Stick with old CL15 B-die's, or get with new ram?

Im getting a new laptop, something I dont do often, and I have noticed however is that 3200mhz ram seems to be a common use with retailers lately compared to 2666 from years ago. I have the option of not getting ram at all, but I want some for my older laptop. Its often said that ram doesnt make a difference for intel cpu's, but I remember hearing in the past on how Ryzen cpu's benefit heavily from faster ram. which compared to my old ram (hyperx 2666mhz) is significantly slower, despite the lower latency to speed value.

On another note, I keep hearing that only the 32gb chips are dual ranked and double sided on these newer samsung and micron sticks, and that even 8gb sticks are literally single sided with 4 dies and perform significantly less then a dual sided 8 die stick. I am not surprised manufacturers are doing this as it saves money, but it is something I would like to avoid.

Of the performance 3200mhz ram, ballistix seems to win that with 16-18-18 timings, but I am hearing mixed results even with xmp laptops as to whether the ballistix sticks will even run to full speed and latency at these settings. But is Nanosecond cas latency even really a factor anymore as people used to talk about?

In short I just want to know if 3200mhz CL22 or CL16 ram would be noticeable in performance compared to my old dual ranked CL15 2666mhz hyperx B-die's since these new 3200mhz sticks are cheap. I am willing to dish out some cash for the ballistix 3200 CL16 sticks and leave the old sticks in my older notebook, but I would hate to loose out on being dual ranked and spending more then I have too. I dont suppose however if anyone knows if older B-die sodimms can clock up to 3200mhz at good timings? I havent kept up on processor changes either.

On a side note or rant, I paid 400 for these hyperx sticks... and there was no "chip shortage"... that remorse or whatever is real.

 

Wether a laptop RAM will run at full frequency will depend on how the BIOS is set up.

For most modern laptop RAM sticks, in order to achieve advertised latencies and speed, the laptop needs to support XMP profiles... if it doesn't, then the RAM stick will default to JEDEC speed and timings.
This is why I'd rather try to find RAM sticks whose JEDEC is already set to low timings and high speeds (and those can be difficult to find). At that point its a matter of ensuring your laptop manufacturer made sure the RAM slots will operate at those settings.... some (such as in the case of my Acer laptop) don't... and this is mainly due to lack of BIOS support and/or Acer's choice of installing hw limited RAM slots that simply can't operate at higher speeds - although they CAN if Ryzen Master is used (but I rather don't want to because if I choose wrong RAM settings, it can bork the BIOS and create a dead weight).
So, its basically down to how the BIOS is set up. Most laptops didn't have XMP profiles enabled, nor was the option supported in the BIOS for the simple reason Laptop OEM's lock up their BIOS (usually).

The 3200Mhz CL16 vs CL15 266Mhz... there will be an uptick in performance if your new laptop has Ryzen in it... and of course if the BIOS supports XMP profiles

CL16 vs CL15 isn't much of a difference, but 3200Mz vs 2666Mhz does create a marginal difference.
If you will have Ryzen, then you might be looking at 15% performance increase in games.

 

I should have mentioned its an xmp laptop, and a I7-10870h. I was looking at Ryzen options but went with the clearance intel.

Assuming this is an intel system, what difference am I looking at if its down to 2666mhz CL15 vs 3200mhz CL16? Or is that benefit mainly just going to be for ryzen platforms as people always say? I want to say that I can overclock these to 3200mhz or do some xmp work like that, as they have no profile going past 2666mhz natively.

 

In all honesty, latest ryzen's dependency on system RAM have reduced by quite a bit for some tasks... but since its an Intel system which does support XMP profiles, 2666 mhz vs 3200 Mhz is about 16% difference. Not much (or at all) something that should make a huge impact.
I'd opt for 3200 Mhz Option just because its newer.
If you had 2999MhZ RAM that operates at say CL17... I wouldn't change that because there wouldn't be much of a difference in performance.

Either way, I don't think 2666MHz vs 3200Mhz will cause performance problems wether you're on Intel or AMD.

 

Memory timings are important, but loose timings are more detrimental on Ryzen systems because of higher latency. Running looser timings on Intel doesn't affect latency in such a dramatic manner, but 12th Gen Intel with the new P and E core silliness seems to introduce high latency issues similar Ryzen. 3200 CL22 laptop memory is more of a gimmick than a benefit because the timings are absurdly loose and cancel out benefits of running 3200. Because most laptops do not allow custom memory configuration, XMP or memory voltage adjustments, sloppy loose timings are needed to maintain the wimpy 1.200V standard and still be bootable. Booting 3200 at lower CL would become problematic at 1.200V for most systems.

 

Well I dont have access to the subtimings of 3200mhz in either CL22 or CL16 ballistix to compare, which might yield surprising result, but the ram that will be going in is hyperx 2666 CL15. The Nanosecond latency of these is 11.25, while the 3200 CL22 is 13.75, and that is not taking into account rank which the hyperx chips will be dual ranked 16 dies a chip, while just about all 3200mhz chips are going to be single rank 8 die or 4 die as I am seeing.

Can you modify ram chip profiles in XMP, other then manually entering in the values? I would like to see what H5AN8G8NMFR die's are capable of. I cant find much into on them. I will have to double check if this is even the right die as the oem might have switched dies around and I am only going off an image I found of the same model.

I am only really interested in all of this because I havent kept up with any of this and years, and I need a few extra sticks.

 

You can modify XMP profiles using Thaiphoon Burner as long as the BIOS has the option for SPD Write Enable. Unless you have a PremaMod BIOS that probably is not available on a laptop. The menu option is usually hidden unless you have an enthusiast-grade desktop motherboard. If the BIOS has the option for custom memory timings, the best approach, even on a desktop, is to boot from XMP as a baseline starting point and begin tweaking the timings and increasing the memory voltage to improve performance.

 

That last option will be what I will have to do. Are you aware of anyone that compiled what is the most they can get out of die's? What I have are Sk Hynix H5AN8G8NMFR die's in hyperx impact sodimm's., which for whatever reason I thought where B-dies. I have seen good results with desktop dimms for these die's on forums, but I am not sure about sodimm's as I cant find much except one person here who I contacted.

 

No such info exists to my knowledge. Memory is silicon and varies in quality like a CPU or GPU, so you play the lottery. I have 3 different memory kits with identical Samsung B-die part numbers and they all overclock differently, have different voltage requirements and functional limits. You also have differences in IMC among CPUs. In the end you tune each system to perform to the best of it's unique ability. Then, you also have thermal limitations. One of my B-die kits is very stable at 4500 CL16, as long as I keep the modules around 40°C or less. Once they go past that, stability is lost unless I tone down the timings or lower the clock speed. You also have to factor in variance between motherboards that involve things like their traces. For example, a memory kit that runs 3600 CL11 in one motherboard might only run 3600 CL15 installed in a system with a different motherboard. There is no one size fits all formula.

The best you can do to influence this is purchase memory with the highest specs you can find. You will go further tweaking modules with the highest rated clock speeds and the lowest rated timings. And, they will usually cost a lot more.

I haven't had much success pushing SK Hynix modules to significantly higher levels of performance.

 

Well my main reason for getting new ram was actually because I am giving away my older system, however I just got some decent single ranks to put in, so I think I will keep with the current 2666mhz sticks. According to some reports, people have gotten them to 2933 and 3200 in good timings with a manual entering of them in xmp. What is also nice is that these are dual ranked, while all the newer ballistix/hyperx chips in 8gb and 16gb capacities are all single ranked, so a definitive advantage there without spending 100's extra just to have dual ranked 32gb sticks. Any suggestions for how to go about overclocking? They seem binned well enough already given they are already doing cl15 at 2666mhz, but its the subtimings I am concerned about since I am not sure where to find what people are doing.

 

Well here are CL16 sticks that do 3200 at a 1.2v boot. I dont know why they two versions of the same single rank one

Tell me, what do you think of these two ram kits? One is single rank and boots at 1.2v at CL16, while the other is dual rank and boots at 1.2v at CL18. From what user, they where able to get them down to much lower latency and all at 1.2v. From what it seems, these are the ones binned enough for doing good performance at 1.2v at 3200mhz, though I am curious to get your thoughts about this hynix C-die

https://www.reddit.com/r/AMDLaptops/comments/rljtzn/fastest_laptop_memory_ddr4_hynix_cdie/

https://www.gskill.com/product/2/19...DIMMDDR4-3200MHz-CL16-18-18-1.20V16GB-(2x8GB)

https://www.gskill.com/product/2/19...IMMDDR4-3200MHz-CL18-18-18-1.20V32GB-(2x16GB)