RAM for AMD Ryzen from DDR4-2666 – -3600 in the test

– AMD's Ryzen processors deliver the highest performance in games with fast memory. Benchmarks from DDR4-2666 to -3600 in ten current titles reveal great differences, but the effort and costs are sometimes high. But even for little money there is more performance than officially specified.

RAM is important for AMD Ryzen

AMD Ryzen benefits from fast RAM. Officially, AMD's Ryzen processors are therefore already on the move with the highest clocking specifications for memory: DDR4-2933 does not offer an Intel CPU ex works. AMD even officially supports DDR4-3200 in the embedded area and with special notebook CPUs.

But RAM quickly reached its limit with AMDs processors. The very high clock speeds beyond DDR-4000 or even DDR-4500 do not work for the first and second Ryzen generation in contrast to some Intel systems. Usually there is no more detailed settings in the BIOS for DDR4-3466, with a little luck DDR4-3600 is also possible. So there is a supposedly rather small cycle window, but there is also a lot of potential for optimizing performance.

This is especially true for games. Therefore, after a good one and a half years, BitcoinMinersHashrate takes another look at the effects of various memory configurations in current titles, including the very successful free-2-play shooter Apex Legends, but also does not forget to look at some, at least somewhat older, games.

RAM: The choice is yours

For the selection of the RAM clock timing combinations in the test, in addition to the classics, the editorial team focused primarily on the AMD community and the G.Skill memory specifically offered for Ryzen with Samsung chips, but also on the price comparison. Because many not so savvy customers usually buy by price and what is at the top of the price comparison. The entries with the most hits have therefore made their way into the test, for example DDR4-3000 and DDR4-3200 with timings from 16-18-18-38, which are the most common, since they are also very attractively priced. The timing influence is also taken into account here, because DDR4-3000 modules with CL15-17-17-37 are only slightly more expensive. With 380 entries or 330 entries in the price comparison, these are the largest DDR4 fractions.

The starting point, however, is the officially specified by AMD DDR4-2933, which is driven both with sharp timings from CL14-14-14-34, but also with CL16-18-18-36 as a variant that is very common in the trade. The test field is rounded off with slower DDR4-2666 memory, which is often used in combination with Ryzen 200 in complete systems from large OEM manufacturers. There are two of these modules for dual-channel or just a single latch DDR4-2933 – this scenario is also taken into account.

Last but not least, the whole thing goes (almost): DDR4-3600 with CL16 is the limit in socket AM4 for Ryzen in many cases. With higher voltage and slightly adjusted sub-timings, this setting ultimately worked in the test in all scenarios, there are but no guarantee that this will work on any other Ryzen system. Because this cycle can only be skipped with extensive familiarization with the subject, as the "AMD Ryzen – RAM OC Community" in the BitcoinMinersHashrate forum shows, where the path to DDR4-3800 is paved on AMD Ryzen.

Flagship mainboards from Asus with special RAM profiles

In many cases, Asus mainboards are among the best in terms of memory support (MSI, on the other hand, is usually slightly ahead when it comes to CPU overclocking), but they are often also the most expensive. The manufacturer works with several overclockers who try out the perfect and stable settings down to the sub-timing level for days in Taiwan. For flagship mainboards, Asus stores some of these directly as a selectable profile in the BIOS, which can be loaded similarly to the XMP. However, it only takes care of the timing settings and the voltage, the memory clock itself still has to be selected manually. Such a profile will also be represented in the test.

With the Ryzen Timing Checker tool from Overclocker The Stiltwhose profile was used, the timings created can be read out under Windows. The Fast Profile for DDR4-3200 looks like this:

On the next page: test system and benchmarks