[SOLVED] RAM speed for Ryzen 5 3600

[slintyflinty]

Hi
I want to upgrade my old system

• Intel i5-4590
• Gigabyte G1 Gaming GTX970
• Corsair CS550M
• 8 Gigs of HyperX Fury RAM
• MSI H97 PC Mate
• NZXT S340

I want to upgrade CPU and GPU

• Ryzen 5 3600
• 16 GB RAM
• XFX Radeon RX 5700 DD Ultra
• MSI B450M PRO-M2 MAX

I have a few questions:

1. Does RAM frequency impact the performance with the new Ryzen series? I was researching online and found on this site saying that it's best to go with a 3200MHz overclockable RAM if you're on a budget. Is it right?
2. Is 550W enough for this system?

 

[cdrkf]

Hi
I want to upgrade my old system

• Intel i5-4590
• Gigabyte G1 Gaming GTX970
• Corsair CS550M
• 8 Gigs of HyperX Fury RAM
• MSI H97 PC Mate
• NZXT S340

I want to upgrade CPU and GPU

• Ryzen 5 3600
• 16 GB RAM
• XFX Radeon RX 5700 DD Ultra
• MSI B450M PRO-M2 MAX

I have a few questions:

1. Does RAM frequency impact the performance with the new Ryzen series? I was researching online and found on this site saying that it's best to go with a 3200MHz overclockable RAM if you're on a budget. Is it right?
2. Is 550W enough for this system?

1: It depends on what you are doing with the machine - for work software ram speed makes very little difference (e.g. video editing, 3D rendering etc), however ram speed is important for game performance. What is most important is low latency, so tight timings (i.e. low CL numbers) are as important as the speed of the kit itself (so for example a 3200 Mhz CL14 kit might actually work out faster than a 3800 CL18 kit in games). There is a nice video from Hardware Unboxed looking at all of this:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iH3qq_mSxTM


2: 550W is plenty for this type of setup, provided that it is a good quality power supply. There are lots of very cheap supplies that you really need to stay away from (often sold as 'OEM' units with high ratings but these lack many basic features and often cannot actually supply the stated values). Toms have a good guide on some decent units to look at: https://www.tomshardware.com/uk/reviews/best-psus,4229.html

 

[Third-Eye]

Hi
I want to upgrade my old system

• Intel i5-4590
• Gigabyte G1 Gaming GTX970
• Corsair CS550M
• 8 Gigs of HyperX Fury RAM
• MSI H97 PC Mate
• NZXT S340

I want to upgrade CPU and GPU

• Ryzen 5 3600
• 16 GB RAM
• XFX Radeon RX 5700 DD Ultra
• MSI B450M PRO-M2 MAX

I have a few questions:

1. Does RAM frequency impact the performance with the new Ryzen series? I was researching online and found on this site saying that it's best to go with a 3200MHz overclockable RAM if you're on a budget. Is it right?
2. Is 550W enough for this system?

You can gain some fps with higher speed and lower latency kits, but you probably won't notice much of a difference. I would just look for 3200 CL16 or 3600 CL18 for the cheaper kits and 3200 CL14 and 3600 CL16 for the higher cost kits. If you want to run a dual rank memory configuration using more than 16GB in either 2x16GB or 4x8GB, you will likely have a better chance running 3200 CL14 to CL16 without issues on the motherboard you picked, but a 32GB 3600 CL16 kit could possibly run at 3466 CL16 stable.

If you want to mess with overclocking, there are many lower and higher speed kits that can cost less than a high end 3200/3600 kit. You won't be able to use XMP to set lower speeds with something like 4000 kit, so you will have to manually input the primary timings you want. Fortunately you picked an MSI motherboard which should have a feature in the bios called Memory Try It, used for setting quick memory overclocks and timings with pre-selected settings.

Right now I'm using two low quality 2x8GB 4000 CL19 kits running in a 4x8GB config at 3600 CL16. So far the highest I have been able to run both kits together stable is 3733 CL16 with my Ryzen 5 5600X. These two kits cost me $200 total back in Oct/Dec 2019, when a 2x8GB 3600 CL16 kit was $125-145, but those were mostly higher quality kits.