Memory issues with 3700X on ASRock B450 Fatal1ty Gaming-ITX/ac

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Hi,

I've been building PCs for myself and others on and off for the past 20 years, and used to haunt these forums 10-15 years ago, but am a bit rusty as have been using Macs for a while, and never really ventured much into overclocking or memory timings etc.

Anyway, I built myself a cheap Ryzen 5 2600 based mini-ITX gaming PC in February this year without problem, but decided to upgrade it to a Ryzen 7 3700X based system for gaming, graphics and amateur video production (instead of go for a ridiculously expensive new iMac).

I replaced the BioStar A320 mobo with an ASRock B450 Fatal1ty Gaming-ITX/ac board, and my hot'n'noisy ASUS Radeon RX580 for a cool'n'quiet MSI Geforce GamingX 1660. I also replaced my main SATA SSD with a lovely fast Corsair MP150 NVMe.

It was all working okay with my 'old' 16gb HyperX 2666MHz RAM, but I decided to upgrade that to some fancypants Corsair Vengeance RGB PRO 16GB (2x8GB) 3200MHz.

At first it was working fine, completely stable, played a few games, messed about with some benchmarks etc… But then I realised I hadn’t changed the XMP profile in the BIOS and the RAM was running at its base 2133MHz. Doh! So I did that, and it’s turned out to be really unstable, constantly crashing games and apps, and BSODing (which was a shock, not seen one of them on Windows 10 before!)

I looked on Asrock’s webpage for that mobo and unfortunately they’ve not got a memory QVL list for Matisse-based CPU’s yet, though the mobo was sold as 'Ryzen 3000 Ready'. I did try upgrading the BIOS to their most recently provided one, but to no avail - the memory is still unstable at anything other than its base 2133MHz.

I’ve seen a few posts here saying people should edit the timings manually for unstable memory rather than rely on XMP profiles, but I really am lost in that regard.

Has anyone else had any experience with using overclocked memory on that mobo (or similar) with a Matisse CPU? I’m loathe to send that RAM back and try other such RAM out that also might not work, but I also feel I’d be not getting the full benefit by sticking with it at 2133MHz or reverting back to my ‘slow’ old HyperX 2666.
 
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If you can, return your RAM and get Crucial Ballistix Sport LT 3200 RAM instead. Crucial Ballistix Sport LT 3200 is Micron E-die and has been reported to work well with 3rd gen Ryzen. Have a look here for people's overclocking experiences:
https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/threads/ballistix-sport-lt-overclocking.18861166/

Also, if you're running a 3700X, I'd suggest replacing that motherboard for a better one if you can still return it too.
 
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Thanks. I was originally looking to get the Gigabyte Aorus Pro X570 mini-ITX board, but was being a cheapskate and didn't want to shell out twice what I paid for the Asrock B450.
 
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The ASRock B450 Fatal1ty Gaming-ITX/ac doesn't have a very good VRM. Might require some additional airflow over the VRM if you're using a 3700X.

The MSI B450I GAMING PLUS AC would've been the better B450 ITX board to go with.

Just saw your other thread about the broken socket, so probably going to be difficult to return that motherboard now!
 
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Ha! Yes! I’m such a fool. I was removing the 3700X to see if the RAM worked with my old 2600 at 3200ghz, and the overly generous goop from the Wraith Prism got everywhere.

So if I can’t fix the Asrock, I might just end up going for the Gigabyte X570 anyway. Doh!
 
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So if I can’t fix the Asrock, I might just end up going for the Gigabyte X570 anyway. Doh!
I actually own both the ASRock B450 Fatal1ty Gaming-ITX/ac and the Gigabyte X570 I Aorus Pro WiFi. The Gigabyte is a really decent spec motherboard, definitely a good pair for the 3700X and upwards.
 
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