I'm looking to upgrade to an AM5 setup, but the skyrocketing prices of RAM are making me rethink my options. I've heard that aiming for CL30 latency with DDR5 RAM is ideal, but I'm wondering if the differences between CL30, CL32, and CL36 are really noticeable in practical terms, especially considering the cost. Is it worth going for CL30, or should I settle for something with a higher latency?
5 Answers
The differences in performance are so slight that unless you're overclocking or tweaking your settings, it won't matter much. And every RAM type is seeing price hikes—some are double what they used to be. I’d suggest waiting for prices to drop before committing to AM5.
What are you upgrading from? If your current setup is still running well, you might want to hold off a bit. My i9-12900k on DDR4 is still doing great, and with the way RAM prices are, I plan to stick with it for now. Plus, I think this AI hype will die down eventually, just like previous trends.
Keep in mind that X3D CPUs aren’t as affected by RAM timings compared to others. If you're getting a 7800X3D, going with CL36 might be just as good as CL30. You could always tweak the voltage and timings further if you want to push it.
From what I've seen, the price differences between latencies aren’t that significant. It might be best just to compare reviews or benchmarks directly online to see if the lower latency is worth it for your setup.
Honestly, at the current prices, CL30 just doesn't seem worth it. The performance difference compared to CL36 is minimal—just a few percentage points. It only made sense when prices were closely matched, but now? Not so much.
I'm moving from a Ryzen 7 5800X to a Ryzen 7 7800X3D. I found a really good deal on the CPU, but I haven't bought the motherboard or RAM yet.