7800X3D - CL40 Replacement?

[tpa-pr]

Hi all,

W1zzard's new article on memory scaling got me thinking about my current build but unfortunately it went way over my head, so i'm hoping someone will be able to provide a layman answer here. My current build (full specs in profile) runs a 7800X3D coupled with 2x DIMMS of DDR5-6000 CL40 RAM. Would there be any benefit for me purchasing a CL30 kit and swapping them out? This build is primarily for gaming.

I'd only really want to upgrade if it was going to gain me more than a marginal % increase in performance, kits are currently going for ~$400 AUD in my region which is a bit of a steep price to gamble on.

 

[SL2]

3D CPU's are usually not very sensitive to RAM Hz or CL.

I don't think it's worth it. Du you really need more performance right now, as in you're not getting enough FPS, or are you looking for an optimial setup? If it's the latter you might as well wait. In case you upgrade to say Zen6 in two years, that DDR6000 CL30 might be obsolete anyway.

 

[Outback Bronze]

more than a marginal % increase in performance, kits are currently going for ~$400 AUD

I'd be pumping this money into 9800X3D. It should show more FPS than a simple CL rating.

In any case even if you did go with the new memory, I doubt it would do much to your Avg frame rate, it would do more to your 1% lows.

 

[tpa-pr]

Oh I have absolutely no complaints about performance what-so-ever Far from it, this build does everything I want and then some. It was more-so getting the optimal setup.

Both of your answers are about what I expected, thank you very much! I shall hold off on any replacement parts. If it was going to make a drastic difference in average frame-rate I'd go for it but otherwise I'm happy with what i've got.

 

[SL2]

Look what happens when going from DDR4800 CL40 to DDR6000 CL30.

 

[tpa-pr]

Look what happens when going from DDR4800 CL40 to DDR6000 CL30.
View attachment 369591

Oh wow, that is absolutely negligible. Definitely not worth the purchase then. I missed this chart, my Google-fu failed me entirely.

 

[SL2]

There's a lot of obsessing about RAM speed out there, as if DDR5600 would be a disaster, etc.

Here's the video.

 

[PenguinBelly]

Totally agree with others that RAM is not a concern for an X3D CPU.

 

[D007]

Look what happens when going from DDR4800 CL40 to DDR6000 CL30.
View attachment 369591

That’s cool and all but you’re talking about gaming in 1080P. Any of you guys still game in 1080P? When you scale that to 1440P and 4K, you’re talking about 2 FPS difference. Is it worth upgrading for 2 FPS? No it’s really not.
I’m just about done over clocking my 2x32 64gb of 6000 to 6600 and tightening the timings. That will probably give me just as many benefits as upgrading my ram.

Overclocking 64gb DDR5 6000 to 6600 with tight timings.

Memory timings are named differently in Intel and AMD boards.

Converting AMD/Intel memory bios names

I honestly think it’s pointless.

 

[SL2]

That’s cool and all but you’re talking about gaming in 1080P. Any of you guys still game in 1080P? When you scale that to 1440P and 4K, you’re talking about 2 FPS difference. Is it worth upgrading for 2 FPS? No it’s really not.

Does that change our recommendation?

No.

You might as well read it as "Even at 1080 on a 4090, which is ridiculous, it's still not worth it"

It's not like I had 4k scaling numbers lying around lol

 

[D007]

Does that change our recommendation?

No.

You might as well read it as "Even at 1080 on a 4090, which is ridiculous, it's still not worth it"

It's not like I had 4k scaling numbers lying around lol

Ahhh, I misunderstood your intention. I thought you were trying to make it look like the FPS change was something significant. We are on the same page, my friend. Lol

 

[Bill_Bright]

There's a lot of obsessing about RAM speed out there

Way too much. In almost every scenario, I would much rather have more RAM than faster RAM.

I also think one of the more common and biggest mistakes buyers/builders of new machines make is they don't buy what they need from the very start at the initial purchase.

I get it. When you start looking at the final price tag of your new computer after including the CPU (perhaps plus cooler), graphics, mobo, drives, case, PSU, OS, and maybe keyboard, mouse, monitor(s) and speakers too, those pockets don't seem so deep. Then folks start looking for ways to trim the budget. Many look at cheaper PSUs (typically a big mistake - but that's a different discussion). But many also look to trimming the budget with the RAM, only to regret it later.

I say, if the budget doesn't allow you to buy the amount and speed of the RAM you really want (projecting 2 or 3 years down the road), wait until you can beef up the budget.

Spending more up front almost always costs less in the long run. Sure you can [hopefully] sell the old RAM but most likely will not get what you paid for. Another risk, however, is availability of what you really want (and wanted in the first place) 2 or 3 years down the road. Supply may not be there - especially if the foundries have retooled to newer technology modules. For example, many factories have retooled and migrated away from DDR4 to produce DDR5.

There's way too much obsessing over benchmark scores too. While, for example, a 5% or even 10% better benchmark score "sounds" impressive, that does not necessarily result in any performance improvement we mere humans can actually "see" on our monitors. That is, does the faster RAM actually improve the "entertainment value"? In many cases, no. Not unless you get your entertainment from bragging rights.

Are there exceptions? Always. But again good planning and good budgeting to ensure you get what you really want and need in the first place helps ensure your scenario is not one of them.

 

[phanbuey]

That’s cool and all but you’re talking about gaming in 1080P. Any of you guys still game in 1080P? When you scale that to 1440P and 4K, you’re talking about 2 FPS difference. Is it worth upgrading for 2 FPS? No it’s really not.
I’m just about done over clocking my 2x32 64gb of 6000 to 6600 and tightening the timings. That will probably give me just as many benefits as upgrading my ram.

That's also your LOWS btw. 1080P just shows the bottleneck more clearly, but when you're playing a game in 4k and there is that slowdown and your gpu drops to 50 % and your game feels like it's riding the struggle bus, that's also the CPU/RAM, mostly ram (which is why x3d is so dominant even with a huge IPC disadvantage).

That happens to high end systems at 4k, happens to me all the time - and your "gaming experience" is defined by the lows, not by averages.

Right now overclocking the CPU nets you almost nothing going from 5.2 or 5.3 to 5.5Ghz or 5.6Ghz does nothing for most games. Going to faster XMP ram can get you 5-10% better 1% lows easily and tuning timings can net you another 5-10%, add to this that most ram kits have great overhead... and that's why overclockers are mostly obsessed about ram - it's where all the performance lies.

That being said on a tightented 6600 kit you're not going to see much benefit from going to 7600 or 8000 so your last statement is correct.

 

[nomdeplume]

AMD DDR5 speed/latency equation for gaming is a bit more nuanced than a chart showing performance at 720 easily displays.

If you play at max settings + all the upscaling/sharpening/pixel morphing options on high fps 4K screen. The larger improvement could be in system matching and overall stability.
If you pick optimized settings for each game and they can land on 1080 (console effect) or medium settings (blurry is not beautiful). There you see positive in-game performance gains.

Going to faster XMP ram can get you 5-10% easily and tuning timings can net you another 5-10%, add to this that most ram kits have great overhead... and that's why overclockers are mostly obsessed about ram.

AMD thread, Infinity Fabric and 1:1.

 

[oxrufiioxo]

Unless you have a 4090 or turn down settings to medium and primarily play shooters it isn't worth the investment.

I tend to stick 6000 CL30 with every AM5 build I do because it's relatively cheap in the states and for me it has just worked but unless you play a lot of esports games or your favorite game is one of the handful of games that are very cpu demanding you won't see a difference.

 

[TheLostSwede]

Why not see if you can tweak the modules you have? I'm pretty sure you can at least do CL38 or 36.

Show us what timings you're running

ZenTimings

ZenTimings is a simple and lightweight app for monitoring memory timings on Ryzen platform.

zentimings.com

 

[oxrufiioxo]

Why not see if you can tweak the modules you have? I'm pretty sure you can at least do CL38 or 36.

I don't blame people for not wanting to mess around with ram things can go south pretty quickly and some boards are a pita to recover with bad settings only reason I didn't mention it.


Personally that is what I would do try and tighten the timings, I actually had to do that even on a couple of motherboards who defaulted to ass timings even with 6000 CL30 kits.

 

[Klemc]

If you find somebody with CL30 that wants to exchange with you OKay, but invest in RAM is in no way changing tour PC perf at all.

7800X3D
16x2 Fury Renegade 6000-32

I don't seen even any difference if numbers in HWInfo and PC getting hotter by enabling DOCP (XMP), then turned it OFF forever.
It's ON just in CPU Boost OFF BIOS's profile, idk why i did that afterall i don't use this profile.

Also had to set the VSoc manually to 1.1 when DOCP is enabled, just to ensure.

 

[Kapone33]

I wen from 5200 to 6000 30 and could really feel any difference. One of the things that people discount is that modern CPUs have access to the entire GPU RAM as well.

 

[ShrimpBrime]

Hi all,

W1zzard's new article on memory scaling got me thinking about my current build but unfortunately it went way over my head, so i'm hoping someone will be able to provide a layman answer here. My current build (full specs in profile) runs a 7800X3D coupled with 2x DIMMS of DDR5-6000 CL40 RAM. Would there be any benefit for me purchasing a CL30 kit and swapping them out? This build is primarily for gaming.

I'd only really want to upgrade if it was going to gain me more than a marginal % increase in performance, kits are currently going for ~$400 AUD in my region which is a bit of a steep price to gamble on.

Everything is a Marginal increase no matter how you look at it.

If you went CL40 6000mt/s to CL30, that would reduce latency from 13.3ns to 10ns, which is a 3% improvement.

But is it worth the time and money? Well maybe. You'd now have a spare kit of memory for back, testing or perhaps another build later. you'd increase memory performance from 3% to 5% depending on how you tune All of the memory timings, not just the Cas latency. There are guides I suggest you thumb through the internet to get familiar with timings and which ones make the best performance changes.

Note that Games are GPU intensive. We'll say 3% better memory performance system wide, it would apply to everything based on averages.

 

[Kapone33]

Everything is a Marginal increase no matter how you look at it.

If you went CL40 6000mt/s to CL30, that would reduce latency from 13.3ns to 10ns, which is a 3% improvement.

But is it worth the time and money? Well maybe. You'd now have a spare kit of memory for back, testing or perhaps another build later. you'd increase memory performance from 3% to 5% depending on how you tune All of the memory timings, not just the Cas latency. There are guides I suggest you thumb through the internet to get familiar with timings and which ones make the best performance changes.

Note that Games are GPU intensive. We'll say 3% better memory performance system wide, it would apply to everything based on averages.

One of the things that no ones tests is how much more Memory CPU GB/s feeds per second to the VRAM buffer. As an example my 7900X3D feeds my 7900XT 3-5 more GB/s VRAM in Games vs the 5800X3D I used before. In some Games that actually makes a difference between 1440P high refresh and 4K high refresh in pure raster.

 

[Event Horizon]

You would be better off upgrading a 3060ti to a 4060ti. That's a joke. I'm not recommending anyone do that.

 

[tabascosauz]

Hi all,

W1zzard's new article on memory scaling got me thinking about my current build but unfortunately it went way over my head, so i'm hoping someone will be able to provide a layman answer here. My current build (full specs in profile) runs a 7800X3D coupled with 2x DIMMS of DDR5-6000 CL40 RAM. Would there be any benefit for me purchasing a CL30 kit and swapping them out? This build is primarily for gaming.

I'd only really want to upgrade if it was going to gain me more than a marginal % increase in performance, kits are currently going for ~$400 AUD in my region which is a bit of a steep price to gamble on.

The reason why people go for Hynix is not for the tCL alone. That would make zero sense as all kits at loose XMP auto settings suck ass. The point is to learn how to do even some basic memory tuning on your own.

The reason for Hynix is because:

- they actually scale on freq, so you have a chance to keep up in the future with the same kit OCed as memory controllers improve, unlike everything from Samsung and most things from Micron

- there is actual room to tighten timings that matter (tRFC) when tuning, unlike Samsung and Micron

But even with those two in mind, there's just not enough to justify buying a whole new kit if you can already make it to 6000. On both Intel and AMD currently, for most people caring only about practical performance, Hynix freq OC isn't much more than boasting about how good your board and memory controller are.

At least DDR5 prices have been dirt cheap. If they aren't in your region, then even less reason to switch.

 

[ShrimpBrime]

One of the things that no ones tests is how much more Memory CPU GB/s feeds per second to the VRAM buffer. As an example my 7900X3D feeds my 7900XT 3-5 more GB/s VRAM in Games vs the 5800X3D I used before. In some Games that actually makes a difference between 1440P high refresh and 4K high refresh in pure raster.

+1 - That's why I always suggest bandwidth over timings. Seems CL30 6000MT/s is very readily available and fast and not horribly expensive, so it's a good purchase.

With timings as wide as 40-40-40, I'd set XMP and increase frequency 6200mt/s then 6400mt/s and see if they'll do it. I mean unless the thought to have extra memory laying around is appealing, the system works as is, FPS increase what is 10% of 100. 10 whole FPS. 20 for 200, so forth.

 

[3DVCash]

I say, if the budget doesn't allow you to buy the amount and speed of the RAM you really want (projecting 2 or 3 years down the road), wait until you can beef up the budget.

This is pretty good advice... as someone who was just in this exact situation.

If you're eagle-eyed for good deals and don't mind haggling to move your old kit, you can still make out ok, but buying once is waaaaaay less hassle.