AMD’s Ryzen 5000 “Zen 3” Desktop CPUs are less than a month away from launch and as per a leaked slide, they are designed to offer great memory overclocking support. In a slide published over at Technopat, it looks like users who plan to purchase Ryzen 5000 CPUs can leverage from even higher performance with higher-spec’d DDR4 memory kits.
AMD Ryzen 5000 “Zen 3” Desktop CPUs Offer Great Memory Overclocking Capabilities, DDR4-4000 MHz Recommended As Sweet Spot
This one slide is part of the AMD Ryzen 5000 CPU NDA which is being shared with the press under a strict embargo however someone decided to leak it and give us a glimpse of what to expect when it comes to memory overclocking. The slide starts off with the details that we already know & that is the three clock speeds beyond core frequency which AMD Ryzen Desktop processors support. Just to recap, they are as following:
- Infinity Fabric Clock (FCLK): Governs how quickly CPU cores can communicate across CPU dies and with SOC controllers (e.g. PCIe, SATA, USB)
- Memory Controller (UCLK): Governs how quickly the memory controller can ingest/exgest commands from RAM.
- Memory Clock (MCLK): The frequency of your main system memory.
All three of the clocks are set in a 1:1:1 relation and configured based on the memory speeds that the system is equipped with. For instance, if the memory features a speed of DDR4-3600 MHz, then these clocks will be set at 1800 MHz for FCLK, UCLK, and MCLK. We have seen that Renoir desktop APUs offer a 1:1 FCLK ratio when it comes to memory and memory overclocking support and given us some spectacular numbers but the standard Ryzen Desktop CPUs rely on a Chiplet design while the Ryzen Desktop APUs feature a monolithic design with a vastly different chip hierarchy even if the underlying core is fundamentally the same.
According to AMD, the memory/fabric is the biggest return on investment for users who want to overclock and tweak their systems. In that regard, AMD is suggesting that DDR4-4000 MHz will be the sweet spot for all AMD Ryzen 5000 Series “Zen 3” Desktop CPUs while DDR4-3800 MHz was the sweet spot for all AMD Ryzen 3000 Series “Zen 2” Desktop CPUs. Users running DDR4-4000 kits can expect great performance and even higher overclocking capabilities when running a Vermeer CPU.
AMD Ryzen 5000 Series “Vermeer” CPU Lineup
| CPU Name | Cores/Threads | Base Clock | Boost Clock | Cache (L2+L3) | PCIe Lanes (Gen 4 CPU+PCH) | TDP | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AMD Ryzen 9 5950X | 16/32 | 3.4 GHz | 4.9 GHz | 72 MB | TBA | 105W | $799 US |
| AMD Ryzen 9 5900X | 12/24 | 3.7 GHz | 4.8 GHz | 70 MB | TBA | 105W | $549 US |
| AMD Ryzen 7 5800X | 8/16 | 3.8 GHz | 4.7 GHz | 36 MB | TBA | 105W | $449 US |
| AMD Ryzen 5 5600X | 6/12 | 3.7 GHz | 4.6 GHz | 35 MB | TBA | 65W | $299 US |
| AMD Ryzen 5 5600 | 6/12 | TBA | TBA | 32 MB | TBA | 65W | $219 US? |
The AMD Ryzen 5000 Desktop CPUs, codenamed Vermeer, will be launching on the 5th of November. The launch lineup will include the 16 core Ryzen 9 5950X, the 12 core Ryzen 9 5900X, the 8 core Ryzen 7 5800X, and the 6 core Ryzen 5 5600X. You can learn more about these SKUs here. All 500 series motherboards (X570/B550) will be receiving BIOS updates to support the next-gen lineup so if you’re planning to get a Ryzen 5000 CPU at launch, you better head over to this link and grab one that’s supported for your motherboard (do note that 400-series support comes later around January 2021).