DDR5 & AM5 - General questions

[PaulC2K]

I've been looking at building an AM5 system for a while and RAM has always been something ive glossed over and bought whatever reputable cheap kit for the MB/GB i need. Im not fussed about overclocking and tweaking, im more focused on making sure what i get doesnt bottleneck a top tier CPU & GPU.
I've done a bit of research but still have a few questions and things that would be nice to get clarified so i understand whats right to buy and why.

A couple of things worth mentioning:
- I'd likely be going with either the ASUS Strix B650E-E or B650E-F, or the Asus TUF Gaming X670E-Plus - Something in the ballpark of £300 unless someone can convince me otherwise. They each have PCIe gen5 slots & M.2 for the future, and havent seen something on the £500+ boards i feel these lack.
- CPU will be 7800X3D or 7950X3D, most likely a 4090 FE or whatever is cheapest (Zotac probably) and eventually watercool both - waiting for the Lian Li 011 Evo XL before touching WC.
- Ive been reading people here talking about making sure to buy from the mobos QVL list and thats kinda stripped away at my choices. For some reason Asus dont have any Corsair branded EXPO kits on their list, no TeamGroup either.
- I've seen what i think is conflicting information regarding the speed & timing aspects. I know the preference is more speed & lower timing, but typically it seems like they lean into one or the other, rather than both. Yet ive also seen people saying that basic 5200-5600mhz kits are perfectly fine for gaming. Part of me feels like at this stage its better to get 32/64GB of 5200-5600 and wait a year or two for things to mature and prices settle, than buy a premium kit i potentially couldnt tell is any faster and is considered slow in 12mo.

My questions:
1) How important is it to follow the QVL list?
2) Are there any benefits to EXPO certified kits vs XMP. Its narrowing down the results for EXPO and EXPO+XMP which seems to shrink the options.
3) Roughly what specs should i be looking for?
4) How significant is the difference between a basic kit and a premium one? Say 5200 vs 6000mhz, and likewise timings like 40-40-40-77 vs 30-36-36-76 (both 2x 16GB Corsair Dominator Platinum kits). Whats the real world impact, exclusively for gaming.
5) Off topic, but would the B650 chipset be a concern paired with a 7950X3D? I know Asus isnt a popular choice lately, but should i be looking to spend more for a X670 board.

I'd appreciate answers that help me understand things rather than simply 'just buy this kit', doesnt need to be a great deal of depth, just enough to help me make an informed choice.
Thanks.

 

[Tetras]

4) How significant is the difference between a basic kit and a premium one? Say 5200 vs 6000mhz, and likewise timings like 40-40-40-77 vs 30-36-36-76 (both 2x 16GB Corsair Dominator Platinum kits). Whats the real world impact, exclusively for gaming.

For the non-X3D CPUs I'd go with 6000, you can get it fairly cheap, but it doesn't need to be CL30.

For the X3D CPUs, a 5600 C36/C40 kit is fine.

You may want to watch this, or similar scaling articles/videos:

Ryzen 9 7950X3D Memory Scaling Benchmark, Does DDR5 Performance Matter?

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2) Are there any benefits to EXPO certified kits vs XMP. Its narrowing down the results for EXPO and EXPO+XMP which seems to shrink the options.

XMP usually works fine, but it is officially intended for Intel now and vice versa. If they really test these things more thoroughly for the intended platform, I don't know. If you have an XMP kit working fine then you won't gain anything from switching, put it that way.

5) Off topic, but would the B650 chipset be a concern paired with a 7950X3D? I know Asus isnt a popular choice lately, but should i be looking to spend more for a X670 board.

No.

1) How important is it to follow the QVL list?

Not super important, but if you run into problems with getting the memory stable then that's going to be asked.

Part of me feels like at this stage its better to get 32/64GB of 5200-5600 and wait a year or two for things to mature and prices settle, than buy a premium kit i potentially couldnt tell is any faster and is considered slow in 12mo.

I'd agree, a standard 32GB kit is fine for now, unless you're an ultra competitive low res/refresh gamer, or something like that.

 

[FredFlint]

I've been looking at building an AM5 system for a while and RAM has always been something ive glossed over and bought whatever reputable cheap kit for the MB/GB i need. Im not fussed about overclocking and tweaking, im more focused on making sure what i get doesnt bottleneck a top tier CPU & GPU.
I've done a bit of research but still have a few questions and things that would be nice to get clarified so i understand whats right to buy and why.

A couple of things worth mentioning:
- I'd likely be going with either the ASUS Strix B650E-E or B650E-F, or the Asus TUF Gaming X670E-Plus - Something in the ballpark of £300 unless someone can convince me otherwise. They each have PCIe gen5 slots & M.2 for the future, and havent seen something on the £500+ boards i feel these lack.
- CPU will be 7800X3D or 7950X3D, most likely a 4090 FE or whatever is cheapest (Zotac probably) and eventually watercool both - waiting for the Lian Li 011 Evo XL before touching WC.
- Ive been reading people here talking about making sure to buy from the mobos QVL list and thats kinda stripped away at my choices. For some reason Asus dont have any Corsair branded EXPO kits on their list, no TeamGroup either.
- I've seen what i think is conflicting information regarding the speed & timing aspects. I know the preference is more speed & lower timing, but typically it seems like they lean into one or the other, rather than both. Yet ive also seen people saying that basic 5200-5600mhz kits are perfectly fine for gaming. Part of me feels like at this stage its better to get 32/64GB of 5200-5600 and wait a year or two for things to mature and prices settle, than buy a premium kit i potentially couldnt tell is any faster and is considered slow in 12mo.

My questions:
1) How important is it to follow the QVL list?
2) Are there any benefits to EXPO certified kits vs XMP. Its narrowing down the results for EXPO and EXPO+XMP which seems to shrink the options.
3) Roughly what specs should i be looking for?
4) How significant is the difference between a basic kit and a premium one? Say 5200 vs 6000mhz, and likewise timings like 40-40-40-77 vs 30-36-36-76 (both 2x 16GB Corsair Dominator Platinum kits). Whats the real world impact, exclusively for gaming.
5) Off topic, but would the B650 chipset be a concern paired with a 7950X3D? I know Asus isnt a popular choice lately, but should i be looking to spend more for a X670 board.

I'd appreciate answers that help me understand things rather than simply 'just buy this kit', doesnt need to be a great deal of depth, just enough to help me make an informed choice.
Thanks.

I went for Asus B650E-E with a 7950X and 32GB 5600 EXPO kit, not had any issues so far. If I was buying now, I would get a 48GB(2*24GB) RAM kit. Been looking at getting a 6400 2*24GB or 2*48GB kit and running it at 6000, maybe in the future AM5 will be able to run faster RAM.