Status of AM4 Ram compatibility issues?

[trents]

I see where Egg has the ASRock AB350M Pro4 mATX board back in stock. It seem to be by far the most popular mATX AM4 motherboard offering on Egg. Great price with a $5 rebate right now. I was just about to throw some money down on it and some cheap DDR4 2400 RAM 16gb (8x2).

But as I looked at the ASRock Memory QVL list I could not find any listings for RAM that Egg is offering in that combo of amount, # of sticks and frequency. What I did notice was the the model numbers in the ASRock QVL list were for 4x8 gb configurations but the # of pieces column would say 2 pieces. This was true for several different RAM manufacturers that I checked. I took that to mean that to ensure compatibility at 16gb, 8x2 at 2400 mhz you would have to buy a 4x8 gb kit and split it.

Is it still that iffy with Ryzen to find compatible 2400 mhz RAM that will run at its full rated speed? I was under the impression that this wasn't a problem until you get into frequencies higher than 2400 mhz.

 

[Blaylock]

I believe you are correct. I can tell you I used a 2x8 2400 Avexir kit with the ASUS Prime X370 Pro and it was plug and play even though it was not on the QVL.

 

[trents]

Avexir seems to be the brand of choice for Ryzen, at least in the higher frequency ranges. Egg is sold out of most models of that brand, the ones with the Samsung B die ICs.

 

[Woomack]

In general there are no issues with any RAM up to ~2666. Problems are starting above 2933. There are about 3 types of IC on the market and all manufacturers are using them in their memory kits so the only thing which can happen are sub timings which are out of timing table and motherboard can't translate them to anything stable. It's happening almost only with 3200+ memory kits.
If you want lower frequency DDR4 then I was checking 2x16GB Crucial Sport LT 2666 and it was working at 2666/XMP on 3 motherboards without issues. 2x8GB kit should be on the same Micron IC but single rank. HyperX Fury 2666 kit was working at 2666 on 2 motherboards without issues ( I sold it before I got 3rd board ). Kingston said that all their new Fury kits are compatible with Ryzen. Fury has no typical XMP. It has SPD=XMP so should run at declared speed without setting anything ( if board won't forces other settings ).
I'm not guaranteeing it will work on every motherboard. Btw. you have 2x8GB 2400 crucial kit on your Intel rig. Maybe just check that and buy something else for Intel where ir could run at higher speed without issues ?

There is low chance that most popular memory kits will be on tested memory lists. Also you can see that most memory kits on these lists are available in Asia and not always in US or EU ( except of popular and more expensive brands which are everywhere ). I mean there are memory kits which are popular only on some markets. For instance ADATA is not promoting their DDR4 in EU because of too high competition so they focus only on some profitable series. I guess that the same is in US with some brands.

 

[trents]

Thanks for the information Woomack. I too was under the impression that the problems were with the higher speed memory. I don't normally pay much attention to QVL lists for the reasons you stated but everyone seems to be saying that was more important with Ryzen. Been thinking about doing what you suggested and that is getting some high speed memory for my intel system and trying the current DDR4 2400 from that one in a Ryzen board. But I'm struggling with justifying spending the money to do that because I know moving from DDR4 2400 to DDR4 3200 would really won't have much impact on performance and (correct me if I'm wrong) unless you can make sure you are getting 3200 mhz modules with the Samsung B ICs it may not run at full speed even on an Intel system. And they are hard to come by now with the shortage. So I'm thinking I'll sit tight until maybe this Fall when the IC supply is supposed to improve.

 

[Johan45]

Your intel rig shouldn't have any issue no matter what IC are on the sticks Trents

 

[Woomack]

On ASRock Z270 boards it looks like this:
- Micron IC runs at least up to 2800, better IC can make up to 3200 ( in your Crucials is Micron )
- Hynix runs at least up to 3000 but you have to be really unlucky to get these. Most new Hynix kits can make 3200-3333 at low voltages. Kingston is selling Predator kits at 3333/Hynix AFR/MFR.
- Samsung depends on IC can make up to 3866. On some boards higher but it's not guaranteed. 3733-3866 should make on every ASRock board.

On Ryzen it depends on memory density and if there is new AGESA available for your board:
- Single rank Samsung - at least 3200, with new AGESA also Hynix can make it
- Dual rank up to 2666, I'm not sure what with new AGESA but I heard it can make 3200 on some kits too
- Micron in general won't make more than 2666-2800 regardless of ranks but 4, 8 and 16GB modules can make about the same max clock ( at least on my boards was like that )

Just get something ~3000-3200 CL15 in reasonable price and it should work.