Question Crash course on RAM

[Archon1985]

Hi all

I'm new here and had a few questions about RAM, any help would be appreciated.

I currently have 2x8 hyperx fury DDR4 "3200MHZ" installed. For reference my mobo is an ASUS B450M-A and a Ryzen 5 3400g and I'm in the process of upgrading to a Gigabyte B550m Aorus pro with Ryzen 5 3600X cpu.

So I never really paid much attention to my RAM assuming 3200mhz mean't 3200mhz when I bought it (you can probably see where this is going) until I noticed the mhz weren't right in BIOS then I started researching and reading about things like the different Dram manufactures (e.g hynix), CAS, voltage, latency e.t.c and realized I knew very little about RAM.

So my question is how exactly do I get my RAM to reach the 3200mhz it's supposed to be? My new mobo supports bandwidth beyond 3200mhz. Do I need to buy more RAM to make it reach 3200mhz? Overclock? enable XMP? Manually change the timings in BIOS??

I've attached a shot of my RAM idling on CPUz with my old mobo.



NEW mobo RAM support


Any advice would be appreciated

* Side Rant* Why RAM manufacturers do this I don't understand. IMO it's like advertising a car saying it has 500 horsepower when it only has 250 off the showroom floor. It might have the potential to be 500HP if I waste time and money taking it to a mechanic, but at the end of the day it was advertised as 500HP and it was sold as 250HP. IMO it's deceitful. *rant over*

 

[Archon1985]

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[bononos]

I think its because for several reasons - backwards compatibility and because the top rated speed might not be official JEDEC standard. So the ddr4-3200 can be used for old cpus which don't support the top speed.
You have to choose XMP mode in your motherboard uefi ram settings to enable 3200 or it will fallback to its default slower speed. Just check that the timing info from the XMP mode matches with your advertised ram timings.

 

[Archon1985]

I think its because for several reasons - backwards compatibility and because the top rated speed might not be official JEDEC standard. So the ddr4-3200 can be used for old cpus which don't support the top speed.
You have to choose XMP mode in your motherboard uefi ram settings to enable 3200 or it will fallback to its default slower speed. Just check that the timing info from the XMP mode matches with your advertised ram timings.

Ok, that makes sense. Thanks. My new gear should be coming soon so I'll let you know how it goes.

 

[VirtualLarry]

You do realize, that DDR is "double data-rate", and that a rating of DDR4-3200, is actually clocked at 1600Mhz, right? CPU-Z shows the actual Mhz speed, in both the SPD data section, as well as the "Memory" section. If the "Memory" section shows "1599" or "1600" Mhz, then you're running at DDR4-3200, which is where you should be if you set XMP in the BIOS/UEFI.

 

[Archon1985]

You do realize, that DDR is "double data-rate", and that a rating of DDR4-3200, is actually clocked at 1600Mhz, right? CPU-Z shows the actual Mhz speed, in both the SPD data section, as well as the "Memory" section. If the "Memory" section shows "1599" or "1600" Mhz, then you're running at DDR4-3200, which is where you should be if you set XMP in the BIOS/UEFI.

Except it doesn't. Not even close.

 

[VirtualLarry]

You have to choose XMP mode in your motherboard uefi ram settings to enable 3200 or it will fallback to its default slower speed. Just check that the timing info from the XMP mode matches with your advertised ram timings.