SCANNERMAN wrote:
Gamers are telling me not to over populate the DIMMS on my board. I'm accustomed to using 128 GB of RAM but I'm being advised to use 32 at the most in my gaming build. In addition to this I am told that the board I purchased uses daisy chain topology and therefore I should only use the first to DIMMS and not bother with the second. Little annoys me more than empty DIMM slots.
Then there is the matter of what RAM is best to buy for the system board. OMGG... This has got to be the most harrowing of all PC discussions I've had in years.
RAM:-
Daisy Chain is the technology, and there is nothing wrong with that. The Ryzen 3000 series has a extremely capable memory controller (much better than Ryzen 1 & 2), you can have 4 x DIMM, with the Max. 128GB and something that only Intel server chips / boards have, ECC ram.
What you can have and what you need is two different things. If your serious as a gamer, than you really don't need 128gb or ECC Ram regardless of Intel or AMD system and most cases this is total waste of money.
For gaming,
Ideally, you need 16gb and 32gb is overkill. Dual RAM on one channel will get the best results. The issue here is how big is your fuel tank (RAM) for the engine (CPU). Is bigger best ? What is best, is the two, just the right size to get you A-B without needing to go to the service station (M2 nvme drive or HDD or SSD) and fill up all the time. No game uses more than about 12gb at the moment and most video creation work needs more than 16gb and less than 32gb. If you have dual roles in mind than go 32gb but it gets harder to get extreme speed with the extra weight of the fuel tanks (RAM), 16gb generally speaking is the right size and get best speed when teamed up with your engine (CPU).
*DDR4@3200 is the minimum speed you should consider.
*DDR4@3600 is optimal speed in most games.
*DDR4@3800 is optimal speed in benchmarks and applications.
DDR4@4133 is the highest I have tested.
DDR4@4800 is the highest supported speed by the motherboard.
Generally speaking, manufacturer wise, Samsung B-die and Micron E-die have tightest timings at any set speed.
*Assumption made from my own testing Samsung b-die 2x8 using Ryzen Dram Calculator fast profiles, microcode 1.0.0.4(b), cpu auto clocks.
CPU:-
Right now 3900x is overkill for gaming, just like most sport cars engines are. It's like saying no point having 800hp engine because in certain cimstances the wheels spin and cant get all the speed transferred to the wheels without slippage. So here have this Scooter, 50hp it will get you A-B without any worries, or you can have this sporty 500hp car. They all get you A-B, but when you need horsepower or to be first, which is, your cars engine ?
I rather have future CPU with more go in reserve (if I need it) than select 50 or 500HP engine. After all, your engine, in the future, maybe driving a shiny new GPU (the transmission of the car) which can now use 800hp without spinning the wheels or right now according to 3dmark 99% of the systems are slower than mine, oh no my gaming future looks brighter than I need.
Hopefully you can identify with the car analogy. I thought it might help. In any case you can always get more ram or bigger cpu at a latter date and you should buy what is within your budget or suits your needs. I don't regret having 3900x and I was very tempted to go 3600, 3700 & 3800 but in the end I glad I got the 3900x and you have 3950x out end of this month which is 16 core / 32 thread monster (that might be, ok you can fit jet engine in a car but should we or might be tomorrow's normal sports car ?).
If you want crystal ball look, then I would look to what is going into the new xbox and playstation. This will tell you what you need to have for your computer into the future of gaming on PC's. It also looks very AMD.
Hope you find this of help.
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