Ram timmings

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Optimus Prime

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When testing my pc on user benchmark I noticed the ram latency was off and am wondering why. When going into the bios I noticed a setting dram latency enhanced with options disabled, enabled and msi setting. I am wondering what is this setting and will it improve the ram. The system is using ryzen 7 5700x, Msi x470 gaming plus max motherboard and Corsair Vengeance RGB RT 32GB.
 

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Can you list the exact RAM kit model name (example: CMN32GX4M2Z3200C16W), as well as the first page of the Advanced DRAM Configuration (with the primary and secondary timings) with A-XMP enabled? I want to see what kind of timings this kit uses.
 
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citay said:
Can you list the exact RAM kit model name (example: CMN32GX4M2Z3200C16W), as well as the first page of the Advanced DRAM Configuration (with the primary and secondary timings) with A-XMP enabled? I want to see what kind of timings this kit uses.
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Corsair Vengeance RGB RT 32GB model CMN32GX4M2Z3200C16, timming 16 -20 - 20 - 38 and AXMP 2 profile is enabled.
 
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Ok, so that kit has relatively loose timings (for DDR4-3200) to begin with, and i assume that the second XMP profile would be an even more relaxed preset. What is the reason you are using the second profile and not the first one? The first one would be what it says on the packaging, the second one is mainly meant as an alternative in case the first profile cause problems with your system. It is usually slower than the first one, so it's only a backup plan if the first one doesn't want to work.

I'm sure if you show the top of "Advanced DRAM Configuration" from the BIOS, we will see quite loose timings on the second profile. So i would suggest to try the first profile.
 
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citay said:
Ok, so that kit has relatively loose timings (for DDR4-3200) to begin with, and i assume that the second XMP profile would be an even more relaxed preset. What is the reason you are using the second profile and not the first one? The first one would be what it says on the packaging, the second one is mainly meant as an alternative in case the first profile cause problems with your system. It is usually slower than the first one, so it's only a backup plan if the first one doesn't want to work.

I'm sure if you show the top of "Advanced DRAM Configuration" from the BIOS, we will see quite loose timings on the second profile. So i would suggest to try the first profile.
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It doesnt say anything about xmp1 on the box i have , i still have it. I used XMP profile 2 because xmp profile 1 was 2666 by default so i used xmp profile two which was 3200mhz by default instead of changing the speed manually. When i decided to upgrade to 32gb ram and add 16gb of gskill ram to the current gskill ram i had I could never sucessfully add two additional stick no matter how many times i returned the ram. So I ended up selling the gskill ram I had and bought the Corsair ram since the chips are made by Micron. I changed it to XMP profile 1 and also set dram latency enhanced to msi setting as well and I did not see any difference. I also noticed when using CPU Z that the ram is still using XMP profile 2 despite being set to XMP profile 1 in the bios
 

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Optimus Prime said:
When i decided to upgrade to 32gb ram and add 16gb of gskill ram to the current gskill ram i had I could never sucessfully add two additional stick no matter how many times i returned the ram.
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The RAM itself is not the problem there, the problem is that using four modules on today's boards causes a much worse situation for the memory system.
See RAM explained: Why two modules are better than four / single- vs. dual-rank / stability testing.

With the Corsair, you have two modules for the total capacity, so that is much easier to run compared to four modules. When looking at what ICs (memory chips) certain RAM uses, the IC brand itself is not enough. There are several different grades/qualities of ICs, and when you see XMP timings like DDR4-3200 CL16-20-20-38, you know the grade is not the highest. The second and third timings (tRCD and tRP) are actually way more telling than the first one (tCL), because only Samsung B-Die can handle second and third numbers equally low as the first one. Other ICs need to back off at least one or two clocks for tRCD and tRP. But the RAM makers take advantage of the fact that most people only look at the CAS Latency, the first value.

Anyway, when you have a kit where tRCD and tRP are backed off by four clock cycles compared to the first value, tCL, then it's a mid-level IC at best, if not a lower-end one, doesn't matter the IC brand. They will only use higher-spec ICs on kits with more aggressive timings, for the more relaxed kits they can use some cheap IC type.

About XMP1 and 2, ok, so Corsair uses the reverse order, they have the second profile as the one that's on the packaging, this is contrary to most other brands. So then the first one will not bring and improvement, yes. The most you could do with this kind of RAM kit is to use "Memory Try It!" in the BIOS, which consists of different RAM profile presets you can try, which may or may not work. You would target DDR4-3200 at hopefully better timings (and thus lower latencies, should it work) than your XMP2. Of course you could also tune the timings manually, see here, but that can take a lot of time, especially for testing the stability with each little tweak.
 
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