Pushing For Speed

With testing out of the way, I endeavored to see if these sticks had any headroom. For Intel, I kept the same procedure I have been using, leaving all settings at their XMP defaults and then increasing the frequency until the system loses stability.


I was able to get 4000 MHz out of this kit with all other XMP settings at their default. Like many recent kits, pushing past that proved difficult. Raising voltages did not yield better results (highest tested: DRAM: 1.5 V, VCCSA: 1.35 V, and VCCIO: 1.3 V). Still, 4000 MHz CL16 is a great result.


For AMD overclocking, I wanted to dig a little deeper. First, I followed the same procedure as with Intel to find the maximum possible frequency with XMP timings. Next, I set the frequency to 3600 MHz and used DRAM Calculator for Ryzen to optimize the timings. In the case of the Trident Z Neo, I had no trouble using the "Fast" configuration. I then benched each setting with AIDA64 to showcase what kind of benefits you can expect from each. I also included the default (non-XMP) settings as a base reference point.


I was able to squeeze 4066 MHz out of the G.SKILL Trident Z Neo on my MEG X570 ACE with the XMP default timings. For timings, the "Fast" preset proved to be very achievable. 3600 MHz CL14 is quite an achievement. However, as my testing shows, the stock XMP settings were already excellent with only small gains to be found from manually tuning.

AIDA64

Looking at the graphs, there really isn't much benefit to overclocking this kit past XMP settings, which isn't too surprising as this kit is already in an optimal position for Ryzen use.