Source
r/buildapc•
ericjames

B450 Tomahawk/Ryzen 3600 RAM Compatibility

Solved!

Hi BAPC,

I was trying to hang on until next gen ryzen chips are released but discovering that my b450 won't support them, I am going to squeeze in one more upgrade on my existing setup. I see lots of posts about Zen2 being best with 3600 RAM but there aren't many kits on the QVL that support this speed at CL16 or CL14, and the specs for the board list a max of 3466 anyway (though if you set matisse as the processor in the QVL some 3600 kits appear).

I'm wondering if anyone has experience running a RAM kit not on the QVL at the rated 3600. I'm trying hard not to order from Amazon, none of the 3600 kits available at my local microcenter are on the QVL and the only 3200 kit that is on the QVL costs like 20% more than the 3600 kits. I've tried looking for benchmarks and it seems like I would only see a few percentages of lost performance if I stuck with my existing 3200 cl16 kit that I'm using with my 1700x so I'm not really sure if trying to find 3600 RAM is even worth it.

Any anecdotes about you running a kit on this same board, or opinions on sticking with my current 3200cl16 kit?

Posted May 10, 2020, 5:59 PM UTC · edited

26
GxMouse•

If you already have a 3200cl16, don't bother the "upgrade" to 3600. It's not worth your money.

2
ericjamesOP•

I was trying to use it as an excuse to buy a larger kit and get some rgb but this seems like the right play since nextgen will be using ddr5.

1
GxMouse•

There is some led strip you could buy if you want to go wild. xD

1
bubblesort33•

There are multiple QVL for that motherboard depending on which generation of CPU you have. On the site it should give you a 3x00 (Matisse) list for CPUs. Has kits up to 4400mhz if I look at the QVL. https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/support/B450-TOMAHAWK#support-mem-19

Any Crucial Ballistix kits 3000mhz to 3600mhz should work flawlessly, though. I Oc'd a 3000 cl15 kit to 3733 cl15. But 3600 cl14 is also possible, and you can buy them with a 3600 cl16 XMP profile.

1
Some_Derpy_Pineapple•

can you overclock the 3200 cl16 to something like 3600 cl18? also the performance between the two is like 2-3% when your cpu is limited and ram speed matters

also if a qvl list tested a 3600 cl16 kit and saw that it works then other 3600/16 kits should work as well

1
ericjamesOP•

Kind of a gravedig but I wanted to say thanks for your advice. The 3600 processor has been working great with my existing 3200 RAM kit, I'm seeing big improvements where it counts (fps) and nothing I've played has really stressed the processor so I'm sticking with the existing ram for the time being. I may OC it when I start stressing the CPU but I'm hopeful I'll find a nice 3600 rgb kit on the qvl before that's necessary.

1