It's All in the Timing$...

TechTippee · July 28, 2020

Example: The G.SKILL Ripjaws V Series. Let's look at the DDR4 3600 kit of 2 x 8 GB sticks, which has two versions. The older version of this kit has 16-16-16-36 timings, while the newer has 16-19-19-39 timings. The older version is significantly more expensive at the moment (at least on Newegg), and the only difference between the two I can find is the timings. My questions to you fine people are as follows:

Will these kits perform in a noticeably different way, and if so, what type/level of user would notice/care?
Would it be feasible for a user to make the timings on the new kit stably match those of the old? (Bonus: I assume performance would be identical at that point?)

Skiiwee29 · July 28, 2020

For normal use, it wont matter. You want as fast as you can get, in this case, 3600mhz, and the lowest cas latency you can get in your price range... so in this case, you will see maybe 1-2 fps difference between the 2 kits at most for gaming. Chances are, you can tighten the timings in on the 16-19-19-39 kit anyways.

Jurrunio · July 28, 2020

1. At their rated settings, no

2. Really unlikely. 16-16-16-36 is basically Samsung B-die (and decent ones at that) guaranteed while 16-19-19-39 guarantess Hynix CJR instead which are much worse in terms of tight timings. Maybe you can get 16-16-16-36 working with proper voltage tuning but the ideal settings will look something like 14-19-16-36, something like this.