Memory Overclocking with DOCP on Ryzen CPUs
Faster RAM. What does that mean? For one, efficiency. Your CPU can now talk with your other PC components much faster. We measure this 'speed' in MHz or MT/s.
With most mainstream processors using DDR4 RAM, you should generally look for sticks supporting around 3000 MHz for a sweet spot with day-to-day use as well as gaming performance.
But how much does RAM speed really matter? How does it translate into real-world scenarios as well as gaming scenarios? Let's take a look.
Here's the test bench we have set up:
AMD Ryzen 9 3950x
2x16GB DDR4 3600MHz Memory
GTX 1650 Super
ASUS ROG Crosshair VIII Hero (WI-FI)
Sabrent 1TB Rocket NVMe 4.0 Gen4 PCIe M.2
Samsung 970 EVO SSD 1TB - M.2 NVMe
Seasonic FOCUS GX-850, 850W 80+ Gold
ROG Helios
EKWB Custom Liquid Cooling Loop
1080p 144Hz Monitor
To enable your RAM to run at its full speed, you'll have to tweak the BIOS settings a bit. For our ASUS motherboard, we will have to enable a setting called DOCP: an overclocking profile developed for AMD CPUs on ASUS motherboards. To do this, follow these steps:
Step 1: Press the F2 or Delete key during the boot-up process to enter BIOS.
Step 2: Press the F7 key to open the Advanced mode. Then, click the AI Tweaker option.
Step 3: Now click the dropdown key located right next to AI Overclock Tuner.
Step 4: Select D.O.C.P in the menu. At last, click Save & Exit or press the F10 key.
Setting up DOCP on an ASUS Motherboard.
Now we can proceed to see how much of a difference this overclock makes.
For this test, we will be comparing the RAM at 2133MHz with 3600MHz.
First taking a look at Cinebench R20, we saw a boost in performance of 1.25% in multicore performance and 1% in single core.
Before vs. After DOCP Cinebench R20.
In 3DMark TimeSpy, we observed a significant boost in performance for the CPU test.
CPU scores drastically improve compared to GPU scores.
For day-to-day use, we used PCMark 10, and were able to find a performance boost of 5.27%.
Taking a look at gaming performance, here are how the FPS scores fared out:
GTAV: 20% Performance Increase
Forza Horizon 4: 8% Performance Increase
A growth from 118 FPS to 127 FPS is observed.
Needless to say, there is no reason why one shouldn't enable DOCP, other than warranty reasons, to get a performance boost for their PCs. It is quite a simple overclock that the motherboard calibrates itself, without much need for calculations and trial and error from the user. A simple, yet powerful overclock that's a great place to start for beginner overclockers to see for themselves the fruits of overclocking.
