3200mhz CL16 vs 3600mhz CL18 for an Intel CPU?

[ZeekAncient]

So I am using 32gb of 3600mhz CL18 ram for my 10700K. Everything seems to be running fine but I have just been questioning if maybe I would have gotten better performance from 3200mhz CL16 ram with my 10700K.

See the 3600mhz CL18 ram was the ram I was gonna buy when I was seriously looking at getting the AMD 5800X. Considering the whole Infinity Fabric Frequency Clock thing with AMD processors, I was told that 3600mhz ram would operate better with an AMD CPU than 3200mhz.

Finally, when I decided to go with the cheaper 10700K instead, I didn't think twice and I bought the 3600mhz CL18 ram. Afterall, the 3200mhz CL16 were roughly the same price.

But I have been reading some articles that state for AMD go with the higher frequency, while for Intel go with the lower latency. Thus, meaning I would have gotten better performance from 3200 CL16 ram with my 10700K vs. 3600 CL18.

So, those of you that know better and/or have actually done some testing, what is the answer. Would the performance be the same? Or which ram would have been the better option to buy with the 10700K?

Might not really matter as I am not having any performance issues, I don't think. Just curious what the better option would have been.

In hindsight, however, I think I should have spent the extra $35 or $40 and went with 3600 CL16 ram.

[tiger305]

according to this formula , looks about even... I'd just stay with the ram you have, since your
not having any problems with it ...
https://www.xbitlabs.com/ram-speed-calculator/

[Prof. Insanity]

As far as I know Intel has it sweet spot at 3200MHz and AMD has it sweet spot at 3600MHz currently.

3600MHz CL18 and 3200MHz CL16 has the same Ram Latency, 10 nanoseconds.

[ZeekAncient]

Oh nice. Yea that is pretty cool. So it looks about even then, 10ns for each set. So even having an Intel processor shouldn't make a difference then? According to this will be about 10ns for both right?

So is it just for AMD procs having the Infinity Fabric Clock that makes a difference? Because it runs at 1800mhz or something like that? And it is better if the ram matches that, 1800mhz, thus 3600mhz DDR.

And it looks like the 3600 CL16 would have been 8.9ns. So over 10% improvement. But maybe not worth paying 20% more.

I like this calculator.

Now having some 3600mhz CL14, that would have been 7.8ns. But those are well into the $200s for 32GB. Maybe not worth it.

[ZeekAncient]

Originalmente postado por Prof. Insanity:

As far as I know Intel has it sweet spot at 3200MHz and AMD has it sweet spot at 3600MHz currently.

3600MHz CL18 and 3200MHz CL16 has the same Ram Latency, 10 nanoseconds.

But my question was if 3200mhz is the sweat spot for Intel, that doesn't mean 3600mhz is gonna perform worse correct? I mean the Ram Latency is still the same as 3200mhz CL16.

[Prof. Insanity]

Originalmente postado por ZeekAncient:

Originalmente postado por Prof. Insanity:

As far as I know Intel has it sweet spot at 3200MHz and AMD has it sweet spot at 3600MHz currently.

3600MHz CL18 and 3200MHz CL16 has the same Ram Latency, 10 nanoseconds.

But my question was if 3200mhz is the sweat spot for Intel, that doesn't mean 3600mhz is gonna perform worse correct? I mean the Ram Latency is still the same as 3200mhz CL16.

It doesn't performe worse, but you also don't benefit from the additional 400MHz like a AMD CPU does where the impact is fairly noticeable.

[ZeekAncient]

I see, so since they were the same price, it didn't really matter if I went with the 3200 CL16 set or the 3600 CL18 set.

But I would have seen a performance increase if I went with the 3600 CL16 ram correct? I just don't know if it would have been worth the extra money.

[nullable]

Technically, in RAM intensive applications sure, you could see a bit of a benefit. But not enough where everyone is going to be calling for 3600 CL16 as a reasonable optimal target.

That's the thing, between diminishing returns and real world performance sometimes the differences in performance between modules at the high end just don't matter that much.

Heck you could use 2933mhz RAM in that machine and it would still run great.

[ZeekAncient]

Originalmente postado por Snakub Plissken:

Technically, in RAM intensive applications sure, you could see a bit of a benefit. But not enough where everyone is going to be calling for 3600 CL16 as a reasonable optimal target.

That's the thing, between diminishing returns and real world performance sometimes the differences in performance between modules at the high end just don't matter that much.

Heck you could use 2933mhz RAM in that machine and it would still run great.

I see. And technically Intel only really supports up to 2933mhz correct? I mean isn't anything over that considered overclocking? Even if the ram is advertised higher? I mean, you have to use the XMP profile to get it to work at the advertised speeds.

Actually, yeah. Here see on Intel's own site, for the 10700K, they list DDR4-2933 as the memory type.

https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/199335/intel-core-i710700k-processor-16m-cache-up-to-5-10-ghz.html

[Prof. Insanity]

Don't think too much about it, you got very good ram at this point. That 3600 CL16 will be better than 3200 CL16 is something you know probably the answer already for.

Without doing detailed testings, the performance increase will be so minimalistic that it's not worth the money for many normal users.

[ZeekAncient]

Originalmente postado por Prof. Insanity:

Don't think too much about it, you got very good ram at this point. That 3600 CL16 will be better than 3200 CL16 is something you know probably the answer already for.

Without doing detailed testings, the performance increase will be so minimalistic that it's not worth the money for many normal users.

Yeah you are right, lol. Overthinking it. I mean, I am not going to go out and spend $180 to replace my sticks that I paid $145.

[Prof. Insanity]

Originalmente postado por ZeekAncient:

Originalmente postado por Snakub Plissken:

Technically, in RAM intensive applications sure, you could see a bit of a benefit. But not enough where everyone is going to be calling for 3600 CL16 as a reasonable optimal target.

That's the thing, between diminishing returns and real world performance sometimes the differences in performance between modules at the high end just don't matter that much.

Heck you could use 2933mhz RAM in that machine and it would still run great.

I see. And technically Intel only really supports up to 2933mhz correct? I mean isn't anything over that considered overclocking? Even if the ram is advertised higher? I mean, you have to use the XMP profile to get it to work at the advertised speeds.

XMP is technically Overclocking, yes.
The Ram will take the optimal settings to run at the speeds it was advertised for by just switching the trigger.
Has however nothing to do with real Overclocking, where you do all the settings yourself manually and squeeze more out than XMP has to offer.

[ZeekAncient]

Maybe I will do a little research and see if I can get my sticks running at CL16. Probably wouldn't be worth anything though.

[Illusion of Progress]

The idea that AMD has a sweet spot with faster RAM and Intel has a sweet spot with slower RAM has no real evidence. It instead comes from the idea that AMD stands to "lose more" by not having RAM running with the Infinity Fabric, whereas on Intel this isn't a thing (and usually lower frequency RAM has lower timings on average so it's more that this balances out rather than Intel prefers timings over frequency, but they actually go hand in hand on both platforms and it's true that lower timings is better on both).

To the contrary if anything, as AMD loses benefits much above 3,600 MHz due to the fact that the Infinity Fabric won't run 1:1 too much above that, whereas, again, this is not a thing with Intel. If you look particularly at the Core i5 1x400 series, which is usually limited in RAM speeds (on practical platforms you'd pair it on anyway, since this limitation is removed on Z series motherboards but that's not a practical pairing for that CPU), you can see that Intel does stand to gain from faster RAM. The 10th generation is typically faster than Zen 2, but in the Core i5 10400 and Ryzen 5 3600 comparison, you can see the Zen 2 keeps pace and even outpaces it at times because of this, whereas that doesn't happen at other comparison points (for example, Core i7 10700K and Ryzen 7 3700X) although the lower boost clock of the Core i5 relative to its higher end counterparts is a big reason for the discrepancy too.

It's really going to vary in the real world and from application to application, but I want to say that if the frequency and timings "balance out" in response, I'd personally prefer the higher frequency anyway. If you were asking from a standpoint of nothing, I'd say there's a discussion to be had, but even then it's a wash, and since you already have 3,600 MHz CL18 then changing to 3,200 MHz CL 16 is sort of spending for nothing.

[_I_]

effectively its about the same

but intel used to favor low timings over high freq, now its about an ever trade


but for games its no difference at all, not enough would result in stuttering, but too much or extremely high freq will make no diff

for ram intensive tasks, there could be a small gain

[ZAP]

3600 CL18 is probably a higher quality kit. It's not just the CL to factor though but with the complete set of primary timings and voltage you can use to evaluate a kit. Anyways most likely you could tighten it to 3400 CL14 with little effort.

Here's an example of an excellent kit with a little headroom to go tighter and higher (DR B-die)
https://www.newegg.com/g-skill-32gb-288-pin-ddr4-sdram/p/N82E16820374149?quicklink=true