Question about RAM compatibility
Question about RAM compatibility
QVL lisitng is not some religious text, if you do not follow it the performance will not be any worse, there is ZERO basis to that claim, it is simply not true. The Dominator kit you are now looking at did not exist when your motherboard was produced so of course it won't be on the QVL list, but it does not matter. This is the exact info I have provided to others in the past. Go into Bios and disable XMP, (excuse the Asus terminology, it is the only bios I know well), then go to advanced settings, then AI tweaker. From there you are going to want to adjust your memory frequency, I generally recommend single incremental jumps, so start at 3000MHz, then go down to DRAM Voltage and set it to 1.3500V. Save and exit Bios. I you get caught it a boot loop and the settings reset to default you know the memory OC was not stable. If stable enough to post into Windows then run a quick stress test, I recommend Cinebench R15 (runs faster than R20) and if stable restart and post boot into Bios. Also, keep in mind stable in a quick stress test is not the same as stable during a gaming session. Windows stop codes related to memory will let you know that your memory OC is not stable. If you hit instability along the way start upping the DRAM voltage by increments of 0.010V (so 1.360V, 1.370V, 1.380V... etc) until stable, I would not recommend exceeding 1.450V though. Once stable at 3000MHz you can push further, 3066MHz, 3133MHz, 3200MHz, 3266MHz, 3333MHz, and so forth, each time testing stability, possibly adjusting voltage and this is how you OC your memory, eventually you will hit a wall. For me this 'wall' was 3466MHz at 1.3750V, but at 3533MHz even at 1.450V I was not stable. As said before mileage may vary. Even at 3033MHz you may not be stable at all. But it is fun to try and extremely low risk. Tightening memory timings is a little more involved but as long as the kit is CL16 or better then I would not bother unless your are really up to it.
It really only matters when dealing with 128GB+ storage paired with eight full DRAM modules or an older Ryzen processor. Otherwise, people rarely bring it up since it doesn’t impact performance much. Beyond that, the risk of incompatibility is minimal and there are no real trade-offs for a kit not listed in QVL. Just to clarify, the changes you make affect DRAM frequency and voltage, which is straightforward. CL or CAS Latency measures how quickly the RAM fetches data from its columns—lower values are better. I usually suggest CL16 or higher because it’s widely available and you don’t pay extra for lower latency.