[News] AMD Shares Details on Ryzen DDR4 Memory Support and Upcoming AM4 Updates

[StyM]

https://www.techpowerup.com/231518/a...ng-am4-updates

In a blog post titled "Tips for Building a Better AMD Ryzen System", AMD has shed some light on the current memory support quirks with their Ryzen CPUs. First interesting detail: Ryzen processors do not offer memory dividers for DDR4-3000 or DDR4-3400. As such, AMD recommends that users looking to use higher memory speeds with their Ryzen processors instead look towards 3200 or 3500 MT/s. Due to Ryzen's preferences when it comes to memory, AMD also recommends that users pay particular attention to motherboard vendor's memory QVL lists for speeds greater than DDR4-2667.

Remember RAM importance on Ryzen processors' performance, which is given newfound importance in alleviating possible bottlenecks related to AMD's Data Fabric, the interconnect technology being used to communicate between different CCX's in AMD's 8-core Ryzen 7 and upcoming 6-core Ryzen 5 processors. Higher data rate of your memory subsystem should better help Ryzen's inter-core communication, and thus allow for higher performance in multiple scenarios, more so than with any other current CPU architecture.

In this regard, AMD seems to have obtained good internal results with some 2933, 3200, and 3500 MT/s rated memory configurations, namely 16GB kits based on Samsung "B-die" memory chips. Potential kits that AMD has tested to pair well with Ryzen include Geil EVO X (GEX416GB3200C16DC [16-16-16-36 @ 1.35v]); G.Skill Trident Z (F4-3200C16D-16GTZR [16-18-18-36 @ 1.35v]) and the Corsair CMK16GX4M2B3200C16 (VERSION 5.39 [16-18-18-36 @ 1.35v]).

AMD also stressed incoming updates in regards to memory support of its AM4 platform, with updates being pushed to motherboard makers this May, which should enable support for memory at speeds "higher than the current DDR4-3200 limit without refclk adjustments." For reference, see below memory support tables according to memory speed, rank, and quantities supported by Ryzen processors.

Tips for Building a Better AMD Ryzen? System

[Ket]

AMD need to be pushing those updates out sooner than May if they want to maximise sales, Zens Achilles heel right now is memory compatibility it should be getting by far the highest priority on their to-do list. Asus seem to be doing a good job on memory compatibility right now at least as far as their Crosshair Vi goes, good size list for the Prime X370 too but that list is kinda all over the place unlike the Crosshair VI.

[zalbard]

From what I've seen so far, all of the 2 x 8 GB kits are dual ranked.

Want 16 GB of RAM? You're stuck with either dual ranked DIMM modules, or are forced to use 4 of single ranked ones, which is equally bad.

Want to buy 32 GB of RAM for your workstation? Your RAM performance is going to suck.

Major fail.

[zanzabar]

historically single rank kits are junk since they take up twice the space for the same capacity and things clock better with one stick per channel than 2. who is going to ship more expensive and lower clocking on intel for 2666mhz amd kits.