Need help with choosing RAM

martward · November 7, 2019

Hi guys,

I'm thinking of purchasing a Ryzen 5 3600 along with a MSI B450 Gaming plus MAX motherboard (due to the out-of-the-box support for ryzen 3000). I will be replacing a E3-1231V3 with 16gb of DDR3@1600MHz.

I'm not really much for overclocking, though I might give it a try at some point.

At the moment I don't see myself using more than 16GBs of memory, but in the future I might (Deep Learning and 3D modelling), so I want 4 DIMM slots of which two are occupied.

I am mostly torn between 3000MHz, since there is a kit that is cheap and tested in the QVL of the mobo to support the speed and support up to 4 DIMMs. For some reason most memory is only compatible in one or two DIMMs.

I am looking at this set: https://pcpartpicker.com/product/FNprxr/gskill-aegis-16gb-2-x-8gb-ddr4-3000-memory-f43000c16d16gisb

Going for 3200MHz will cost me at least 15-20 euro more if I pick a set that is compatible with 4 DIMMs on this motherboard.

Should I really spend that much more on slightly faster RAM?

Thanks

Mathieu9836 · November 7, 2019

Don't worry about the QVL, if you want cheap RAM with good overclocking capabitlities then i will suggest you the Crucial Ballistix Sport LT 3000 or 3200mhz kits, they use Micron E dies and are insane overclockers for the price. My 3200mhz Cl16 kit is OCed to 3200mhz CL14, you usually need to pay around 120$ to get a kit that perform that well out of the box. Again don't worry about the QVL, they can't test and identify all the RAM kits to make sure they run at their advertised speed out of the box, set timings and speed manually if the motherboard doesn'T make it for you.

Edit: The Crucial kit need to have AES in the SKU to be Micron-E, there is also the CES SKUs which i believe are Samsung C-Die, not sure how they overclock but i've seen some very good results on Reddit, they might be better then Micron-E or equivalent for overclocking.