Memory Scaling on Ryzen 7 with Team Group's Night Hawk RGB
by Ian Cutress & Gavin Bonshor on September 27, 2017 11:05 AM ESTConclusions on Ryzen DDR4 Scaling
It is pretty clear to see that Ryzen can be fairly dependant on memory frequency, but it depends very much on the sort of test and the nature of the workload on memory accesses. On the benchmarks where it matters, our memory kit was above to push performance up and over 20%, although despite the few benchmarks where this happened, it was outnumbered by benchmarks that had zero or a very minor effect. Some gaming titles had up to a 5-10% difference in average frame rates, but others had zero change.
To Infinity and Beyond
Determing the sweet spot for Ryzen from our small batch of testing is not so straightforward. From our quick testing, it would seem to suggest that there are performance gains to be had, with slow progress as the data rate increases. A few benchmarks seemed to hit the performance inflextion point around the DDR4-2933/3066 boundary - or basically where the Team Group Night Hawk RGB DDR4-3000 memory kit is positioned.
Aside from the fact of having fasting memory, the speed directly adjusts the potential in AMD’s Infinity Fabric. The IF is AMD's new scalable interconnect found in the Zen CPUs, Vega GPUs, and likely the next few generations of products. Infinity Fabric connects and manages the data flow from each of the cores to each other, as well as to the additional controllers on board. But the effect of faster DRAM and faster IF, on paper, should be a mutually beneficial improvement, and one would take a reasonable guess that AMD will aim to increase both as new generations of products come to market.
Final Thoughts
Depending on how the results are digested, and how the software can effectively use the new AMD Zen microarchitecture, a relatively decent set of DDR4-3000 (or there abouts) memory seems to be a good inflection point for users that want to invest in faster memory. Obviously using tighter sub-timimgs should help as well, which we'll likely explore in a separate review.
The Team Group Night Hawk RGB memory has served our testing needs well out of the box and it seems like a very reasonable purchase for Ryzen users looking to add a high-performance memory kit. Unfortunately there is no guarantee in the quality of the ICs on board, with Team Group stating that the type of ICs could change over the life time of the product - this will mean that the overclocking capabilities may change depending on the ICs. The memory kit we used in this testing is currently available from Newegg for $173 with a white heatspreader, or $156 with a black heatspreader. Interestingly the black version running at a faster DDR4-3200 is listed at a cheaper $164, but is currently out of stock.
| DRAM Price Comparison: 2x8GB DDR4-3000 with RGB (9/27) | ||
| Black Headspreader | White Heatspreader | |
| Team Group Night Hawk RGB |
$156 (Newegg) CL16-18-18 |
$173 (Newegg) CL16-18-18 |
| Corsair Vengeance RGB |
$160 (Amazon) CL15-17-17 |
$180 (Newegg) CL15-17-17 |
| G.Skill Trident Z RGB |
$186 (Newegg) CL15-16-16 |
|
| GeIL Super Luce RGB |
- | $160 (Newegg) CL16-18-18 |
| ADATA XPG Spectrix RGB |
$180 (Amazon) CL16-18-18 |
- |
For other RGB-based kits running 2x8 GB at DDR4-3000 with white heatsinks, Corsair's Vengeance RGB are $180 in white or $160 in black, with GeIL's Super Luce in black also at $160. By comparison, ADATA and G.Skill offer similar kits but in black, both at the $180 price point.
Testing and Analysis by Gavin Bonshor
Additional Commentary by Ian Cutress
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HStewart - Wednesday, September 27, 2017 - link
I think of this way, AMD was desperate to get back into business of CPU's, but financially they had some issues to really think it though. So they created an 8 Core Zen and then clunk them together so that they claim higher core count. This designed is likely primary why it does not scaled.But they did something that they probably didn't want to here - they ignored that Intel has been making higher core CPU's in the Xeon and that it quite simple for them to place them in gaming machines. This has a good side effect for Intel owners, because it means it keeps Intel on its toes - but the bad news I am afraid is that AMD will not be financially able to keep up with core wars and eventually have to drop - also purchasing ATI has alienated potential buyers - who in right mind would purchase an AMD GPU on Intel CPU.
One thing that is interesting, is that Intel and the industry is moving in a different direction. Mobile is where the industry is going not huge fat desktops. This is a place where AMD is missing the mark and could possible complete loose it enter company open and solely based there efforts on the desktop industry.
duploxxx - Thursday, September 28, 2017 - link
lol dude what have you been smoking?A) its intel that responded on AMD core count
B) Zen 8 core multi die was in the design from the start to keep cost low
C) Xeon v2 and v3 both had issues with scale out on core hence the reason for the new grid which is sub optimal on caching.
D) Intel has a way more expensive die, you forget that they ask 2500+ euro upto 14000 euro for there 16+ cores? while AMD charges 4000 euro for 32 cores. The gold series dont even come close to AMD offerings in cores.
E) Intel is not moving at all, they own the biggest part of the industry on x86 and that is what they try to keep. THey lost the low power war vs ARM and they sure try to get into IOT with lots of money but it aint that easy.
F)AMD has low budget so they infiltrate markets where they believe they can gain.
cap87 - Friday, September 29, 2017 - link
Intel didn’t respond to AMD with higher core counts, processors are designed years in advance, suggesting otherwise is just plain ignorance. What they did do was push forward the release date of Coffee Lake thanks to AMD’s pressure.jospoortvliet - Saturday, September 30, 2017 - link
Their design was meant for servers. Bringing the 18 cores suddenly to the high end desktop was most certain my something they kept as an ace option but it wasn't their original plan and that is obvious from the way it was rushed to market, being months later than the 10 core model and many of the earlier motherboards barely or simply not able to handle the load. They are also obviously clocked very high with barely room for overclock and breaking their tdp, throttling under heavy use on many boards even without oc.Hixbot - Monday, October 9, 2017 - link
I'm tired of hearing this. what you are suggesting is ignorance.Intel had loads of time to R&D, yes designs take years, but they've had those years to design coffe lake with 4 cores, with 8 cores. They design and design, they could have designed a sandy bridge as 8 core and not released it. You think they need to take years to respond to a competitive push. Let me tell you, they can design all sorts of options "years in advance" and only bring to market what they choose. So if it weren't for Zen, we might be staring at a 4 core (max) coffee lake. OMG it's hilarious to see this "design takes years" argument. They can and do take years to design all sorts of potential processors, they can then choose what to bring to market in a much shorter time.
Arbie - Wednesday, September 27, 2017 - link
For what? Some small and very expensive ST performance increase? Consider what AMD has done for us in reigniting competition and moving the tech envelope forward. Think what that took, and whether they could possibly do it again. Anyone who doesn't absolutely have to buy Intel this time around should give the nod to AMD. They've earned it, where Intel has not. Really, the tech is almost equal and in most regards AMD gives you more for the dollar. If we as consumers don't respond to that, vigorously, they may give up. How would you like an Intel-only future?Nagorak - Thursday, September 28, 2017 - link
Plenty of other tests have shown significant scaling. This is with loose subtimings. You can get even more performance from tight subtimings on top of faster memory speed. Remember Ryzen was only about 8% slower clock for clock than Kaby Lake. Faster memory speeds make up most of that difference, albeit Ryzen can't run at such high frequency as KL.notashill - Wednesday, September 27, 2017 - link
I'm curious if the higher clocked parts scale any better, presumably they were spending more time waiting on memory in the first place. The tests were done with a 1700, 1800X has 20% higher all-core clock.willis936 - Wednesday, September 27, 2017 - link
It would seem that 2 channels of DDR4 is not enough to keep 8 cores fed. It will be interesting to see if it's enough to keep 6 cores fed on coffee lake since intel's memory subsystem is higher performance but they also have higher single threaded performance (and may need more memory throughput as a result).sor - Wednesday, September 27, 2017 - link
“AGESA 1.0.0.6 BIOS updates were introduced several weeks ago”Shouldn’t that be several *months* ago, or was there some more recent AGESA release from the one being discussed in April/May?