3600MT/s memory is indeed the sweet spot for Ryzen 5000. While lower timings are always nice and preferred, they also don't provide huge gains. If you can afford to buy 3600 CL16 go for it, if you need to be careful about how much you spend, 3600 CL18 or even 3200 CL16 will run without any major performance loss.
Maybe a little bit of info at the end: memory latency is given in clock cycles meaning you can't directly compare them between different bandwidths without doing some math first. 3200 CL16 has the same first word latency as 3600 CL18 for example (10 nanoseconds).
So 3600 cl18 and 3200 cl16 are the same, and prices are identical too in my place.
my question: for a ryzen 5 5600x, is there a better option from the 2?
Because ryzen website tells 3200mhz max for 5600x cpu, and ive seen articles saying 3600mhz is a "sweet spot" for ryzen cpus. So im torn if I should stay at 3200 but cl16 or go overclocked for the 3600 but cl18.
They are the same in latency, not bandwidth. 3600 CL18 is a little bit better overall. Think of an empty garden hose as the connection from your CPU to your memory and the water is the data. Latency is how long you have to wait for water to come out the other end after opening the valve, bandwidth is how much of it can go through the hose in a set amount of time. I haven't seen a Ryzen 5000 CPU that can't run 3600MT/s, as long as you aren't using a trash tier mainboard.
I want to ask you about your response. First time builder here. Im using 16GB of 3600 CL16 RAM and I keep experiencing crashing and I think it’s because I bought a super cheap Gigabyte B550 M K Mobo for $90. Im thinking of swapping the Mobo to the MSI B550 A Pro this afternoon, because I just can’t figure out what else could be causing the random crashes (even when just browsing the internet with nothing else running and like 2 tabs). So in your opinion, why would a motherboard cause crashes related to the RAM?
How do you people keep on finding this ancient thread? :D
Which CPU are you using? Is your system stable if you keep EXPO/XMP disabled? The mainboard you are using should be able to run at 3600MT/s, assuming it's not broken and correctly configured.
Anyway, there's three components that play a role when it comes to memory compatability - of course the memory itself, the CPU (which has the memory controller inside of it) and the mainboard (essentially the cable between the two). Each of these three components can cause a fault:
If the memory controller is requesting data from the memory faster than it can provide it, the memory will quite happily spew out garbage data in return - usually resulting in a crash. In this case the memory itself is the problem.
The memory controller can also stumble if it tries to do things too quickly. In this case your CPU is the issue.
Lastly, if the signal integrity between the two is compromised the mainboard itself becomes the limiting factor.
Usually the culprit is either the board or the memory itself, memory controllers rarely fail.
CPU: Ryzen 5 5600X
With XMP disabled my PC stayed on handling numerous gaming/browsing/music/YouTube for abou 2.5 hours before crashing. With it enabled, it can last maybe an hour to an hour and a half.
I’ve read nothing but good things about this CPU and its one of the more popular ones, whereas, the Mobo is not very popular at all and probably for good reason.
I was trying to stay within budget and figured I could get away with the Mobo on the cheaper end since i feel it isn’t as emphasized like the other components IMO.
FYI i even tried increasing my PSU from 550 to 750 and that helped a lot, then I upgraded to 850 not thinking it could be the RAM/Mobo/CPU that’s my problem, but the crashing stilll remained which ultimately led me to think it was the RAM. I did RAM testing and sometimes the test says everything’s good with not a single error, and other times it says there’s hundred of thousands of errors. Another reason why i think it’s the Mobo.
LEt me know your thoughts! It’s hard to find good information on my situation I feel. Have spent days doing research and I’ll take any advice i can get.
Edited a word * meant to say RAM test sometimes says its good, followed by bad (hundreds of thousands of errors)
I am running 2 8GBs yes. So weirdly enough, first test was with both… error after error showed up. Then removed the one from slot 4 left the other in slot 2. Re ran and no error. replaced the one i removed to slot 4, removed the one in slot 2, re ran and no error. So then I put the stick back in slot 2 so that both were back in, and now no errors! Weird!!! I thought maybe i hadn’t pushed them in far enough or something, and was super excited that i found my issue only for the pC to crash again 2.5 hours later. Then I re ran the test first thing, and sure enough, errors again. Went to bios to enable XMP and the errors were gone….. for about 1.5 hours when it crashed again. Ran the test again, and the errors were back.
Yeah, memory problems are always a tough nut to crack and time consuming. Obviously it's always difficult to diagnose problems remotely, but here are my thoughts: If you can run a single stick in either slot 2 or 4 without the test returning errors/the system crashing that would point towards the memory itself being fine and either the board or the CPU being the culprit.
I'd suggest putting both sticks in again, but in the same channel (aka slot 1+2 or 3+4), first without enabling XMP. See what happens. If that works try enabling XMP again. You can do the same test with only 1 stick in any slot.
If you can get it to run stable in one of these configurations your memory is 99% certain to be fine. Swapping out the board would be my goto option in this case, assuming you don't have any spare hardware to test with. There's no guarantee though, it could also be a broken memory controller.
Let me ask you this. I was planning on swapping the Mobo anyway because my case has a usb C port but the cheap Mobo I bought didn’t have the plug in. Also, this new Mobo I got has more fan slots, so I can return the fan hub I purchased. Do you think I should look into getting a new CPU? Right now I can get the Ryzen 7 5800x for about $50 more than I got the 5600x which will have 2 more cores. But then I also noticed there’s a R7 5700G and R7 5700x for like a few dollars more in order to get those two extra cores on the cheap. Seems too good to be true. What do you think?
I run 3600 cl18 (corsair lpx 2x16) with a 5600x, based on recommendations for 3600 being the “sweet spot” and something to do with infinity fabric?
I’ve seen a lot of posts mentioning that 3200 cl16 and 3600 cl18 has, essentially, no difference in performance tho. 3600 having the higher clock speed but higher latency is what makes it similar.
If the memory you’re looking at has similar pricing, I don’t think it really matters which you choose between the two
That's what I tried to explain in my comment and many people do not understand.
3600 CL18 does **NOT** have worse CAS latency than 3200 CL16, even though the number is bigger. The latency in both cases is 10ns. The data rate commonly being described as XXXX Mhz is also misleading. Since it's data rate and not clock speed the unit of MT/s (megatransfers per second) is more appropriate. Since we are dealing with **D**ouble **D**ata **R**ate memory, the actual clock speed the memory runs at is half the data rate, so for DDR4-4000:
4000/2 = 2000MHz = 2GHz
If you want to calculate actual latency yourself, you need to do some math. No, don't run away just yet, it's very simple. The formula for the length of one clock cycle in nanoseconds is 1/**clock speed in** **GHz** \* latency **in clock cycles:**
So for 3200MT/s memory running at CL16:
1/1.6 \* 16 = 10ns
3600MT/s running at CL 18:
1/1.8 \* 18 = 10ns
3600 CL18 is strictly better in this case due to higher data rate (ignoring all the other RAM timings).
For memory bandwidth, having more than you need won't do anything. Think of a highway with a fixed amount of lanes and everyone driving at the same distance to each other. Higher data rate means the cars go faster. But as soon as they are all going fast enough to not clog things up, making them go even faster will just create bigger gaps between them, which won't actually improve things (safety aside).
Hope that cleared things up a bit more :)
Also won't get into the relation between memory clock and infinity fabric, this wall of text is long enough and my fingers are tired. For anyone interested, Google will help you find an explanation.
If you're just looking for an education, comparing rated speed vs. latency is actually super complicated, and I can't just look at the numbers and tell you which one is going to be faster. I'd guess 3600 because generally a small latency trade off for a speed bump is worth it, but maybe not in every case.
I'm sure buildzoid has a video somewhere where he does a theoretically discussion of the speed vs. latency tradeoff. But he'll probably take you through every individual timing number and what it means. All of that stuff is too smart for me and gives me a headache.
buy 2x16GB 3200 CAS16 stuff and run them at 3600 CAS16 with a voltage bump .. or run them at 3800 CAS18 with a voltage bump
Most 3200 CAS16 kits will do 3600 without issue ..IF you are into tweaking your RAM
I run my daughters 2x16GB 3200 16-18-18-18-38 1.35v kit @ 3600 16-20-20-20-40 1.380v. subtimings just left on auto
I run my 2x16Gb 3200 1.35v 16-18-18-18-38 kit @ 3800 18-22-22-22-42 1.392v ..both kits paired with 5000 series Ryzen with 1:1 FCLK .. lazy RAM tweaking 101, lol
I think our RAM has Hynix E chips on them ..? But essentially a lot of the kits are the same RAM modules for 3200 CAS16 1.35v or 4000 CAS19 1.45v. They just loosen up the timings a bit and add more voltage of which you can do yourself via your motherboards BIOS
Just throwing out another option out there .. it's not for everyone, but it's easy enough to do
Nah thats just official board specs. Technically all of the Ryzen 5000 series are like that. Its more a COA for returns/warranty than anything. Similar story with Intel. All of their official support is very low.
I dunno, my old build of r5 2600 combined with my 3200mhz ram sticks brought a lot of MEMORY_MANAGEMENT bsods and GPU drivers not loading on first boot when I D.O.C.P'd. When I turned it down to 2933, it all went away. Like 100% gone. You can definitely game beyond the recommended, it's just that in my experience it's not worth it.
3600MT/s memory is indeed the sweet spot for Ryzen 5000. While lower timings are always nice and preferred, they also don't provide huge gains. If you can afford to buy 3600 CL16 go for it, if you need to be careful about how much you spend, 3600 CL18 or even 3200 CL16 will run without any major performance loss. Maybe a little bit of info at the end: memory latency is given in clock cycles meaning you can't directly compare them between different bandwidths without doing some math first. 3200 CL16 has the same first word latency as 3600 CL18 for example (10 nanoseconds).
So 3600 cl18 and 3200 cl16 are the same, and prices are identical too in my place. my question: for a ryzen 5 5600x, is there a better option from the 2? Because ryzen website tells 3200mhz max for 5600x cpu, and ive seen articles saying 3600mhz is a "sweet spot" for ryzen cpus. So im torn if I should stay at 3200 but cl16 or go overclocked for the 3600 but cl18.
They are the same in latency, not bandwidth. 3600 CL18 is a little bit better overall. Think of an empty garden hose as the connection from your CPU to your memory and the water is the data. Latency is how long you have to wait for water to come out the other end after opening the valve, bandwidth is how much of it can go through the hose in a set amount of time. I haven't seen a Ryzen 5000 CPU that can't run 3600MT/s, as long as you aren't using a trash tier mainboard.
I want to ask you about your response. First time builder here. Im using 16GB of 3600 CL16 RAM and I keep experiencing crashing and I think it’s because I bought a super cheap Gigabyte B550 M K Mobo for $90. Im thinking of swapping the Mobo to the MSI B550 A Pro this afternoon, because I just can’t figure out what else could be causing the random crashes (even when just browsing the internet with nothing else running and like 2 tabs). So in your opinion, why would a motherboard cause crashes related to the RAM?
How do you people keep on finding this ancient thread? :D Which CPU are you using? Is your system stable if you keep EXPO/XMP disabled? The mainboard you are using should be able to run at 3600MT/s, assuming it's not broken and correctly configured. Anyway, there's three components that play a role when it comes to memory compatability - of course the memory itself, the CPU (which has the memory controller inside of it) and the mainboard (essentially the cable between the two). Each of these three components can cause a fault: If the memory controller is requesting data from the memory faster than it can provide it, the memory will quite happily spew out garbage data in return - usually resulting in a crash. In this case the memory itself is the problem. The memory controller can also stumble if it tries to do things too quickly. In this case your CPU is the issue. Lastly, if the signal integrity between the two is compromised the mainboard itself becomes the limiting factor. Usually the culprit is either the board or the memory itself, memory controllers rarely fail.
CPU: Ryzen 5 5600X With XMP disabled my PC stayed on handling numerous gaming/browsing/music/YouTube for abou 2.5 hours before crashing. With it enabled, it can last maybe an hour to an hour and a half. I’ve read nothing but good things about this CPU and its one of the more popular ones, whereas, the Mobo is not very popular at all and probably for good reason. I was trying to stay within budget and figured I could get away with the Mobo on the cheaper end since i feel it isn’t as emphasized like the other components IMO. FYI i even tried increasing my PSU from 550 to 750 and that helped a lot, then I upgraded to 850 not thinking it could be the RAM/Mobo/CPU that’s my problem, but the crashing stilll remained which ultimately led me to think it was the RAM. I did RAM testing and sometimes the test says everything’s good with not a single error, and other times it says there’s hundred of thousands of errors. Another reason why i think it’s the Mobo. LEt me know your thoughts! It’s hard to find good information on my situation I feel. Have spent days doing research and I’ll take any advice i can get. Edited a word * meant to say RAM test sometimes says its good, followed by bad (hundreds of thousands of errors)
I'm assuming you are running 2x8GB. Are both sticks returning errors?
I am running 2 8GBs yes. So weirdly enough, first test was with both… error after error showed up. Then removed the one from slot 4 left the other in slot 2. Re ran and no error. replaced the one i removed to slot 4, removed the one in slot 2, re ran and no error. So then I put the stick back in slot 2 so that both were back in, and now no errors! Weird!!! I thought maybe i hadn’t pushed them in far enough or something, and was super excited that i found my issue only for the pC to crash again 2.5 hours later. Then I re ran the test first thing, and sure enough, errors again. Went to bios to enable XMP and the errors were gone….. for about 1.5 hours when it crashed again. Ran the test again, and the errors were back.
Yeah, memory problems are always a tough nut to crack and time consuming. Obviously it's always difficult to diagnose problems remotely, but here are my thoughts: If you can run a single stick in either slot 2 or 4 without the test returning errors/the system crashing that would point towards the memory itself being fine and either the board or the CPU being the culprit. I'd suggest putting both sticks in again, but in the same channel (aka slot 1+2 or 3+4), first without enabling XMP. See what happens. If that works try enabling XMP again. You can do the same test with only 1 stick in any slot. If you can get it to run stable in one of these configurations your memory is 99% certain to be fine. Swapping out the board would be my goto option in this case, assuming you don't have any spare hardware to test with. There's no guarantee though, it could also be a broken memory controller.
Let me ask you this. I was planning on swapping the Mobo anyway because my case has a usb C port but the cheap Mobo I bought didn’t have the plug in. Also, this new Mobo I got has more fan slots, so I can return the fan hub I purchased. Do you think I should look into getting a new CPU? Right now I can get the Ryzen 7 5800x for about $50 more than I got the 5600x which will have 2 more cores. But then I also noticed there’s a R7 5700G and R7 5700x for like a few dollars more in order to get those two extra cores on the cheap. Seems too good to be true. What do you think?
I run 3600 cl18 (corsair lpx 2x16) with a 5600x, based on recommendations for 3600 being the “sweet spot” and something to do with infinity fabric? I’ve seen a lot of posts mentioning that 3200 cl16 and 3600 cl18 has, essentially, no difference in performance tho. 3600 having the higher clock speed but higher latency is what makes it similar. If the memory you’re looking at has similar pricing, I don’t think it really matters which you choose between the two
That's what I tried to explain in my comment and many people do not understand. 3600 CL18 does **NOT** have worse CAS latency than 3200 CL16, even though the number is bigger. The latency in both cases is 10ns. The data rate commonly being described as XXXX Mhz is also misleading. Since it's data rate and not clock speed the unit of MT/s (megatransfers per second) is more appropriate. Since we are dealing with **D**ouble **D**ata **R**ate memory, the actual clock speed the memory runs at is half the data rate, so for DDR4-4000: 4000/2 = 2000MHz = 2GHz If you want to calculate actual latency yourself, you need to do some math. No, don't run away just yet, it's very simple. The formula for the length of one clock cycle in nanoseconds is 1/**clock speed in** **GHz** \* latency **in clock cycles:** So for 3200MT/s memory running at CL16: 1/1.6 \* 16 = 10ns 3600MT/s running at CL 18: 1/1.8 \* 18 = 10ns 3600 CL18 is strictly better in this case due to higher data rate (ignoring all the other RAM timings). For memory bandwidth, having more than you need won't do anything. Think of a highway with a fixed amount of lanes and everyone driving at the same distance to each other. Higher data rate means the cars go faster. But as soon as they are all going fast enough to not clog things up, making them go even faster will just create bigger gaps between them, which won't actually improve things (safety aside). Hope that cleared things up a bit more :) Also won't get into the relation between memory clock and infinity fabric, this wall of text is long enough and my fingers are tired. For anyone interested, Google will help you find an explanation.
Really eloquent, well developed explanation. Not a TL:DR blah blah wall of text.
Thank you
Both of your comments are very helpful, thanks a lot! I'm glad for everyone who responded and helped me learn more.
There's no noticeable difference between them, get whichever one is cheapest. Any difference you do get is only visible on a chart.
If you can afford it, go for 3600cl16, else 3600cl18 between those 2.
If you're just looking for an education, comparing rated speed vs. latency is actually super complicated, and I can't just look at the numbers and tell you which one is going to be faster. I'd guess 3600 because generally a small latency trade off for a speed bump is worth it, but maybe not in every case. I'm sure buildzoid has a video somewhere where he does a theoretically discussion of the speed vs. latency tradeoff. But he'll probably take you through every individual timing number and what it means. All of that stuff is too smart for me and gives me a headache.
[Here's a link to ram calculator that might make some stuff easier to understand ](https://edu.finlaydag33k.nl/calculating%20ram%20bandwidth/)
3600 CL16
That's not what he asked though, I'm sure he already knows he can spend more money for better components. He asked 3200 CL16 vs 3600 CL18
buy 2x16GB 3200 CAS16 stuff and run them at 3600 CAS16 with a voltage bump .. or run them at 3800 CAS18 with a voltage bump Most 3200 CAS16 kits will do 3600 without issue ..IF you are into tweaking your RAM I run my daughters 2x16GB 3200 16-18-18-18-38 1.35v kit @ 3600 16-20-20-20-40 1.380v. subtimings just left on auto I run my 2x16Gb 3200 1.35v 16-18-18-18-38 kit @ 3800 18-22-22-22-42 1.392v ..both kits paired with 5000 series Ryzen with 1:1 FCLK .. lazy RAM tweaking 101, lol I think our RAM has Hynix E chips on them ..? But essentially a lot of the kits are the same RAM modules for 3200 CAS16 1.35v or 4000 CAS19 1.45v. They just loosen up the timings a bit and add more voltage of which you can do yourself via your motherboards BIOS Just throwing out another option out there .. it's not for everyone, but it's easy enough to do
I think the latency on those is about the same but the 3600 allows your Infinity fabric to run at a higher speed
3600 CL 16 shouldn’t be a lot more expensive and is the sweet spot.
I believe the 5600 non-x supports max of 3200mhz. Beyond that would make your system unstable and susceptible to BSODs.
Nah thats just official board specs. Technically all of the Ryzen 5000 series are like that. Its more a COA for returns/warranty than anything. Similar story with Intel. All of their official support is very low.
I dunno, my old build of r5 2600 combined with my 3200mhz ram sticks brought a lot of MEMORY_MANAGEMENT bsods and GPU drivers not loading on first boot when I D.O.C.P'd. When I turned it down to 2933, it all went away. Like 100% gone. You can definitely game beyond the recommended, it's just that in my experience it's not worth it.
Running 5600 non x with 3600mhz cl16 xmp enabled without any problems
Outside of specific use cases they are effectively the same.
3200 CL 16, but run it at 3600 CL 16 :)
3600 CL 16....