[RAM] Has 3600 MHz made 3200 MHz Clock Speeds a Bad Choice for Ryzen Builds?

[Katarn]

I see 3600 MHz being recommended as the sweet-spot everywhere: from Linus to Tech Tips to AMD engineers.

But from my point of view, it seems like somewhat of an overkill for an R5 build: it would force me into buying an X570 instead of a B450 motherboard (which means paying double), and the 3600 sticks cost about 50% more.

 

I don't think I would cheap out if 3600 speed is significantly better, or an overall better choice. But I wouldn't like to pay extra if there is no need to.

 

So how much performance does one lose in choosing 3200 over 3600?

I use my computer for work (Blender, Unreal Engine, video editing and rendering) and gaming.

 

The specific models in question (I'm sure I could look into others as well) are:

- 3600 MHz G.Skill Trident Z CL 16

- 3200MHz Kingston HyperX XMP Predator CL15

- 3200MHz Kingston HyperX Fury Black CL16

 

The system I'm building is a R5 3600 paired with an RX 5700 XT.

I plan on 16GB RAM.

I am not interested in overclocking.

I am not interested in cosmetics.

[porina]

I think 3600 ram is meant to be the performance sweet spot, but it isn't by any means the value sweet spot. 3200 ram is still pretty decent. Most applications aren't that sensitive to ram bandwidth, which is primarily what ram speed gives you. The complication with Ryzen was that Infinity Fabric was also connected to ram speed, and that can have more of an impact. Also with Zen 2, you can run IF and ram at different speeds, and testing by others suggest running 3200 ram could be improved by increasing IF to 1800. You're going to have to look up benchmarks for how much and where that gets you.

 

BTW I've had good experiences running ram at 3600 and 4000 with Zen 2 on B450 and X370 boards. You don't necessarily have to have a X570. Bios version makes a big difference to ram compatibility, so check the mobo manufacturer is keeping up with at least 1.0.0.3 if you consider older chipsets.

[Cyberspirit]

I'd just go with 3200MHz CL15 if you really don't want to Overclock but, if you ever get into it, you can mess with many things like memory clocks and timings to get a bit more performance out of them.

[Anon7mous]

I basically have the same question. 

I've read this link https://premiumbuilds.com/ram/best-ram-for-ryzen-3000/ and I'm aware that the sweet spot is either 3600 CL16 or 3200 CL14.

 

My question is: are the extra speeds worth the investment? Is 3200 obsolete?

A pair of 3200 CL16 costs 80-100€

A pair of 3200 CL14 costs 150-200€

A pair of 3600 CL16 costs 200+€

 

And if it is not worth it what 3200 sticks would you recommend that is also safe to  OC to squeeze a bit of performance out of it?

 

EDIT: One more question, is it worth going for samsung b-die?

[Gohardgrandpa]

I have 3200 MHz ram on a b450 tomahawk running at 3600mhz no problem 

[bimmerman]

I bought 16GB of no-frills Corsair 3600 MHz CL18 for $85 for my R5 3600/X570 build.

 

Given the data out there on 3600MHz at CL14, CL16, and CL18 timings....I'll happily trade losing 10 FPS I won't notice for saving $200 on RAM. I'd recommend getting fast ram first, setting FCLK equal to your ram speed, and then messing about with timings second. Or not, as my system rocks even on potato level timings. I haven't bothered messing with the timings so it's quite possible they'll run tighter-- I just can't be bothered since the system runs great as-is.

[Katarn]

22 hours ago, porina said:

BTW I've had good experiences running ram at 3600 and 4000 with Zen 2 on B450 and X370 boards. You don't necessarily have to have a X570. Bios version makes a big difference to ram compatibility, so check the mobo manufacturer is keeping up with at least 1.0.0.3 if you consider older chipsets.

How? The B450 Tomahawk lists only up to 3466MHz. Or does that not include overclocking?

 

 

[Katarn]

btw do I miss out a lot on performance with 3200?

From what I see in benchmarks, it seems as though it can make a significant difference, but it happens only when a game is running at ~300 fps (so it makes no difference to me if I get 280 or 300 on my 60fps monitor).

Otherwise performance is not much different (such as 92 vs 95 fps).

 

Is there a bigger benefit to 3600MHz in the sense of (dare I say) futureproofing?

[cluelessgenius]

just bought a r5 3600 and some corsair vengeance lpx 3600 cl18 16gb kit for a friend of mine. ram was somewhere around 85 cant remember but not much more expensive than slower ram. performance i cant talk yet since its not assembled yet but we did also get th msi b450m mortar max supports 4133mhz ram has 2 m.2 slots and is also not that expensive at like 90 something bucks. so i dont see the need to save any more money than that thats decent.

[Pleo]

13 hours ago, Gohardgrandpa said:

I have 3200 MHz ram on a b450 tomahawk running at 3600mhz no problem 

I have the same ram and mobo as you, b450 tomahawk and 16gb ddr4 3200mhz corsair vengeance rgb pro. What settings should I tweak to get it running at 3600? (Never OC'd ram before).

 

Thanks

[porina]

1 hour ago, Katarn said:

How? The B450 Tomahawk lists only up to 3466MHz. Or does that not include overclocking?

Anything above the CPU officially supported speed is overclocking. Running 3600 ram is a kind of overclocking. With Zen 2 CPUs, 3600 seems to be attainable but no one can say all ram will work in all situations. It will also depend on the mobo and bios version. As said, I have Kingston 4000 rated ram, and the XMP3600 profile works on both the boards mentioned with recent bios. The same ram did not work at such speeds with early bios. It is not a static environment.

[Mathieu9836]

Supported speed on the CPU,motherboard and RAM sticks just mean that it's a ''guarantied'' speed, i doesn't mean you can achieve higher performance then that. That being said, not all CPU and RAM stick behave the same, i can run my Ballistix sport 3200mhz to 3800mhz with shitty timings on a Ryzen 2700 with the C7H, i was hardly able to run my T-Force 3000mhz to 3200mhz on that same CPU which runned at CL15 3200mhz with a 2400G.

2 kits of the same brand will behave differently, one may be ''bad'' and the other one may overclock like hell. Running a Ryzen 3600 with 3200mhz RAM stick is not a bad, you may loose 2-4% performance but i don't think it's worth the extra 50$ for a 3600mhz kit, you will probably wont even notice other then synthetic benchmarks.

[Mathieu9836]

2 hours ago, Pleo said:

I have the same ram and mobo as you, b450 tomahawk and 16gb ddr4 3200mhz corsair vengeance rgb pro. What settings should I tweak to get it running at 3600? (Never OC'd ram before).

 

Thanks

Every RAM stick behave differently, there is no ''go to'' settings. It's trial and error all the time.

shttps://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrwObTfqv8u1KO7Fgk-FXHQ/videos?view=0&sort=dd&shelf_id=1

Here is a long but very instructive video about how to overclock RAM, you may get higher or lower result with your particular sticks

[Anon7mous]

Are there any 3200 CL16 RAM sticks that overclock better than others on Ryzen CPUs? 

[Mathieu9836]

2 minutes ago, Anon7mous said:

Are there any 3200 CL16 RAM sticks that overclock better than others on Ryzen CPUs? 

Anything with Micron E-dies and Samsung B-dies

Crucial Only use those two ICs

[Anon7mous]

3 minutes ago, Mathieu9836 said:

Anything with Micron E-dies and Samsung B-dies

Crucial Only use those two ICs

So going for ballistix would be a safe bet then or do they have other dies apart from Micron and Samsung? I can't find any list where I can see the dies and most online shops don't post such information. 

[Mathieu9836]

14 minutes ago, Anon7mous said:

So going for ballistix would be a safe bet then or do they have other dies apart from Micron and Samsung? I can't find any list where I can see the dies and most online shops don't post such information. 

No they don't use Hynix chips, the slower kit use Micron chips and the faster kits use Samsung chips. Kits with AES in the SKU use Micron E-die for sure i bought a 3200mhz CL16 kit and it's Micron E, i think 3200mhz CL15 kits use Micron chips too but 3000mhz and 3200mhz CL14 kits must use Samsung B-dies.

Edit: I think that kits with AEE in the sku are B-dies

[Anon7mous]

10 minutes ago, Mathieu9836 said:

No they don't use Hynix chips, the slower kit use Micron chips and the faster kits use Samsung chips. Kits with AES in the SKU use Micron E-die for sure i bought a 3200mhz CL16 kit and it's Micron E, i think 3200mhz CL15 kits use Micron chips too but 3000mhz and 3200mhz CL14 kits must use Samsung B-dies.

Thanks, appreciate it!

[Tatili]

On 9/17/2019 at 6:57 PM, Anon7mous said:

Thanks, appreciate it!

On 9/17/2019 at 6:57 PM, Anon7mous said:

Thanks, appreciate it!

On 9/17/2019 at 6:57 PM, Anon7mous said:

Thanks, appreciate it!

On 9/17/2019 at 6:57 PM, Anon7mous said:

Thanks, appreciate it!

Hello there, please note that I've got 2 stick 3200Mhz from Gskill CL-16, surprisely nice to overclock, way to go saving some cash for my 8vram GPU

[Tatili]

High scores CPU-Z & Cinebench R20 

http://valid.x86.fr/bqgh66

[Tatili]

All good luck! 

[futureman123]

19 hours ago, Nostremitus said:

If I have 32GB of RAM, would I get any benefit from pairing a 120GB SSD with my 3TB HDD as NAND cache? I was told that with Windows 10 any extra RAM is automatically used as RAM cache for the HDD and I wouldn't see a benefit...

 

Edit: I'm running my OS from a 512GB M.2 SSD and have a 500GB SSD as a gaming drive. The 3TB HDD is a storage drive. I have a spare 120GB SSD, but would need to buy a PCIe SSD adaptor to install it and check to see if it's better or not.

I like that setup of OS dedicated drive, apps drive then storeage of videos, pictures of 10 years onward etc.

 

I am building my first SMALL BOX Lian Li TU 150 and I never knew about m.2 drives until last month.

I just joined this website so I hope to gain somehelp And maybe help others too