My system is built around a Ryzen 7 5800X3T, RTX 5070, ASUS TUF Gaming B550-Plus WiFi II motherboard, MSI A750GL power supply, and SSD storage. The only older component is my memory: a 2x8GB HyperX Fury DDR4-3200 kit running at CL22. Some games have severe stuttering and poor 1% lows, and memory usage often gets close to 16GB with other apps open. I tried increasing the memory speed, but at 3600 MT/s the timings loosen to CL25, and I have not been able to tighten them manually. Resize BAR is already enabled, and the modules are installed in the recommended slots. I can buy a 32GB 2x16GB XPG Gammix D10 DDR4-3200 kit rated at CL16-20-20 for about 180 CAD. Would that be a worthwhile upgrade, or should I specifically look for a 32GB DDR4-3600 CL16 kit? Could either option noticeably improve my stutters and 1% lows at 1440p?
3 Answers
Moving from 16GB to 32GB is probably the most useful upgrade here. Even if the game itself is not using all 16GB, Windows, browser tabs, Discord, and background processes can push the system into memory pressure and cause stutters. A 2x16GB DDR4-3200 CL16 kit should feel better than your current 2x8GB CL22 kit, and the difference from 3600 CL16 is usually much smaller than the benefit of having enough capacity.
Make sure the new modules go in the motherboard's A2 and B2 slots, which are normally the second and fourth slots from the CPU. After installing them, enable the memory profile in BIOS and verify that the system is actually running at the advertised speed and timings. Also check temperatures, GPU and CPU usage, and frame-time graphs, since not every stutter is caused by RAM.
A 2x16GB DDR4-3600 CL16 kit is a good target for Ryzen 5000 if the price is reasonable, but do not overpay expecting a dramatic improvement over 3200 CL16. The important part is getting two matched modules, enabling XMP or DOCP, and checking stability. Your current CL22 memory is relatively slow, so the tighter timings on the 3200 kit would still be an improvement.
I tried running the current kit faster, but it ends up around CL25 at 3600 and gets even looser at the higher profile speed, so I am leaning toward replacing it rather than tuning it further.
Resize BAR is already enabled, so memory capacity and the current slow timings are more likely areas worth addressing. I would upgrade to 32GB first and then troubleshoot frame times if the stutters remain.