No noticeable distinction exists between DDR4-3200 CL16 and DDR-3600 CL16 RAM for the Ryzen 7 5800X3D.
No noticeable distinction exists between DDR4-3200 CL16 and DDR-3600 CL16 RAM for the Ryzen 7 5800X3D.
Hey everyone, back in 2020 I chose a Ryzen 5 3600 for my build and recommended DDR4-3600 CL16 RAM as the ideal choice. I ended up installing a 16GB package (two 8GB sticks) and installed it on my motherboard. I didn’t go overclocking beyond setting the XMP speed in BIOS. By 2022 I upgraded to the Ryzen 7 5800X3D and heard that its extra cache reduces dependence on RAM speed and latency. I still have a 32GB of DDR-3200 CL16 RAM from another project and am considering swapping it in. Would switching to the larger 32GB of 3200/CL16 RAM affect performance noticeably, or should I hold off and upgrade later when I have the 3600 RAM?
Choose what fits your motherboard perfectly. I faced a lot of trouble with the x570 Aorus Masters QVL for 32 GB RAM kits, mainly Crucial Ballistix (which disappeared in February) and a few others that are currently unavailable. As long as it functions, stick with what’s reliable.
There’s no drop in performance, probably not at all—dual rank might actually boost bandwidth, possibly making the 3200 rams as quick as the 3600 rams in terms of speed. You were misled into thinking your money was wasted, but the 3600c18 offers better performance than the 3200c16. The 20$ premium for 3600c18 is justified if you tighten the primaries, achieving only a 2% difference in benchmarks. Unless it’s the 16-16-16 die, quality matters most.
The outcome largely depends on the workload. If data fits well in cache, it doesn't matter much. If it doesn't fit but RAM accesses are frequent, it can matter. Variations are probably small in most cases. For better performance, add more RAM if needed; otherwise, proceed as planned.