AMD Motherboards : X370 Chipset / Memory

Author: parsec
Subject: X370 Chipset / Memory
Posted: 09 Mar 2017 at 1:35am

twf85 wrote: This is mostly directed towards ASRock, but anyone else that can help, please chime in. I'm having a difficult time choosing the right memory to go with my new Fatal1ty Professional mobo. It doesn't help matters that the listed max is 2667, and the Memory QVL lists many sticks that go beyond that. Very confusing ASRock, very confusing. Add to that, Googling many of the listed sticks turns up no matches. Are these sticks not available yet? More to the point, the board itself has "1.2V" embossed on the DIMM slots, but there is a VERY small selection of that type of RAM. Furthermore, some of the sticks that I was able to find that are listed on the QVL are rated at 1.35V. So which is it? Is the 1.2V the base voltage, and you can go higher if you OC? Lastly, the guidelines for "Single Rank" / "Dual Rank" thing you have listed in the manual is virtually useless. You say to look at the labels on the actual DIMMs, but I can't for the life of me find a single example of memory where the label has "1xR" or "2xR" listed. I don't know when you added the Memory QVL section, but I don't believe it was present when I was buying RAM. There was a deal on some G.Skill sticks (F4-3000C15D-16GRBB - $96.99) that I went for, but I can only push them to 2400mhz. Any further than that, and I get stuck in a boot loop. Fortunately, it dies quickly and only fails three times before resetting itself (much better than having to wait ages or fiddle with the battery). I plan on returning the RAM, but I need order a replacement set before I do. I will likely buy a 32GB set (16x2), and would like them to be at least 3000mhz (no more than 3400mhz). Can you offer up some suggestions that you can verify will work with this board? You don't have many 16GB options listed on the QVL, but I have seen this list growing over the past few days..  So I am hopeful you have some sticks in the pipeline that will fit what I am looking for.

The 2667 memory speed is the AMD maximum memory speed specification. Any memory speed above that is a memory over clock. That is shown in the memory specifications of the Fatal1ty X370 Professional Gaming.

Intel has similar specs for their processors (memory controller is part of the CPU) and all the memory speeds above that are over clocks. Memory speed specs and over clocks have been that way for years, I don't understand why that is confusing.

Memory manufactures do not normally include the number of ranks in the basic specs of their products. The single and dual rank memory specs shown are again from AMD, and I'm glad ASRock is including them in their mother board specifications.

You may have noticed the Single Sided (SS) and Double Sided (DS) notation in the Memory QVL. That is related to the number of Ranks used in a memory design, but also depends upon the memory chips being used, the capacity of each of the memory chips.

Single Sided memory only has memory chips on one side of the circuit board, Double Sided memory has memory chips on both sides of the circuit board.

Single and Dual Rank memory refers to a group of memory chips organized into a "Rank". SS memory is usually Single Rank, and DS memory is usually Dual Rank. But that has changed now that higher density (capacity) memory chips are available. The higher the capacity of a memory stick is, the more likely is will be Dual Rank and Dual Sided. Those specs must be checked for each memory model with DDR4 memory.

These memory specifications were not created by ASRock, and it is the responsibility of the memory manufacture to make these specifications available. ASRock is simply the messenger of the memory specifications from AMD and the memory standards organization.

Purchasing random DDR4 memory because it was on sale is simply a gamble regarding compatibility. DDR4 is also a new technology and we have been dealing with its growing pains in the few platforms that support it for a while now. Ryzen is now a part of that battle.