I'm curious about the performance differences between DDR5 CL30 and CL36 RAM. Is the performance boost significant enough to justify paying a bit more for CL30?
5 Answers
Most people say the performance difference is pretty minor, maybe 1-3%. If you’re looking at a $1500 build, spending an extra $10-$15 on CL30 could make sense, but for gaming at 1440p or 4k, the impact is even smaller.
If you’re asking here, you could probably just stick with CL36. Most won’t notice much difference in real-world usage, especially for single-user scenarios like gaming.
You’d really only see a performance difference in specific CPU-heavy applications, like those running large databases or NAS servers, not so much in typical gaming situations.
Some folks argue the sweet spot is CL36. If CL30 is much more expensive where you are, CL36 might be the better pick without a significant drop in performance.
It really depends on your other components. If you have an x3d CPU, lower latency RAM might not affect you as much due to its larger cache. For regular gaming, you probably wouldn’t notice much difference between CL30 and CL36.
I’m running a 9600x, so I guess I’m less affected by RAM latency!
Right? I wish I had picked CL36 because it was cheaper, but it’s all good in the end.