Performance tip: Check your RAM timings after BIOS Update (Ryzen)

[Scoob]

Hey all,

Thought I'd share my experiences after a BIOS update as I was initially confused by what I was seeing and ONLY X4 appeared to be effected by this. This is a quick brain dump of something that happened earlier in the week. Feel free to ask questions if you have any.

I updated the BIOS on my ASUS X570 Strix Gaming F motherboard. The blurb for the update was about stability and other things, so I performed the update. For the record, my system specs are:

ASUS X570 Strix Gaming F Motherboard
3900X (Water cooled)
RTX 3070 (Water Cooled)
32GB DDR4 3200 RAM
2x NVMe M.2 SSD's in RAID 0 (System and Games)
2x SATA SSD's in RAID0 (Other stuff)
Window 10 Pro

Upon going back into the BIOS after the update, I of course had to re-apply my various settings. This included turning on DOCP again to get my memory running at the rated speed (3600) rather than the non-DOCP default of 2133. I've re-applied DOCP numerous times after an update and it just worked(TM) correctly applying the RAM's rated (technically over-clocked) timings. After doing this I just continued using the PC as normal, playing various games without issue.

Soon after, having not played for a few days, rather than continue my current long-term (and well performing) X4 game, and started a new game on a whim. I was shocked how bad the performance was initially, but put it down to the Universe "warming up" so to speak. However, the performance issues continued. At first I assumed the game had just thrown a bit of a wobbly - performance can be a little X2 sagt Bussi auf Bauch at times. Even basic one-on-one fights were causing huge FPS drops. I thought it best to do a bit of a heath check on the PC, just to make sure that all components are working as well as they should. With diagnostics up (CPUz) I noticed that my RAM, while clearly showing 3600 in the BIOS was showing as just 2133 in Windows. Odd.

I go back into the BIOS and DOCP is indeed set to 3600 with appropriate timings. RAM speed is set to "Auto" as it's getting it from DOCP - exactly how it's always been set, I make note of my BIOS settings so I know this. On a whim, rather than using the DOCP-controlled "Auto" setting, I manually set it to 3600. Back in Windows CPUz is now reporting the correct speeds. To continue my health-check I bring up AIDA64 and do some RAM speed tests...my results are barely 60% of what they should be vs. similar systems!

I delve in deeper and start to manually check ALL the RAM timings applied by DOCP and... IT'S GOT IT WRONG! Simple as that. After this latest BIOS update DOCP is NOT applying the correct timings. Many are correct, but several are not. It *appears* to have applied much tighter timings (for two settings only) which *might* be appropriate if the RAM was running as stock 2133, but not with the DOCP profile applied. I go through reviewing ALL timings (there are quite a few) and manually apply settings I know my RAM can handle. I did of course first try clearing the settings to default and re-applying DOCP, but it was just getting the timings wrong.

This done, I'm back in Windows and run AIDA64 once again - speeds are right up where they should be. Actually, somewhat better than many others with a 3900X and DDR4 3600 have posted. Back into X4 and my performance is good once more.

I'm assuming that the excessively tight timings DOCP erroneously applied was causing some sort of RAM errors, inducing much judder and low fps in X4 - but oddly not other titles - likely due to X4 being very much CPU bound in most instances.

Note: to be clear, I've done many a BIOS updates and have then reapplied DOCP (or XMP on Intel rigs) and it's invariably applied the correct memory profile for the currently installed RAM sticks. It's been so consistent over the years that I'd never think to confirm it's done what it said it has. This incident of it simply getting it wrong is a first for me, and while it had no obvious impact in any of the other titles I play - nor in Windows generally - it had quite a profound impact on X4.

So, check your timings. Do a quick check with CPUz to ensure RAM is running at the correct speed in WIndows. THen run an AIDA64 test to ensure it's hitting the appropriate speeds, and check if you're in the ballpark for your system performance vs. others - plenty AIDA64 results to be found. If you're performing below what's expected for your system and RAM, double check DOCP is working. Firstly, is it applying the correct frequency, secondly, has it applied the correct timings.

To be clear, outside of X4 everything appeared to be running great. We know X4 really likes CPU and RAM, and this highlights that fact quite clearly. "Runs everything else fine" is said quite often when X4's performance is discussed and, sure, the game has its issues, the the MASSIVE difference in performance due to RAM timings being off is really quite remarkable, when nothing else (that I play) ran any different.

TL:DR Bios update BROKE DOCP so it was not applying the correct settings. Manually setting all RAM timings resolved the issue.