Solved XMP Necessary for Higher RAM speeds

Yeah. You all started losing me about post 10!

So far so good with the XMP enabled, though!

jvickers said:

Yeah. You all started losing me about post 10!

So far so good with the XMP enabled, though!

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Like I said... if it was gonna be unstable, you would know by now.

Ghot said:

On my pic they just left off the T's.
rrds, rrdl and faw, are in there. :)

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Not for the XMP (top 1600 MHz line) they aren't. That is what I was looking at. I did not see the last line.
XMP sets other settings as well, like the RAM voltage, and on Intel the System Agent Voltage and I/o Voltage and probably some other timings.

Anyhow, I was originally responding to your previous post which omitted them,

Extreme Memory Profiles = on

My gamer-nephew says that enabling XMP profile does raise the RAM speeds but in reality doesn't make much difference in performance !
Regards

cineman195 said:

My gamer-nephew says that enabling XMP profile does raise the RAM speeds but in reality doesn't make much difference in performance !
Regards

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Depends on what you are doing. High end gamers look for lower latency in high speed RAM. It increases the minimum frame rates hit in games. But most ppl won't notice much difference.

I don't agree that XMP is "Overclocking" of memory at all but only settings at which manufacturer tested particular RAM model for it's best performance. It's just a set of rules for BIOS to follow to set it automatically. It's still under general JEDEC standards and rules. Most DDR4 start at 2133MHz as base speed. Only "overclock" could be with IMC (Internal Memory Controller) integrated in modern CPUs. In some CPUs it may be locked to certain value and on some it can be overclocked above it. Ryzen, starting with Zen+ even has separate (from cores) chip containing IMC: XMP is not something written in stone, BIOS is free, and often does, to modify settings as sees fit.
Example of that is my combination of MB, BIOS and RAM. It's an Asus MB so XMP is called DOCP, with other makers it could have different name. I experimented with memory settings manually using this guide: DRAM-Calculator-for-Ryzen-1.7.3 DRAM Calculator for Ryzen (v1.7.3) Download but almost by accident tried modifying settings in DOCP to great success.
This Kingston RAM 3600MHz, Has 2 XMP settings, 3000 and 3600MHz, so by that "almost accident" I set DOCP(xmp) to 3000MHz and RAM frequency to 3600MHz and lo and behold it worked at 3600MHz but with 3000MHz timings that made it have better performance than at either XMP settings.
These are RAM capabilities as for JEDEC and XMP

But as set with DOCP it's running at

AS you can see, not much is used from XMP table yet it works fine at best performance possible with this combo. I was able to make couple of changes that eeked even more performance although not much more.

Instead of this which were factory defaults

Hi Mike.

It is running 1.2v 2133 or 2400 RAM chips at higher speed and higher voltage then the jdec specs. You can get 4000 - 5000+ MHz XMP RAM that will run on some systems at 1.45-1.5v. They are not running different memory chips but cherry picked ones.

cineman195 said:

My gamer-nephew says that enabling XMP profile does raise the RAM speeds but in reality doesn't make much difference in performance !
Regards

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That was what I was following to the end to say myself. You likely WILL see a difference in benchmarking, but in day to day application operation or gaming...you aren't going to notice anything really going from 2400Mhz to 3200Mhz.

Certain apps which may make heavy use of RAM may show improvements, but not the typical apps and tasks like booting the OS, running a web browser, launching office applications, running games, etc.

But I would still have XMP enabled and run my RAM where it's supposed to run versus just throwing performance away that otherwise present. I just wanted to be clear that you might be unable to prove/quantify the change aside from benchmarking.

jvickers said:

Yeah. You all started losing me about post 10!

So far so good with the XMP enabled, though!

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Why I try to provide simple answers since most want that instead of a bunch of "what ifs" and deep dive debates :)

Glad XMP is working as it should

Peace

geneo said:

Hi Mike.

It is running 1.2v 2133 or 2400 RAM chips at higher speed and higher voltage then the jdec specs. You can get 4000 - 5000+ MHz XMP RAM that will run on some systems at 1.45-1.5v. They are not running different memory chips but cherry picked ones.

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Yes, BIOS permitting you can change any value (whether it works or not). XMP is just a suggestion to BIOS, something manufacturer tested but as you can see BIOS doesn't have obey it completely
XMP was invented by Intel to make settings easier which is an added problem for AMD as Ryzen has differen't set of rules. At fiest there was real problem with Zen and BIOS in most 300 chipset series MBs where only the best (Samsung b-die) based RAM could achieve speeds higher than best IMC speeds available in first Zen (2666MHz). Newest Ryzen (Zen2) 5000 series can achieve IMC overclock in excess of 4000MHz without problems but that fast and faster RAM has to be of good quality. Haven't seen anybody with 5100MHz on Ryzen yet.
On Ryzen 3000 series, it seems that 3600MHz RAM is a point with diminishing gains taking price in account.
BTW, another great tool to see more details about particular RAM Thaiphoon Burner - Official Support Website and Ryzen Timing Checker (1.05) Download to see more memory settings as applied.

+1 on the Thaiphoon - if you are into that LOL. A good free utility, and it has a SPD database so you can lookup most RAM and get the timings.

pparks1 said:

That was what I was following to the end to say myself. You likely WILL see a difference in benchmarking, but in day to day application operation or gaming...you aren't going to notice anything really going from 2400Mhz to 3200Mhz.

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I think too many are still stuck in the old ways of seeing. Whether one needs RAM above 2400MHz depends depends on a lot of things, so one size does not fit all. Many don't need the extreme systems we have, but we have them, so...

Anyway, most of the "XMP is/can be unstable" talk centers around the CPU overclockers looking to get every ounce of performance their CPU's can muster. In that arena, XMP can become a hinderance since the RAM will usually need to be adjusted from what XMP does (set the RAM to the vendor specific specs - speed, timings, voltage).

So what does that mean - "generally" speaking if you're not overclocking your CPU, XMP is fine. If you're an overclocker XMP may be a hinderance. And yes, like all things overclocking, a lot depends on a lot of things, with lots of what ifs so....

For me, I'm no longer in overclocking (CPU) game so XMP works just fine for my Corsair 3600Mhz RAM. Yeah, even after my CPU overclocking days, I'd still manually set my RAM, but eventually found using XMP was so much simpler - just enable a single BIOS switch and the RAM ran at its rated specs without ever having an issue.

So again, (for those arguing against XMP or manually setting) why pay for something you're not going to use? It's like buying a high performance car, but arguing 55 is plenty for you

No one was arguing against using XMP, at least in this thread.

CountMike said:

I don't agree that XMP is "Overclocking" of memory at all but only settings at which manufacturer tested particular RAM model for it's best performance. It's just a set of rules for BIOS to follow to set it automatically.

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Yep, yep.

Dru2 said:

I think too many are still stuck in the old ways of seeing. Whether one needs RAM above 2400MHz depends depends on a lot of things, so one size does not fit all.

Anyway, most of the "XMP is/can be unstable" talk centers around the CPU overclockers looking to get every ounce of performance their CPU's can muster. In that arena, XMP can become a hinderance since the RAM will usually need to be adjusted from what XMP does (set the RAM to the vendor specific specs - speed, timings, voltage).

So what does this mean in simple terms... if you're not overclocking your CPU, XMP is fine. If you're an overclocker looking to get the most out of your CPU, XMP may be a hinderance. And yes, like all things overclocking, a lot depend on a lot of things, with lots of what ifs so....

For me, I'm no longer in overclocking (CPU) game so XMP works just fine for my Corsair 3600Mhz RAM. Yeah, even after my CPU overclocking days, I'd still manually set my RAM, but eventually found using XMP was so much simpler - just enable a single BIOS switch and the RAM ran at its rated specs without ever having an issue.

So again, (for those arguing against XMP or manually setting) why pay for something you're not going to use? It's like buying a high performance car, but arguing 55 is plenty for you

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That's just it, all I'm looking for is to get my money's worth out of complete setup, CPU, RAM, GPU, disks etc. should work at their best advertised performance at least, otherwise I could have saved some money by buying somewhat lower performance parts.
OC seems to be going by the way of Dodo as CPU manufacturers found (more or less) best algorithms to adjust frequency, voltage and all associated parameters for best performance according to load while also attempting to save energy and heat. Manufacturers also included so called "Binning" where they check performance of parts and give them appropriate part number even when those parts are essentially same. That way they can charge more for top performers while not throwing away lesser ones, just sell them for less money although production costs are same.
Before that, you could get lucky at "Silicone lottery" and be able to get more performance by overclocking if possible.

One of the reasons people don't know what they actually need is because they have been conditioned to just accept what the resident geeks tell them, rather than doing the research themselves. Part of the reason they are so conditioned is because the discussion gets theory and setting heavy really, really quickly, as this exact discussion did, very, very quickly. It's easily confusing information, but at the end of the day, extremely valuable, if you sit down and actually read through it all, and start asking questions about what this is and what that is, etc.

But it is also daunting in scope. It's very technical heavy, and even with utilities like Thaiphoon or Ryzen DRAM Calculator by 1usmus (same developer as Clock Tuner for Ryzen (CTR)), you still need to understand the nitty gritty of it all before trying to take a stab at overclocking. And this is what too many people ignore.

Some people ask for a baseline to start with, or use what others have figured out works well for their system, but it ignores some of the most important parts of OCing - 1) No two systems will ever be 100% identical, and 2) you really need to experiment on your own and find your desired settings based upon your needs.

I ran CTR early on after initial release, but haven't run it recently because I really don't do much that I need my CPU OCd any further than the dummy OC granted by my mobo. With RAM, pretty much the same - haven't played with either Thaiphoon or RDC since installing Windows 11 on here, either, using only stock XMP profile to run at 3200 MHz (which, sorry, yes, XMP is OCing - baseline, should pretty much work OOB OCing, sure, not manually OCd, sure - but it is OCing nonetheless). Learning about and navigating my way through the myriad of information for OCing with my last rig made me realize that I have absolutely no reason to go beyond the baby step versions (DymmyOC on CPU, XMP on RAM) because I need a working, stable system much more than I need to sped time chasing down idiosyncrasies and failures caused by the tiniest of setting changes. But it was something that took a very very long time to digest as 1) it's boring AF to read, and 2) it's so $#%^#$%^# repetitive as you test, change a value, test, change a value, etc. over and over and over and over again - ad nauseum.

As long as dummy OC and XMP don't cause issues, I'm sticking with them. I'm slightly tempted to do a CTR run on here, for slightly more granular control on the cores, but other than that - meh. I'll stick with the easy stuff. Not knocking anyone who wants to go through the regimen of finding their own exact sweet spot - more power to you if you do.

CountMike said:

That's just it, all I'm looking for is to get my money's worth out of complete setup, CPU, RAM, GPU, disks etc. should work at their best advertised performance at least, otherwise I could have saved some money by buying somewhat lower performance parts.
OC seems to be going by the way of Dodo as CPU manufacturers found (more or less) best algorithms to adjust frequency, voltage and all associated parameters for best performance according to load while also attempting to save energy and heat. Manufacturers also included so called "Binning" where they check performance of parts and give them appropriate part number even when those parts are essentially same. That way they can charge more for top performers while not throwing away lesser ones, just sell them for less money although production costs are same.
Before that, you could get lucky at "Silicone lottery" and be able to get more performance by overclocking if possible.

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Not advocating overclcoking, but as long as CPU manufacturers allow unlocked processors, people will be able to eek a bit more out of them, but the cost has also gotten a lot higher (additional cooling & processor cost) so you really don't get better performance/$, just the highest possible speed. No reason to unless you are a geek and like to tinker as a hobby or are professional gamer.

geneo said:

Not advocating overclcoking, but as long as CPU manufacturers allow unlocked processors, people will be able to eek a bit more out of them, but the cost has also gotten a lot higher (additional cooling & processor cost) so you really don't get better performance/$, just the highest possible speed. No reason to unless you are a geek and like to tinker as a hobby or are professional gamer.

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I use d to "overclock" everything possible. That's a relatively new term, before computers it was called by other names, like "Tuning" for engines or adding crystals to CB radio for more channels or changing resistors on final emitter transistors for better range. Always liked to tinker with things. At 14 I shaved head on my mopeds engine to get one horse power to be fastest kid on the block. Some of first CPUs could be overclocked by voltage mods on the MB. Obviously with some smoke as a result.
Most of it is now difficult because of more complicated products or manufacturers already found best what could be safely set to.

Dru2 said:

It's like buying a high performance car, but arguing 55 is plenty for you

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I don't drive my 370Z over 70. My wife got a super speeder ticket in her M2 a couple of years ago. Over $1,000 in fines and 3 points on her license. We're still waiting for those points to drop from her license.

But I digress...