Introduction

Update History:

• Apr 4th 2019: Completely rewrote and simplified the "Relations Between Memory Timings" page

Over the past two years, AMD has introduced two generations of high-performance processors with Ryzen. Great products based on a completely new architecture with great potential, the Internet is still rife with fears and misinformation when it comes to these products, some of which are misgivings of the brand, while others are related to the underlying implemented technology and the efficacy of performance potential. These misgivings are based on criticism the products faced upon release of the first generation of Ryzen processors.

My name is Yuri Bubly (@1usmus). I am the developer of the DRAM Calculator for Ryzen, author of numerous BIOS mods, and curator of dozens of topics about and related to these processors. After two years of research and development, I am ready to share my secrets on optimizing memory on a Ryzen-powered system. By optimization, I specifically mean overclocking and tuning of system RAM the right way—the way that won't break it.



You've probably pegged your "AMD vs. Intel" CPU choice on the complexity of memory overclocking on AMD Ryzen systems. I'm here to tell you that it is much easier than you think or were led to believe. The purpose of this guide is to show you what to look for when buying memory and how to quickly and correctly set up your system by avoiding common mistakes, and to show what results can be obtained by properly overclocking the RAM.



Some may ask what real benefits can be gained by memory overclocking. Well, for starters, my research shows gains of up to +50% FPS in games over the default values. Sounds tempting, doesn't it? You see, Ryzen processors are more sensitive to memory clock speeds than Intel processors. Ryzen processors synchronize the Infinity Fabric clock-speed to scale linearly with the memory clock. This is important since Infinity Fabric is the primary interconnect for all components on a "Zen" processor silicon, including the all-important link between two CCX (Zen compute complexes).

Due to the huge number of variables and nuances to be covered, the material will be divided into two parts: (1) theory, which contains a description of all the details relevant to memory settings and testing, and (2) results, which will demonstrate the impact optimized results have on games.