Upgrade from 3200 to 4000MHz?

Brun · 24 Jul 2020 at 23:27

Appreciate this is a very subjective question, but I'm wondering if I'd see any appreciable gains by replacing my Corsair Vengeance 3200 (16-18-18-36) with faster RAM. I've had this since I built my first DDR4 system back in 2016, and it's currently stuck in an Asus Maximus XI Hero with a 9900k and 1080Ti.

For typical games which tend to be GPU limited I expect it wouldn't be worth it, but I'm specifically looking for a boost for the like of DCS World and Assetto Corsa Competizione which are both much more CPU dependent. I'm using VR and find ACC to be particularly bad in terms of stuttering, which feels like the sort of thing that faster RAM *may* alleviate.

Am also keeping my eye on the Ampere business, with a very good chance I'll upgrade when they're available. Obviously want to make sure the other bits don't limit its potential.

If anyone in a similar situation has done likewise it would be great to have their opinion.

MrRockliffe · 24 Jul 2020 at 23:32

Why don’t you see if you can push your RAM to 3200 MHz CL14 at 1.45V? Low timing is equally important

Read here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/8qh678/ryzen_and_ram_speed_vs_timings/

GregI · 25 Jul 2020 at 07:10

Since you said 2016 I think it's unlikely you have 32 GB RAM. I'd say being limited to 16GB RAM is introducing stutters more than RAM speed would.

Illuminist · 25 Jul 2020 at 07:32

If the 4000mhz ram is cl16 or as tight as can be then you will see benefits, I keep seeing people say it doesnt matter so much but I've got provable results that it does.

My friend also just moved from cl16 3200 on a ryzen to 3800 cl14 and gained %14 on benchmarks and game fps , he moved the same ram to his intel 10900k and clocked it to 4200 cl 16 (had 3200cl16 previously) and gained 12% in frames and scores there too.

Brun · 27 Jul 2020 at 16:12

Thanks for the replies. With the exception of the weird one saying I don't know how much RAM I've got. Edit: Realise I didn't actually mention how much RAM I had so see that was just an assumption, apologies. It definitely is 32GB tho

Never considered overclocking the memory but I'll look into that and see if there's any gains to be had. I'd already seen the latency calculator linked to on that reddit page and found that 4000MHz CL19 (Corsair Vengeance again) is marginally lower latency than what I'm currently running. 9.5 vs 10ns respectively.