Memory Overclocking on X470 Pinnacle Ridge: What RAM Speed Do You Need?

Gaming

1280x720 Gaming Benchmarks

DDR4-3200 C14 and DDR4-3466 C16 provide the best gaming experience in Shadow of the Tomb Raider, with performance gains of 19.79 percent when compared to DDR4-2133 C15. Both configurations perform 15.52 percent quicker in Strange Brigade with the DirectX 12 API. While on the Vulkan API, DDR4-3466 C16 outperforms DDR4-2133 C15 by up to 16.48 percent. However, DDR4-3200 C14 reclaims the performance throne in F1 2018 with an improvement of 16.34 percent over baseline DDR4-2133 C15.

The back-and-forth fighting between both configurations continues with the Ubisoft titles. DDR4-3466 C16 manages to edge out DDR4-3200 C14 in Assassin's Creed Odyssey as the configuration is 15.49 percent faster than DDR4-2133. While in Far Cry 5, DDR4-3200 C14 comes out on top with an 11.96 percent improvement.

1920x1080 Gaming Benchmarks

This time around DDR4-3200 C14 delivers the best performance in Shadow of the Tomb Raider at 1920x1080 with an 18.75 percent improvement in average frames per second. For Strange Brigade, DDR4-3200 C14 is faster with the DirectX 12 API while DDR4-3466 C16 is better with the Vulkan API. The DDR4-3200 C14 and DDR4-3466 C16 configurations tie in F1 2018, as both pump out 18.62 percent higher average frames per second.

In Assassin's Creed Odyssey, DDR4-2800 C14 takes the crown with an improvement of 9.86 percent while DDR4-3200 C14 is the fastest configuration in Far Cry 5 with a gain of 12.22 percent.

2560x1440 Gaming Benchmarks

At the 2560x1440 resolution, DDR4-3200 C14 and DDR4-3466 C16 offer 10.99 percent better performance in Shadow of the Tomb Raider. But performance in Strange Brigade remains the same, regardless of memory speed and API. While in F1 2018, DDR4-3200 C14 provides up to 7.09 percent higher average frames per second.

DDR4-3466 C16 is the fastest configuration for both Assassin's Creed Odyssey and Far Cry 5. It's 7.81 percent and 17.05 percent faster than DDR4-2133 C15 in the respective titles.

3840x2160 Gaming Benchmarks

Faster memory has no impact on Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Strange Brigade at the 3840x2160 resolution. In F1 2018, the difference in performance between memory speeds is less than three percent. As for the two Ubisoft games, the difference between the fastest and slowest configuration is about 4.08 percent in Assassin's Creed Odyssey and less than two percent in Far Cry 5.

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Zhiye Liu
RAM Reviewer and News Editor

Zhiye Liu is a Freelance News Writer at Tom’s Hardware US. Although he loves everything that’s hardware, he has a soft spot for CPUs, GPUs, and RAM.