I recently bought a 32GB kit consisting of two 16GB Corsair Vengeance RGB Pro DDR4-3600 CL18 sticks because my existing 16GB kit was reaching its limit and causing stuttering. I'm using a Ryzen 7 5700X3D with an ASUS ROG Strix B550-F Gaming WiFi motherboard. Both kits have the same advertised speed and latency, but when I install all four sticks, benchmarks and memory stress tests pass while games crash during startup or gameplay. Is there a BIOS setting I should change, such as lowering the memory frequency? Would running the RAM slower noticeably hurt gaming performance with an X3D processor?
3 Answers
Make sure the larger modules are in the outer slots for each channel and the smaller modules are in the inner slots. With two 16GB sticks and two 8GB sticks, that usually means the 16GB modules go in A2 and B2, with the 8GB modules in A1 and B1, but check the motherboard manual. Disable fast boot temporarily so the system retrains the memory after changes. You can turn it back on once the system is stable.
Try setting the memory speed manually to DDR4-3200 or 3400 instead of 3600. Four sticks and mixed memory kits put more strain on the memory controller, even when the kits have matching ratings. You may also need to set the timings and voltage manually based on the less capable kit, then run a proper memory test and several games afterward.
Would dropping from 3600 to 3200 or 3400 have a noticeable effect on gaming performance?
The 5700X3D generally loses very little gaming performance from reducing memory speed, especially compared with the benefit of avoiding crashes. DDR4-3200 or 3400 is a reasonable compromise. Also, 32GB is already enough for most games, so removing the older 8GB sticks and running the matched 32GB kit at its rated settings may be the simplest and fastest option. Mixed kits can behave differently despite having identical advertised specifications.
I currently have them arranged as 8-16-8-16. When you say odd clocking, do you mean lowering the memory speed? And how long should fast boot stay disabled?