Ryzen RAM question

Ok, Newbie here, I don't know much about computing.
I have read the 2 sticky threads on RAM here.

Anyway I am intending to build a complete Ryzen system, with all new parts. All has yet to be purchased. I was thinking X370 Taichi, Ryzen 1800x, Samsung 960 Evo 1TB SSD.

My reading so far has made me aware that Ryzen CPU don't work well with "4 channels" of RAM i.e. 4 RAM slots occupied, if all 4 are occupied RAM is limited to 2133Mhz(?) irrespective of what speed your RAM chips are. Which I am understanding is down to the UEFI.

Also if only 2 RAM slots occupied RAM can work up to 2999Mhz.

So I am confused. What is the limiting factor that means you cannot put in 3400Mhz RAM and expect to get 34000Mhz running capacity... Be it 2 slots or 4 slots of RAM.?

Is it something that AMD has limited in the design of the CPU or is it something else... It can't be the mobo manufacturers because it hapens on all mobos.

Is it something that AMD will be fixing/changing? How would they do that? Would it be a redesign of the CPU chip or a "software" change or a different chipset on a mobo?

Has AMD done this to protect the CPU from becoming unstable with higher RAM speeds, why would it become unstable? And why limit it more with 4 RAM slots?

If I wait, will the Ryzen chips be changed/improved or will the mobos be physically changed or will it be UEFI flash upgrade?

I don't like the idea of flashing the UEFI as that can fry the mobo..I have read. So I would rather wait until the mobos being sold have been upgraded.

Also I guess that ASRock mobos cannot be flash upgraded by internet link? rather it has to be done on a USB. Internet link is easier but the review I read (PC World: How to flash your BIOS) did not tell me which mobo manufacturer it was that did direct internet link UEFI upgrades.

wow quite a lot of questions in a single post :)
ok so firstly
the taichi is a very nice board ,plenty of features and has a good upgrade path for the future (eg as yet unreleased cpus that may require more power) it has also become very popular so plenty of users with advice and experiance
the samsung 960 is a great nvme hd (although after buying one myself i do wonder if most users need this extra bandwidth) in real use for booting and gaming they are no faster than a good sata3 ssd shown in many reviews, however if creating large video editing files etc then they do show massive improvements
now ram ................ it is still early days for the ryzen systems to have the actualy firmware ( eg code written) to properly assign/use all the ram sticks that have been made and programmed to work with the intel systems and thus it is not always just plug and play, THIS IS BEING VERY SERIOUSLY addressed by amd engineers and has come on a lot in the last two months
at the present time there is in the last day or so a beta bios around for the taichi with memory settings upto 4000 but as said above dont expect this to work on all four slots (basically the more chips a ram stick has the more strain on the memory controller so ..........the best selection is 2 sticks of single sided ram ,then two sticks of double sided, then four sticks of single sided, and lastly the worst would be four sticks of double sided ram sticks
this morning on a taichi one user on this forum has reported stable ram at 3200 cl14 and 2x16gb ram sticks (these would be gskill tridentz double sided samsung  dies)
so i ask the real question for you is how much ram would you need to use ?
32gb max then feel confident it will happen at around 3200 with good branded ram
if you can be comfy with 16gb then circa 3600+ should be normal within a month or two (once again with a decent brand of ram
(from day one my taichi was simply plug and play with gskill 3200 cl15 ram 2x8gb by just clicking the xmp option)
another point id like to make is regarding your choice of cpu the 1800x is just the top 'plug and play' cpu it is not very popular as most users just buy the 1700 and enter a bios overclock and save the extra $200 for something else (mine is locked at 3.9 ghz from day one)
lastly if you havnt bought a taichi yet the chances to find one with an older bios that dosnt include the internet flash or direct flash from usb is extremely unlikely mine came with bios v1.5 back in end of march/early april i would hazard a guess any stock of the extremely fast selling taichi now would be on bios v2 anyway
hope this helps


Edited by datonyb - 28 May 2017 at 7:39pm

the specs of my system are
taichi mainboard
evo 960 nvme boot drive
evo 850 ssd gaming drive
gskill f4-3200cl15d-16gtz ram kit (16gb)
fratual designs 550w semi modular psu
r7 1700 cpu @ 3.9 all cores and fixed voltage of 1.306 volts using LLC 2
noctura am4 tower heatsink (120mm fan)
rx480 graphics card
antec gx500 case (extra fan in front so four in total 2x fronts intake 1 rear exhaust,1 rear top exhaust)
when on stress test the cpu sits around 53 degrees

to be honest this is the most easy pc i can recall to overclock

or ryzen 2

Rosanbo wrote: [URL=][/URL][URL=][/URL][URL=][/URL][URL=][/URL]Thank you nemesis.ie datonyb wrote: [URL=][/URL]any stock of the extremely fast selling taichi now would be on bios v2 anyway hope this helps Thank you datonyb for taking the time to reply. Some very useful information there. I have considered the 1700 (because I think it comes with a cooler in the box whereas the 'X' versions have no cooler?), and still have not made my mind up. I don't like the idea of overclocking. I like to stick with manufacturer specs. (EDIT: but I want the flexibility to do it in the future hence the X370 as my chioice). I also read an article (in techradar I think) a while back about the failure rate of new CPUs out of the box, and how that increases when overclocking is used. (I can't find anything on that subject now though). Not sure how much RAM to get, probably 2 x 8GB will be enough. What CPU cooling have you used?

Ryzen is very safe to OC. Between 3.9 and 4.0GHz you will hit a voltage wall that may explain the article you read. I haven't seen anyone yet that killed their CPU that stayed at or below 1.4V.

My 1700X runs stable at 4.0GHz, but it wants 1.4V to do so. At 3.9GHz it only needs 1.3V so that is where I keep it when I want more power. If I'm not gaming I just run it as it was designed without the OC.