Tweaking for Speed

With testing out of the way, I endeavored to see if these sticks have any tuning headroom. For Intel, I kept the same procedure, leaving all settings at their XMP defaults and then increasing the frequency until the system loses stability. After finding that limit, I manually tweaked for the maximum frequency. Voltage modification from stock is allowed. After all, this is overclocking!

A good starting point for Ryzen Zen 3 based builds is 3600–4000 MT/s, due to Infinity Fabric limitations. For those unaware, AMD Ryzen CPUs can benefit substantially from a synchronized 1:1 ratio with system memory and Infinity Fabric. This extends to the Ryzen 3000 series as well, although peaking around 1900 MHz instead, to keep the 1:1 ratio intact. This is slightly lower than the Ryzen 5000 series, but still preferred over the 2:1 ratio configuration.

On the Intel side of things, 8th to 10th Generation Intel Core processors are going to benefit the most from the highest-possible frequency with the lowest timings. That being said, 3733–4000 MT/s is the ideal target range since there is no need to play around with VCCSA/IO voltages, and it is mostly plug and play. Switch to an 11th Gen Intel Core processor and things change given the introduction of the memory controller Gear ratio similar to what AMD has. Once you surpass the memory controller's ability to stay in synchronous 1:1 mode, most motherboards will automatically switch to 2:1 ratio. If all else fails, you can manually set this in the BIOS.

With the release of Intel's 12th Gen Intel Core processors, not much has changed from the fundamentals introduced in the previous 11th generation. However, the biggest change here is the i9-12900K CPU. With a bit of IMC voltage tuning, it can reach 4000 MT/s while keeping the 1:1 ratio to the memory controller. Updating the BIOS to the latest available is important, as stability issues are progressively resolved.

The Acer Predator Vesta RGB lineup consists of memory kits ranging from 3200 MT/s to 4000 MT/s, in configurations of 2x 8 GB and 2x 16 GB. Depending on what you are using, getting the memory to run in Gear 1 (1:1 Ratio) will depend on a few different parameters. For this specific memory kit, because it is dual-rank (two pools of addressable memory), it will be more stressful for the CPU memory controller than a single rank kit. DDR4-3600 is a great choice. Not only is DDR4-3600 a good balance for the AMD Ryzen 3000 and 5000 series, it benefits Intel 11th and 12th Core processors, as well. Higher frequency dual-rank memory may not work out of the box on every system, without a bit of manual BIOS tweaking. If you are unlucky and have a weak CPU memory controller or low-end motherboard, manually changing the Command Rate from 1T to 2T for Intel, or enabling Gear Down Mode (GDM) for AMD may help with getting this memory stable. If all else fails, manual setting voltages related to the memory is a option.

Intel Results

Given that this memory kit is using Samsung B-Die ICs, a lot of thought is needed to decide what the end goal of this overclock would be. It was decided to go for the highest frequency while keeping a 1:1 Ratio (Gear 1) and lowest primary timings to show off the strengths of this memory kit. By copying primary timings from the Team Group DDR4-4000 engineering sample, things went exceptionally well and booted into windows with 1.5 V. A small additional bump to the voltage was required for full stability. It's important to bear in mind that individual kits vary in silicon quality, even within the same "bin", settings that work perfectly on one kit, may not necessarily be stable on others.

I am not personally comfortable with running the memory at 1.55 V long term, but that is what it takes to keep the low primary timings at 4000 MT/s. Lots of additional tweaking can be done to the secondary and tertiary memory timings if you have the patience to go through the grueling process of stability testing every time values are adjusted.