Worth going to 3600mhz CL18 over 3200mhz CL16 on a 5600x?

[ivanrcks95]

Hey everyone, so ill be upgrading to a 5600x this week, and along with it I thought itll be worth upgrading to slightly faster ram as well. Im currently running a 2600 with 3200mhz CL16, and since ive seen a lot of people go on about needing faster ram, i thought i might as well get 3600mhz ram when i get the 5600x. However, the "fastest" latency i can get in my budget is 3600mhz CL18, cant afford tighter timings, and upon doing some more research, it seems like going from 3200 to 3600 (both CL16) on a 5600x, in gaming at least, does not see a significant boost in performance, and gaming at 1080p is my main focus for the PC. So do you think its worth me still going for the 3600 kit, even though its CL18, or will sticking with my current kit be enough, and i wont see significant enough drops in performance? Cheers for any help!

[Eigenvektor]

CL18 at 3600 MHz is the same absolute latency as CL16 at 3200 MHz. Latency is measured in clock cycles and 18 clock cycles at 3600 MHz take 10 nanoseconds, same as 16 clock cycles at 3200 MHz, so latency is the same but speed is slightly faster.

[Jurrunio]

Depends on the GPU tbh, I doubt an RTX 2070 will make the difference between memory noticeable.

[ivanrcks95]

3 minutes ago, Eigenvektor said:

CL18 at 3600 MHz is the same absolute latency as CL16 at 3200 MHz. Latency is measured in clock cycles and 18 clock cycles at 3600 MHz take 10 nanoseconds, same as 16 clock cycles at 3200 MHz, so latency is the same but speed is slightly faster.

So seems like im better off saving the $100 and just keeping my 3200 kit? Till i can maybe afford a 3600 kit with tighter timing?

[ivanrcks95]

1 minute ago, Jurrunio said:

Depends on the GPU tbh, I doubt an RTX 2070 will make the difference between memory noticeable.

How does the GPU come into play here? As i stated i game at 1080p, so in theory, the GPU matters even less in this discussion. 

[SPARTAN VI]

2 minutes ago, ivanrcks95 said:

So seems like im better off saving the $100 and just keeping my 3200 kit? Till i can maybe afford a 3600 kit with tighter timing?

Can try tuning your current DDR4-3200 kit with the help of the Ryzen DRAM Calculator and Thaiphoon. I wouldn't bother moving to DDR-3600 or higher if I were you unless you could essentially get it for free (e.g. selling your 3200 kit to offset the cost of the 3600 kit). 

[ivanrcks95]

1 minute ago, SPARTAN VI said:

Can try tuning your current DDR4-3200 kit with the help of the Ryzen DRAM Calculator. I wouldn't bother moving to DDR-3600 or higher if I were you unless you could essentially get it for free (e.g. selling your 3200 kit to offset the cost of the 3600 kit). 

Yeah, try and see if i could get tighter timings on my current kit would be good. I have ran it at 3400 CL16 before, with no issues, but not long term, was too scared, might consider that now. And max i will get for my 3200 kit is like 40usd, while the 3600 kit is about 100usd.

[Jurrunio]

26 minutes ago, ivanrcks95 said:

How does the GPU come into play here? As i stated i game at 1080p, so in theory, the GPU matters even less in this discussion. 

If you are not GPU bottlenecked, this is true. Even an RTX 3070 Ti can't do it though, so neither would your slower RTX 2070

 

[ivanrcks95]

42 minutes ago, Jurrunio said:

If you are not GPU bottlenecked, this is true. Even an RTX 3070 Ti can't do it though, so neither would your slower RTX 2070

 

Im not per say bottlenecked, but in most games i play, very few actually utilise the GPU 100%, so a faster CPU would definitely help here, and if i can have optimal ram to help that new CPU without needing to spend more money, well then that's a win. Hence, going back to my original question.

[Jurrunio]

1 hour ago, ivanrcks95 said:

Im not per say bottlenecked, but in most games i play, very few actually utilise the GPU 100%, so a faster CPU would definitely help here, and if i can have optimal ram to help that new CPU without needing to spend more money, well then that's a win. Hence, going back to my original question.

I'm not taking a R5 2600 into consideration, you sound set on getting rid of it. I'm comparing 5600x + 2070 + 3200MHz or 3600MHz memory, hence the GPU bottleneck.