AMD Outlines New AGESA Memory OC Settings For Gaming, Explores Frequency Versus Timings

It’s a well-known fact that faster memory frequencies have a profound impact on Ryzen’s gaming performance. Increasing Ryzen’s memory frequency also decreases the Infinity Fabric’s latency, which likely plays a big role in the increased gaming performance. However, memory timings and other factors also play a significant role in increased performance, so AMD penned a helpful blog post with its findings.

AMD has already significantly improved Ryzen’s memory support and performance through a string of BIOS updates, but the newest AGESA 1.0.0.6 protocol exposes yet more settings for more fine-grained tuning. AMD announced the new AGESA code at the end of May, and motherboard vendors have released a steady cadence of BIOS revisions that support the new code. According to our observations, nearly every vendor now supports the new protocol. AMD tested with the Asus Crosshair VI, but the new settings should apply to almost all motherboards with current firmware/AGESA revisions.

The TLDR

AMD compiled the results into a single master table that boils down the best combination of memory settings for gaming performance. High frequencies, manually tuned timings, disabled GDM and BGS, and single rank memory modules provided the best results in AMD’s tests. Let’s look at the settings individually.

Single Rank Versus Dual Rank

AMD tested single rank versus dual rank memory modules and found that as a general Ryzen rule, dual rank memory is faster than single rank for gaming.

Automatic Timings Versus Manual Tuning, Frequency Versus Timings

Memory timings are a complicated subject, as anyone who has dived into the more fine-grained settings can attest to. Timings can impact performance, stability, and compatibility, and motherboard vendors have adopted support for easy-to-use profiles, such as XMP, that simplify the experience with pre-defined settings. Though most AMD motherboards don’t support XMP directly, some vendors have created AMD-equivalent settings, such as MSI’s A-XMP, that simplify memory timing and overclocking adjustments into a one-click operation. But do those settings provide the maximum benefit?