How much does CL matter? CL14 vs CL15 vs CL16

Vepar90 · November 17, 2018

Planing to get a 16gb kit (2x8gb) @3200MHz. How noticeable is the difference between CL14-16. Interested in Real World differences, not just benchmarks.

System is Ryzen 2600x, RX 580, and some B450 MB

r2724r16 · November 17, 2018

1 minute ago, Vepar90 said:

Planing to get a 16gb kit (2x8gb) @3200MHz. How noticeable is the difference between CL14-16.

There will be a very noticeable difference in benchmarks. In real life tasks, you probably won't really notice the difference.

Jurrunio · November 17, 2018

shorter timings for the same memory frequency means lower latency and slight higher transfer rates. Frequency means how many 'ticks' the sticks run at per second, while timings means how many ticks the memory sticks use for each operation.

In the case of 3200MHz though, CL14 has much higher chances of being Samsung B-die (i.e. memory die used) rather than Hynix AFR/MFR, the former being much more capable in overclocking, than CL16. CL15 is a bit of hit or miss in this regard.

How much does it matter? If you use them at XMP settings, it won't be noticeable. If you're going 3200 CL16, might as well get 3000 CL15/16 since you still wont be able to spot the difference without the help of numbers.