AMD OC guide thread

[Raja]

The first of our OC guides is now live. This one is aimed primarily at extreme overclocking, but has some good info for normal usage, too. Expectations for overclocking frequencies and voltage requirements are all defined, as well as handy hints for troubleshooting via motherboard POST codes. A worthy read:

http://www.mediafire.com/file/cyc9ns24gwwploo/C6H_XOC_Guide_v03.pdf

A normal overclocking guide may follow at a later date - assuming there is something of merit to write about. CPU overclocking is limited by the architecture itself. Unless yields improve, 4GHz is the expected frequency for most samples. Memory overclocking is limited by AMD's firmware.

Be sensible when purchasing a memory kit for the platform. Stick with kits rated below DDR4-3000, and bear in mind that kits binned on Intel platforms may not achieve their rated timings and frequency on the AMD platform.

[gupsterg]

Thank you for this Raja 🙂 .

Hope to receive my R7 1700 + CH6 tomorrow 🙂 .

[Raja]

The guide is by Elmor, not me. Just made the thread and posted realistic expectations.

[TyCanadian]

I am a lucky early owner of an ASUS ROG Crosshair VI Hero board and a Ryzen 1800X CPU. I would like to get this 2x16GB 3200 MHz CL14 G.SKILL kit but know that only the 2x8GB kit is on ASUS's QVL list (found here: http://dlcdnet.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/SocketAM4/CROSSHAIR-VI-HERO/CROSSHAIR-VI-HERO_DRAM_QVL_forAMDRyz...).

I was wondering if you are aware of efforts to ensure this 32 GB kit, or others, will eventually be supported at the advertised speed and timings in a future BIOS update, or alternatively, if it will not due to hard physical or technical limitations of the CPU or platform. Any information or insights would be much appreciated. Thanks!

[Raja]

Can't say that it will work for sure. The CPU variance is significant, and while AMD will likely open up more memory options in the future, speeds over DDR4-3000 may always be a lottery.

[AMD_Guy]

No word yet if its a limit of AMD's memory controller (on die) or of the 370 chipset (designed by Asmedia), however currently only single sided/single rank DIMMs in Dual Channel mode support 2666+

So until someone figures out how to make 16GB single sided DDR4, looks like 16GB @ 3200 is max

[os2wiz]

AMD_Guy wrote:
No word yet if its a limit of AMD's memory controller (on die) or of the 370 chipset (designed by Asmedia), however currently only single sided/single rank DIMMs in Dual Channel mode support 2666+

So until someone figures out how to make 16GB single sided DDR4, looks like 16GB @ 3200 is max

Why nobody has said anything about single sided ram before??? This is idiocy. I bought G. Skill DDR4 3200 (two) 16 Gb modules a couple of months ago . Now you are telling me it can't be run higher than 2400mhz. That is a lot of crap. You are saying this is NOT a bios issue????? Everyone was saying a new bios would resolve this issue. How is G.Skill now releasing AMD compatible ram at 3200MHZ in 16 GB module size if what you said is correct????

[Chino]

os2wiz wrote:
You are saying this is NOT a bios issue?????

More like an AMD issue for not giving their proccesors a stronger IMC. 😛

[AMD_Guy]

Chino wrote:
More like an AMD issue for not giving their proccesors a stronger IMC. 😛

understand comment is in jest, however AMD pioneered the use of IMC in CPUs, so much so that Intel had to license the IP from AMD for use in the iCore series.
It looks as though the IMC may in fact prove very robust particularly when looking at the upcoming zen based opteron (8 channel)

[AMD_Guy]

Bad choice of wording based on old(er) information on my part.. in the past Single Rank/Dual Rank was commonly used in conjunction with Single Sided/Double Sided ram. In fact "rank" actually refers to how the memory is organized (structured)/accessed.

A rank is a data block typically a width of 64 bits (72 when using error correction)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_rank
http://forum.crucial.com/t5/tkb/articleprintpage/tkb-id/dram@tkb/article-id/71
https://www.oempcworld.com/support/singlevsdualram.html

Dual rank usually = slower due to having having to access 2x

Best described here
https://www.computerbase.de/2017-03/amd-ryzen-1800x-1700x-1700-test/#abschnitt_der_neue_speichercont...

"As an example, say a chip has eight memory lines, eight chips are required to reach the 64 bits. A single-rank module therefore needs eight chips. the same configuration in dual rank, twice as many chips must be present in order to enable 64 bits. For the same module capacity this would require twice as many memory chips with half the capacity would be sufficient to achieve this goal."