RAM speed in GHz plus MoBio technology.
RAM speed in GHz plus MoBio technology.
Sorry but this board is quite disappointing. ASUS has extremely poor RAM memory layout on the B550 and X570 models, so you shouldn't expect more than 4000. Although it might not be an issue for slower connections, it seems the modules are single-sided, meaning it's still a dual-rank setup—similar to buying two 32GB sticks in dual configuration, which adds about 20% more bandwidth compared to single-rank. I recommend checking out the Thaiphoon Burner for your RAM module and feel free to share a picture here so we can confirm the model. It looks like it's likely a 16GbE revision B, which is very compact on the IC, and you could push it up to 3733 or 3800 clocks. (Sync Infinity Fabric makes it impossible to exceed 4800 unless it's a dual-rank 4 stick setup, which doesn't offer much speed advantage over the tuning effort needed—typically 1866–1933 for dual-rank 2x32 sticks.)
OC-related details revolve around silicon lottery. You receive only what the manufacturer specifies on the package. Optimal performance comes with a "1:1" ratio, meaning memory speed matches the clock frequency (DDR indicates your listed speed is double the actual operating rate). Any speed above the clock frequency is labeled "2:1," which isn't ideal. Even if you aim for 4000MHz or more, if the clock can't sustain 2000MHz without instability, results will be worse than with slower RAM.
Yeah, people just generally say XMP to mean either. As was said above, four sticks is harder for the IMC to run than two sticks, so removing sticks might make that possible, yes. No guarantees though. Faster speeds have diminishing returns and for gaming you generally want lower latency rather than higher frequency. There's also the issue that Zen 3's Infinity Fabric (IF) generally doesn't like to run over 1900–2000 MHz, which roughly translates to 3800–4000 MT/s for RAM. If you go beyond that it'll switch to 1:2, so you might get faster RAM speeds but actually lower IF speeds. Might want to run some benchmarks before/after, so see if you're gaining anything worthwhile.
Some of this idea with the board has really stuck with me lately. Before I started spending the most expensive option available, I figured it was worth it. It wasn’t the priciest, but in my area it was within reach. I get that price doesn’t always matter, but for the RAM question there are still other options that haven’t clicked yet. I enjoy putting together PCs, but I really want to grasp them fully so I can create the best build for what I like.
Generally speaking, there are practical boundaries to performance needs. If your I/O switches to a 2:1 ratio, you may even see reduced efficiency. Zen 1 and 2 were more critical, especially with APUs that include a built-in GPU. Zen 3 offers improved caching, reducing its necessity. For processors over 3200 MHz, speeds above that are usually considered adequate. In most scenarios, gains beyond that aren't significant—you're investing more for minimal performance boosts. Depending on your use case, like gaming, 3200 MHz with a CL 14 will perform better than 4400 MHz with higher latency.
Yea rip, you arent safe from getting garbage even if you pay top $, though this is just an asus issue, their intel boards even the older amd ones dont suffer from abysmal ram topology so you are fine with choosing asus, the price can be ridicolous while competitiors outspec it though so avoid asus unless you get a good deal imo Ram dont really matter that much so i dont think you should care that much about ram oc, the board is horrifically bad for ram oc but slow <4000 should be fine cause otherwise ppl would be crapping on asus left and right. Just stick with 3600 but if you want that 1-2% gain you can oc to 3733 - 3866 depending on cpu fclk ability, youd prob get far more gains by just tightening important subtimings like trfc, sr dr and dd, maybe also some other stuff like twr, trc, etc. still only ~5% but its 5% without cranking the freq to the moon, these kits usually come with abysmal subtimings so youll get a decent bit of performance by just tightening them, also trefi to 65536 incase the rams dont do that stock since that also boosts performance. Primaries are kinda unimportant for performance but tighten them if you want, just avoid tightening cl since thats one of the most painful timings to get stable and also needs volt, you can likely just set cl16 at 3600-3866 so just leave it at that and dont go any tighter to not heat up the rams, ram heat isnt an issue most of the time other than >1.5v shenanigans and/or high freq shenanigans, keep the ram temp low just to have some headroom for higher ambients and stuff so it doesnt destabilise when ambient temp is high if you just wanna lazy oc there should be plenty of 3200-3800 profiles for your ram ic so check in thaiphoon burner, most 16gbit stuff can do atleast 4000 even the hynixes