefit once you are forced to abandon a 1:1 infinity fabric ratio, so the additional spend doesn’t buy additional performance. The emerging picture is clear: 3600MHz is likely to remain the price to performance sweet spot for Zen 3.  

With that established let’s move on to our recommendations for RAM for Zen 3 Builds, including the Ryzen 5 5600X, Ryzen 7 5800X and Ryzen 9 5900X and 5950XT for 2021.

Best RAM for Ryzen Zen 3 Builds – Our Recommendations

Award	Design	Model
Best RAM for Ryzen Zen 3 Gaming Builds		Crucial Ballistix 16GB DDR4-3600 CL16
Best 32GB RAM Kit for Zen 3 Builds		Team T-FORCE Dark Za 32GB (2x 16GB) DDR4-3600 CL18
Best RAM for Zen 3 Enthusiast Builds		G.Skill Ripjaws V 16GB DDR4-4000 CL16
Best RGB Ram for Ryzen Zen 3		G.Skill Trident Z Neo 32GB DDR4-3600 CL18
Best 64 GB RAM Kit for Ryzen Zen 3		Corsair Vengeance LPX 64 GB (2 x 32 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16

Best Ram for Ryzen Zen 3 Gaming Builds

Crucial is Microns commercial brand and this kit, the 16GB Ballistix DDR4-3600 CL16 Kit, uses Micron E-Die RAM chips to deliver the performance sweet spot at a very attractive price. 16GB is still ample for almost all games including multitasking. It’s been available for some time at the $75 price point making it a very worthwhile purchase and the best value of all the popular 16GB kits. The 3600MHz speed enjoys widespread compatibility with all Zen 2 and Zen 3 CPUs, whilst the quality of the E-Die chips lend themselves to tweaking and overclocking for even more performance if the mood takes you. If not the embedded A-XMP profile will ensure reliability and stability at the rated speeds. It is a 2x8GB stick for dual channel operation and any RAM kit you consider should be a dual-stick kit because of the large performance benefit that brings. The kit ships with discreet black anodized heat spreaders that integrates well with most builds but it is also available in white or red if that better suits your preferences. With this kit just $10 more than the most basic of RAM kits from less well-established brands we see no reason to opt for anything else. 

Best 32Gb RAM Kit for Zen 3 Builds

RAM prices have dropped consistently throughout 2020 and we can now find excellent 32Gb kits at just over $100. If you need slightly more RAM for light video editing work, complex multitasking or some more demanding games then this Team T-FORCE Dark Za 2x16GB kit is an excellent choice. It uses slightly slower CL18 CAS ratings but maintains 3600MHz frequency which is the key metric to obtain the 1:1 infinity fabric ratio performance boost. It’s well supported on QVL lists from MSI, Asus and Gigabyte but check the specific motherboard you’re looking at to ensure compatibility. That said it’s almost certain to work at XMP profile speeds on any Zen 3 configuration but QVL compatibility brings peace of mind. At 32GB for $109 this kit is exceptional value and doesn’t require you to make performance compromises. 

Best RAM for Zen 3 Enthusiast Builds

If you want to explore the limits of memory overclocking on Zen 3 then there’s no substitute for the Samsung B-Die RAM that makes up this kit, the Ripjaws V 16GB DDR4-4000 CL16 kit from G.Skill. It’s very fast RAM with exceptionally tight timings at the speed, and whilst it’s extremely unlikely to work optimally with the A-XMP profile applied there’s huge scope for manually tweaking timings and exploring optimizations. B-die kits can range from $100 to $500 or more depending on binning but it’s certainly not worth getting a top tier binned kit unless you’re intent on challenging world OC records. If you want to find out for yourself exactly what makes Zen 3 run sweetest, this is the kit for you. 

Best RGB Ram for Ryzen Zen 3

We’ve got a soft spot for a set of four RAM sticks with synchronized RGB here at Premiumbuilds and the G.Skill Trident Z Neo 32GB DDR4-3600 CL18 kit certainly scratches that itch. The core specifications are solid with 3600MHz and CAS latency of 18 so your CPU will operate with a near-optimum 1800MHz infinity Fabric Clock. G.Skill offer a very useful reverse QVL list so it’s easy to ensure compatibility with your chosen motherboard. The RGB can be controlled via any of Gigabytes RGB Fusion, Asus Aura Sync, MSI Mystic Light or ASRock Polychrome software so it integrates well with the rest of your RGB and doesn’t require stand-alone software. The RGB elements are beautifully detailed and this kit will lend some real visual flair to your build. 

Best 64 GB RAM Kit for Ryzen Zen 3

If your primary concern is the quantity of RAM – be it for a video edit workstation or scientific computation – then the Corsair Vengeance LPX 2x32GB kit is an excellent choice. Our productivity benchmarks showed little to no improvement using faster RAM – RAM access latency simply doesn’t impact tasks like rendering in the same way as it does gaming – but this is still 3200MHz RAM with CAS latency of 16. As mentioned above if it performs well enough for AMD to showcase their new top tier GPU’s then it’s good enough for almost any usage case. Corsair is a long-standing brand and their LPX line is ubiquitous so obtaining matched RAM for future expansion won’t be a problem. Corsair does also offer a 3600MHz LPX kit but supply is patchy and with a CAS latency of 18 the actual memory latency is identical to this kit. If you need to pack as much RAM as possible then sacrificing a little speed for cost and capacity makes sense which is why this kit is a great buy. 

Ryzen Zen 3 Pre-order Links (Amazon)

• Ryzen 5 5600X
• Ryzen 7 5800X
• Ryzen 9 5900X
• Ryzen 9 5950X

The post Best RAM & Timings for Ryzen Zen 3 Builds in 2021 appeared first on PremiumBuilds.

It’s taken as gospel that Ryzen CPU performance, in particular Zen 2, scales with ram speed. We wanted to investigate this further so that we can find out about the trade off with ram cost, and also ascertain if this is just a theoretical benefit or if it can bring a real world advantage.

For this test we also wanted to use more mainstream hardware. That’s why we stuck to the Ryzen 3600 and a mid range B450 motherboard. We don’t feel that you can accurately call faster more expensive RAM a benefit if you can only reap those benefits on more expensive hardware, increasing the overall system cost. 

Why does RAM speed seem to matter with Ryzen?

Ryzen CPU architecture is unique in that it consists of a number of discreet but interconnected chips: The CPU is made up of ‘core complex dies’ or ‘CCD’s which in turn are made up of a pair of quad core ‘CCXs’ or Core complexes. AMD manufactures CPUs by selecting the chips with the right number of viable cores on a core complex, and then fusing off the failed or less worthwhile cores. On CPUs like the six core Ryzen 3600, 2 CCX’s each with 1 core fused off work in parallel on a single CCD. This results in a six core CPU. But these cores have to communicate both with each other and the outside world, and to achieve this there is a memory interconnect known as the ‘infinity fabric’. This is just a fancy name for a data bus, and it’s across this bus that data flows into and out of the CPU. 

A diagram showing the layout of a 16 core AMD Ryzen CPU – 2 pairs of CCX’s on a pair of CCD’s communicate via the infinity fabric.

From this we can begin to understand the importance of the speed of the infinity fabric: It dictates the rate of information exchange from the CPU to the outside world and within the CPU itself. On most motherboards the infinity fabric clock is known as the ‘Fclck’ and its speed can be set in BIOS. Further, this infinity fabric runs at a rate of speed that may seem familiar: around 1600Mhz – that is the speed of DDR RAM. DDR means double data rate and DDR RAM can perform memory operations twice per clock cycle, hence the common RAM frequencies, 3000MHz, 3200MHZ being twice the basic RAM Frequency clock.

The key tuning improvement of faster ram is this: Ram speed can be tied to Infinity Fabric speed, and this means that you can move more data through the CPU if you run everything faster. However it’s not simply a case of higher frequency is better: Synchronisation also matters. If infinity fabric runs at a different speed to the ram, then there’s potential for offset between requests for data and the response of the RAM. If it ‘misses’ a clock then the CPU must wait for the next opportunity. This has the effect of increasing overall ram latency. This is why ‘1:1’ infinity fabric ratio is so important – and why ram that can run at higher frequencies allows higher synchronised infinity fabric speeds, and so faster CPU operation.

To test this we set up our rig with a Ryzen 3600 CPU with PBO on, the MSi B450m Mortar motherboard, and some very flexible RAM: The Patriot Viper 2x8GB DDR4 4400Mhz Kit. This memory kit uses Samsungs B-Die ram, now legendary for it’s overclocking ability. To be absolutely clear, no-one should expect this RAM to hit 4400Mhz on the Ryzen platform, at least not without a huge amount of overclocking effort and high end parts complimenting it. Our intention is to use the flexibility of this RAM kit to manually input RAM timings that emulate everything from slow 2133Mhz RAM (or someone who has neglected to set their RAM profile in BIOS) to as fast as we can get the infinity fabric and RAM to run.

We were able to find stable settings from 2133MHZ representing the default speed if no A-XMP profile is set, through to 4000MHz in increments representing the popular RAM speeds. Full timings are shown in the Annex. The infinity Fabric hits a speed limit before our RAM and isn’t stable past 3733MHz, so above that speed we break the 1:1 Fclk ratio to investigate what happens with faster RAM speeds.

Our test methodology is simple: Dial in our representative RAM speeds and use benchmarks in games and synthetic workloads to gauge the impact on performance. To ensure we were fully CPU bound in gaming benchmarks we used an RTX 2080ti or GTX 1080ti and 1080p resolution. To keep the CPU cool we slapped it under a Corsair H100x 240mm AIO. 

Synthetic Benchmarks:

Artificial workloads are a great starting point for this investigation. They offer fully repeatable tests that can distinguish subtle differences in performance. Some isolate pure CPU performance, others test a wider range of performance factors such as RAM bandwidth and access speeds. 

3DMark Firestrike

Firestrike is a Direct X11 gaming benchmark tool but we’re only concerning ourselves with the ‘physics’ portion here which is purely dependent on the CPU performance. 

In this benchmark we can see the results are fairly uniform, with almost all cases within run-to run variance across the board. The two prominent results are the base JDEC timings at 2133MHz clearly hurting performance, whilst the 3733MHz score is anomalously high and it is repeatable – I can’t offer an explanation for that other than as a quirk of the benchmark and some aspect of it’s demands on the CPU. There’s no clear trend in performance with RAM speed here, so it appears likely that the benchmark tests CPU performance largely independently of its RAM access speeds. In short, RAM overclocking does little to help CPU performance in this test.

3DMark Timespy

Moving on to the more recent DX12 powered Timespy, we see more encouraging results:

Looking at the CPU score in isolation we can see clear evidence of RAM speed scaling. The use of the Direct X12 API and more a more complex test of CPU performance clearly brings the benefits of fast RAM and fast access to that RAM into play, along with the overall boost to CPU performance of the faster Fclk. Of note here is the lower score as we surpass the 1:1 Fclk ratio. Ram speeds at 3866MHz actually hurt performance because we’re no longer synchronising the infinity fabric with the RAM clock as we are able to do at 3733Mhz, and whilst 4000MHz makes up some of the deficit it’s not enough to overturn the damage of desynchronising RAM and Infinity Fabric.

Cinebench R20

Cinebench R20 is another popular CPU benchmark, using the processor to render a scene tile by tile. It heavily favours multi core CPUs as it’s a parallelisable workload.

We obtain similarly inconclusive results to the Firestrike benchmark in this test. 2133MHz clearly hurts performance, but from 2666MHz all the way through to 3600Mhz there’s no massive performance benefit of faster ram and no clear trend. Again this load on the CPU appears to care little for RAM access speeds although very slow speeds, or breaking the 1:1 infinity Fabric ratio does appear to be detrimental to performance.

Blender 2.83

Finally, another rendering benchmark: Blender is a popular 3D production tool and it provides a useful standalone Benchmarking tool. We ran the BMW27 and Classroom preset renders using the CPU alone to render them. The completion times in seconds are shown in the chart below.

The BMW27 render appears not to be greatly affected by Ram speed, there’s just a 6 second variance from fastest to slowest and I’m hesitant to call it a trend although each speed step is faster than the last. The Classroom Render is more involved and shows a downwards trend saving 30 seconds from slowest RAM speeds up until we break 1:1 infinity fabric ratio at 3866MHz. 4000Mhz shows a marginal improvement on 3866Mhz but again doesn’t overturn the deficit of the desynchronised FClk.

For the avoidance of doubt here I’ve included the render time when you let a CUDA enabled GPU handle the workload: A GTX 1080ti is four times as fast as the CPU. The $280 RTX 2060 KO handles these renders nearly twice as fast again thanks to the use of the OPTIX renderer: If you’re looking to build a rendering workstation for blender, don’t worry about your ram speed or even too much about the CPU: Invest in the best RTX enabled GPU you can afford.

Productivity/Synthetic conclusion: 

These results aren’t as clear cut as we might like. The benchmarks most closely resembling gaming workloads appear to show some promise of scaling with RAM speed. However the synthetic or productivity workloads either don’t scale, or don’t offer scaling significant enough to make a persuasive case for high speed RAM on Ryzen Zen 2 CPUs. This tallies with the nature of these workloads: A CPU core isn’t constantly accessing RAM to process renders. It obtains work, processes it, and is then fed more. Whilst there is some benefit to faster RAM and lower latency it makes up such a small proportion of the workload that we can’t see the evidence of RAM speed scaling. However we are able to draw some important takeaways here: 

• Very slow RAM or running RAM at the default speed is severely detrimental to performance in almost all cases.
• Breaking the 1:1 Fclk ratio is also harmful to performance, as seen by the performance dip after 3733Mhz.

Gaming Benchmarks

Gaming is of course far more important than work so we set out to identify games across a spectrum to test the impact of RAM speeds. To obtain these results we had to run the games as close to 100% CPU limited as possible, necessitating the use of a powerful GPU at 1080p. The results are therefore somewhat artificial but we’re aiming to find out the limitations of RAM and CPU performance not GPU performance here. We settled on three AAA titles – Red Dead Redemption, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, and Microsoft Flight 2020. More importantly we also chose two first person shooters with consistent inbuilt benchmarking tools, as it’s competitive players who care the most about every last frame to gain an in-game advantage.

First Person Shooters:

The Division 2 is a competitive shooter that runs at a lower framerate than some better optimised and less graphically intensive games. Running 1080p at low settings on the GTX 1080ti allows us to isolate CPU performance.

The in built benchmark is very consistent but only returns average frame rates. Nevertheless a clear trend is visible with incremental performance increases right up to 3733Mhz, then as we saw in some of the synthetic benchmarks performance takes a hit past 1:1 Flck ratio. Let’s dive into some games with more comprehensive benchmarking.

Rainbow 6 Siege is a highly competitive shooter with high frame rates and well optimised performance.

The inbuilt benchmark allows us to examine Average, Min and Max FPS giving us more insight into performance. We see a distinct trend to higher FPS as we increase RAM speeds towards the maximum 1:1 Fclk speeds. As we exceed that speed all metrics take a hit and again stepping up to 4000MHz cannot recover the lost performance. 

AAA Games

Shadow of the Tomb Raider

First we’ll look at Shadow of the Tomb Raider. This well optimised DirectX12 title scales well with hardware improvements but remains playable even on modest hardware and settings. We used our GTX 1080ti at 1080p medium to achieve the following results:

The inbuilt benchmarking is comprehensive and allows us to evaluate relative CPU and GPU performance. Even at these lower settings and with a powerful GPU we are on occasion GPU limited. However framerates are high and smooth and we see clear scaling with RAM speed increases up until the FClk 1:1 ratio is broken. The slowest ram speed is a serious detriment to performance costing nearly 40FPS average. The improvements from 132FPS average to 150+FPS as we go from 3200MHz to 3733MHZ are less marked but still appreciable.

Red Dead Redemption 2 

This title has a reputation for punishing hardware requirements and low frame rates – it’s the only title on test that prompted us to break out the RTX 2080ti to ensure we could see through GPU limitations to understand the effect on CPU performance. Whilst we obviously don’t recommend running a top tier GPU at 1080p Balanced settings, doing so again yields the prevailing trend in this test: Ram speed matters. Whilst not as marked as some other titles we see gains with Ram speed, and the slowest RAM is detrimental to performance. The drop in minimum FPS to 69 produced by 2133MHz RAM is likely to have an appreciable impact on playability, and could be one cause of stutters and frame drops as it induces a CPU limitation.

Microsoft Flight 2020

Microsoft Flight 2020 is somewhat unique in that it is as CPU limited as any title we can think of in recent years. Obtaining acceptable and stable frame rates relies on extracting maximum performance from your CPU. In this test we used an A320 and took off from JFK airport, overflying Manhattan before turning left and overflying statue of liberty. This demanding situation is a ‘worst case’ for FS2020 but the Ryzen 3600 copes admirably. 

Once again we see the same trend line, albeit muddied by FS2020’s performance challenges. In our in depth examination of Flight 2020 we found that a CPU limit induces stutter and lag when any single core hits maximum utilisation. That appears to be part of the issue here with the minimum FPS scores showing more variance. However we see the same trend of RAM speed scaling, and note that the slowest RAM can cost you a full 10FPS or over 20% performance hit Vs better optimised RAM at 3600MHz. The most prominent feature here is that whilst in many of the other games frame rates appear unrealistic to induce a CPU limitation, in Flight 2020 most users will absolutely see an appreciable benefit: Even a GTX 1660 Super is capable of this level of performance at 1080p high settings, whilst high end GPUs at higher resolutions cannot overcome the CPU limitation imposed by this simulators game engine. If you’re building a PC for Flight 2020 with a Ryzen CPU, pay close attention to RAM Speed to enhance your experience – there’s no cheaper way to buy 10 extra FPS. 

Conclusions:

Our results highlight the importance of playing to the Ryzen architectures strengths. It’s not really RAM speed that matters here. What is critical is the Infinity Fabric speed and using RAM that can match that speed, synchronising RAM clocks to CPU clocks and minimising RAM latency. There’s little value in pushing past the maximum stable Fclck value of the CPU and in our example that was 3733MHz. It appears that some examples 3600MHz is the ceiling of stability. The market has also had it’s say, and high speed RAM has come down in price as manufacturers cater to demand for faster RAM. Therefore we can say with confidence that 3600MHz CL16 Ram hits the sweet spot of performance, price and stability.

For a gaming build it makes excellent sense to buy 3600MHz RAM, with timings at CL16 or lower. Whilst you may not notice a benefit in all games, it lifts the performance floor of the CPU considerably and will prolong the competitive life of your processor by enhancing it’s performance. You should also ensure that you enable XMP to obtain that benefit – the most egregious performance hit in all our tests was simply failing to set RAM speed in BIOS. You may find that your RAM doesn’t work at the rated speeds right out of the box, but don’t give up or return it as you can still make it work. Using the flexibility of the AMD Motherboard platforms and the tuning utility ‘Ryzen DRAM calculator’ you will be able to generate and input settings that stabilise your RAM. If you want to avoid this headache, use RAM on the QVL list of your motherboard for guaranteed compatibility. The motherboard manufacturer will have ensured that the BIOS holds optimal settings for the RAM so it’s guaranteed to work at advertised speeds.

For workstations the situation is less clear cut and varies more widely on application. In many cases it will be quantity of RAM that’s critical rather than speed and high capacity RAM kits can get incredibly expensive. We’d urge you to consider the nature of the work, with video editing and 3D rendering unlikely to be critically impacted by less fast RAM. First ensure you have the adequate quantity, then see if there are kits available at optimal speeds and a reasonable price.

• Fast RAM matters on Ryzen because it synchronises the infinity fabric interconnect to RAM speeds and lowers latency.
• 3600MHz at CL16 is the current sweet spot of compatibility, affordability and speed on ZEN2 CPUs. 
• Ensure you set RAM speed correctly.
• Unless you have RAM at 2400MHz or lower or run particularly sensitive games, a Ram speed upgrade is unlikely to bring appreciable performance benefits in most situations. It pauys to buy it right first time.

Recommended RAM for Ryzen Builds – Our Recommendations

RAM Kit used in this test: Patriot Viper 4400Mhz CL19 Samsung B-Die PVS416G440C9K ($129)

This RAM kit uses blazing fast Samsung B-Die IC’s for maximum speeds and overclocking potential. In all cases it was our CPU that became the limiting factor but we were still able to run 4000MHz comfortably on a Ryzen 3600 and mid range B450 Motherboard at stock voltages – and that’s impressive. The flexibility of this RAM can’t be overstated and using it allowed us to effectively emulate 8 different popular RAM specifications with just one kit. If you want to try your hand at overclocking particularly on Intel, or simply want to explore the extent of RAM overclocking yourself this is an excellent purchase. There’s rumour that ZEN 3 CPU’s may scale even further with infinity fabric speeds perhaps stable out past 2000MHz, in which case RAM like this will be in short supply as tuning enthusiasts snap it up to wring as much as possible out of those upcoming CPUs. 

Best Gaming RAM Kit for Ryzen: Crucial Ballistix 2X8GB 3600Mhz CL16 BL2K8G36C16U4B ($79.99)

You don’t have to spend much to obtain premium RAM that is optimized for Ryzen. This RAM kit is just $80 and brings all the benefits of fast ram ensuring maximum gaming performance from your CPU. The tight timings. There’s also an RGB Version for just $10 more. (BL2K8G36C16U4BL)

Best Workstation RAM Kit for Ryzen: G.Skill Ripjaws V 64GB CL18 (2x32GB) F4-3600C18D-64GVK ($240)

This RAM Kit offers a fantastic balance of capacity, speed and affordability. A 2 Stick Kit allows 2 slots free for future expansion to 128GB if required, whilst G.Skill offer comprehensive reverse QVL’s on their website allowing you to easily check compatibility with your motherboard and CPU choices. Whilst speed isn’t as critical for many workstation and productivity tasks you can be sure your high end Ryzen CPU is running to full potential with this RAM kit. 

The PremiumBuilds test rig warms up for another tough day in the lab…..

Appendix: Ram Settings. Sub timings also tweaked for stability, guidance via Ryzen DRAM calculator 1.7.3

The post Ryzen RAM Speeds – An investigation into what REALLY is the Best RAM for Ryzen. appeared first on PremiumBuilds.

The most important components in regards to hardware performance for a PC, gaming or otherwise, are the CPU, the GPU, the motherboard and, of course, the RAM. So far, within 2020, we have received Intel’s 10th generation CPUs, AMD’s Ryzen 3 and Ryzen XT series processors, and we are soon to receive Nvidia’s RTX Ampere 3000 series GPUs. We have PCIe 4.0 SSDs and brand-new Z490 and B550 motherboards. It seems like the perfect time to build a new rig… yet, one crucial component we are yet to see is the upgraded DDR5 RAM. But is the upgrade that the DDR5 RAM will provide worth the wait? Should you skip getting a current-generation CPU and motherboard and instead save up for a massive upgrade with DDR5 RAM and a compatible CPU and motherboard arrive?

We’re going to analyze what we know so far about DDR5 in regards to specifications, performance, and a possible release time-frame, in order to help you make the best possible choice for your next premium build.

Release Date

Let us start off with the most important question: When is DDR5 set to release? Currently, DDR5 RAM has already been released to a certain extent in mobile devices. Samsung LPDDR5 RAM can currently be found in the Samsung Galaxy S20, while Xiaomi’s Mi 10 makes use of Micron’s LPDDR5. In fact, laptops could probably also have GDDR5 RAM at this point, but the lack of compatible CPUs will delay the use of DDR5 RAM by laptops devices significantly.
Speaking of compatible CPUs, we know that the Intel 10th generation CPUs are not DDR5 compatible, and neither are their Z490 motherboards – while it is also is tough to tell if even Intel’s 11th generation CPUs will be DDR5 RAM compatible. On the other hand, AMD has announced that the AM4 chipset would only be supported through 2020; with the last compatible generation being the Ryzen 4000 CPUs. After that, Ryzen 5000 series CPUs, together with their new chipset (AM5?), will be DDR5 compatible. The timeframe for the release of Ryzen 5000 series CPUs seems to be near the third or fourth quarter of 2021, though with the delays that the coronavirus pandemic has caused it would be hard to tell. Given also that DDR5 was initially supposed to be released as early as quarter four of 2019, which we all know did not happen, it is safe to say that the new gen RAM is prone to delays. Even with the release of Ryzen’s 4000 series APUs, DDR5 RAM is still yet to be seen. Though it’s hard to be sure, ultimately the best guess for the release of DDR5 RAM should be around Q1 of 2022.

Performance

Alright, so a year to a year and a half is quite a long time to wait for building a new PC… Will it at least be worth the wait? Performance wise, there is a case to be made – though perhaps not at launch. DDR5 is looking to release with a max die density of 64 Gbits, a maximum UDIMM size of 128 GB, and a max data rate of 4,800 MHz (going up to 6,400 MHz, or even 8,400 MHz, down the line). In addition, the total non-ECC width of the memory will be 64-bits like the previous generation DDR4 RAM, though this time it will be split into two 32-bit channels per DIMM that will have double the banks (32, 8/4) and double the burst length: 16 bytes per each 32-bit channel – effectively meaning twice the operations of DDR4 single channel RAM. This is all done at an even lesser voltage requirement than DDR4 memory, with DDR5 RAM having a VDD of 1.1 volts, versus the VDD of 1.2 volts of the previous generation: a 9% power consumption decrease, despite the increase in performance.
Though all these specifications do seem impressive, an important element that is still missing here is the CAS latency the DDR5 RAM will launch with. The absolute latency of a RAM model is a product of the CAS latency multiplied by the reciprocal of half the clock frequency, measured in cycles. The absolute latency for DDR RAM will always hover around the 7-15 nanosecond range, as DRAM cannot be accessed any faster – and there is no word of DDR5 RAM making any significant leaps in reducing absolute latency. Therefore, the more the clock rates increase, the more the CAS latency will increase with it. Data transfer will surely double, but when it comes to latency sensitive workloads the performance may suffer in the beginning of the next generation of RAM; at least until the CAS latency is decreased to bring the absolute latency to the lower end of the 7ns-10ns spectrum.

Price

Though prices are, of course, yet to be revealed, if we take into account the trends of previous RAM generation releases then chances are that DDR5, at launch, will be significantly more expensive than DDR4 equivalent RAM; while the performance upgrade, when all is taken into account, may not be equivalent to the increase in price. The first year or so into launch is usually a time period where the RAM manufacturing process is still improving, so the price to performance ratio is not at its peak. This was the case in the transition between DDR3 and DDR4, and even DDR2 to DDR3. In general, it is usually a good idea to hold off during the first one, or even two years, in order to later upgrade to improved RAM, CPU, and motherboard technology.

Verdict

Being near the end of DDR4 RAM era means we currently have some of the best performance the generation has seen, and at excellent prices. We have brand-new CPUs, brand-new GPUs, and brand-new motherboards being released – as well as the launch of two next-generation consoles in the horizon (that will not be DDR5 compatible). If you are a fan of Intel, then their 10th (or even 11th) generation CPUs, together with a Z490 motherboard are the way to go; while if you are a fan of AMD CPUs, then their Ryzen 3000 series XT are an excellent choice. The Ryzen 3 3300X can also be an excellent placeholder for a Ryzen 4000 series desktop CPU, of which announcements should be just around the corner together with AMD’s RDNA 2 GPU reveals. Nvidia is also set to announce, and release, their 3000 series Ampere GPUs in the next few months as well.

Overall, now is the best time to upgrade to a PC that will last you three to four years down the line at the very least. After that, you can then upgrade to what would be an already improved set of DDR5 RAM, Ryzen 5000 series, or Intel 12th generation, CPUs with their respective chipset and motherboards, as well as whatever GPUs will be available at the time. For gaming especially, the next generation of consoles are set to have a lifespan of at least five years, and since the next generation of gaming can be adequately run with the PC hardware of today, there is no need to wait one or two years down the line to build a PC. A Z490 or X570/B550 motherboard, the GPU and CPU of your choice, and some good 3200 MHz CL14 or 3600 MHz CL16 DDR4 RAM will more than suffice to keep your PC relevant for several years to come. If you can make the upgrade, or build a new PC setup, within the next few months, then go for it; because there hasn’t been a better time to do so in quite a while.

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