Just days after AMD released its new memory-boosting AGESA 1.0.0.7b update, one of the world’s most famous overclockers, HiCookie, has managed to hit the mark. 9000MHz or higher In one of his DDR5 memory kits running on a Ryzen 7 7800X3D system.
This is one of the fastest DDR5 overclocks ever seen on a platform that supports DDR5, showing that AM5 has much more DDR5 overclocking potential than originally expected. At this speed, a 10,000 MHz overclock could be possible in no time. Also, in memory overclocking he might even see a Ryzen 7000 system actively outperforming Intel’s best Alder Lake/Raptor Lake CPUs for the first time.
The overclocking was accomplished with a Gigabyte DDR5-8400 module on a B650E Aorus Tacyon motherboard with a Ryzen 7 7800X3D CPU. The DDR5 module was overclocked to 9058 MHz with slightly tighter 54-56-56-126 timings compared to the module’s default XMP configuration.
The new AGESA 1.0.0.7b update is probably the most impactful AMD microcode update ever seen on the AM5 platform. The new patch greatly improves memory support (and apparent memory stability), allowing most Ryzen 7000 CPUs to routinely reach 7000-8000 MHz and 6400 MHz with a 1:1 UCLK:MEMCLK ratio, perfect for gaming and other latency-sensitive tasks. This is a significant change from previous patches where the peak that most Ryzen 7000 chips could reach stably was 6000 MHz. Anything above 6000 MHz was completely unpredictable.
The new update includes many new features that enhance memory stability and improve frequency support, but the main change that improves high frequency DDR5 capabilities is a new set of previously hidden timing parameters that govern the Ryzen 7000 memory controller. These settings were previously hidden from the user, and possibly also from the motherboard manufacturer, but are now exposed to the user and his BIOS developer in order to alleviate potential bottlenecks caused by the memory controller.
If overclockers continue to push memory overclocking in this way with AMD’s new AGESA microcode updates, this could be the first real competition we’ve seen from AMD when it comes to memory overclocking. AMD Ryzen architectures in the past have always had poor memory overclocking performance compared to Intel due to memory controller hardware limitations. But now it looks like the tide is turning and it’s possible that AMD will develop better performing memory controllers. We’ll find out soon enough if a memory overclocker starts breaking his DDR5 frequency world record on AMD hardware.
