No, overclocking RAM does not change its CL timings.
No, overclocking RAM does not change its CL timings.
The name clearly indicates the purpose. I’m reaching out since I haven’t located a 3600MHZ CL16 RAM yet, even though I’ve boosted my CL16 memory to that speed. I’m curious if it’s actually running at CL16 or CL18, because when I check the BIOS and timing settings, they still don’t reflect any change.
I looked into this a bit because I don’t really focus on RAM overclocking. I saw something from Intel, which said: "Compromises are usually necessary to improve one aspect while reducing another. In simple terms, when a memory module runs at a high speed, maintaining stability becomes harder. To balance stability issues at fast speeds, memory timings are often increased." So I’m pretty sure if you want top performance from your RAM, you’ll need to raise the timings for it to stay stable. But I’m not 100% sure, since I’m not an expert in RAM overclocking, and I trust the BIOS a bit too much.
The difference comes from how the BIOS and third-party tools interpret timing values. BIOS might list a different format or scaling, while CPU-Z uses its own calculation method. Your CL timing could be adjusted based on voltage, temperature, or other factors not shown in the BIOS specs.
Timing is configured automatically in BIOS. 15-15-15-36 uses 2133MHz. You need to adjust timing manually in BIOS.
Consider a timing setup around 16-18-18-18-38 for your Corsair Vengeance LPX 3200MHZ cl 16 at 3600MHz.
I wasn’t able to set them manually, so I had to turn on XMP and restart. It automatically adjusted the timing settings to 16-18-18-18-36, but now the PC won’t boot. I think I’ll reset the CMOS and give up since enabling XMP—which is required for those timings—makes the system unbootable.
I've tested several CL options from 15-20 using XMP and without it at 3600Mhz, but none succeeded. The only solution that works is running at 3600Mhz with auto mode and no XMP enabled. Using 3200Mhz with Cl16 also fails because my motherboard doesn't support that frequency. So I'm stuck at 3600Mhz with 26CL.