Is Fast RAM Pointless For Gaming?! | Crucial Ballistix MAX RGB RAM Review

AMD's Ryzen has always and still does love fast memory, but Crucial's sexy Ballistix MAX RGB RAM kit might just be TOO fast.
► Check out the new Ryzen 5000G series chips here: www.amd.com/en/processors/ryzen-with-graphics
► In South Africa? Get your Ryzen 5000G series chips or any of the Ballistix MAX kits at Takealot: www.takealot.com/all?_sb=1&_r=1&_si=5e7ecf828fefb2eb164e0fd0580b8745&qsearch=amd%20ryzen%205000
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- Crucial Ballistix MAX RGB 4400 MHz DDR4 DRAM: amzn.to/3eG4Tv7
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- Crucial Ballistix MAX RGB 4400 MHz DDR4 DRAM: amzn.to/3EuOUtW
- Crucial Ballistix RGB 3200 MHz DDR4 DRAM: amzn.to/3EtNTSY
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- Crucial Ballistix RGB 3200 MHz DDR4 DRAM: amzn.to/3sAfako
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- Crucial Ballistix RGB 3200 MHz DDR4 DRAM: amzn.to/3sAWgtU
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Timestamps:
00:00 - Intro
00:52 - Sponsor
01:55 - Specifications
02:36 - Design and Build Quality
04:06 - RGB Lighting and Customization
05:54 - Testing Information
06:40 - Benchmarks
08:13 - Benchmark analysis
10:13 - Conclusion
11:15 - Outro

[@dionmiller8547]

I just finished watching the video. You should have tried lowering the ram to 4000mhz(Ballstix Max comes in that too) and raising the infinity fabric to 2000mhz. You might've even had some room to tighten the timings.

[@TheTechTank]

I actually did. I have a couple pages in my OC textbook filled with different configurations I tried and that was one of the ones that kept failing, and when it didn't fail it was extremely unstable and inconsistent.

[@idhamproaqw98]

Bad memory controller on cpu side probably? I bought a 4400 Mhz, 19-19-19-19-39, 1.45V Viper Steel 8x2(I got it for 80$) kit for my ryzen 5 3600 (ik it is bad), I cant use xmp and I have to manually tune my ram to 3800 Mhz, 1900 Mhz fclk and with the timing around 16-16-16-16-28 and 1.35V at first, I lowered some more on my subtiming and it performed great. I got around 64-65 ms for memory test on AIDA64

[@NetNeelsie]

Thank you. Enjoy your holiday.

[@sfsen]

Hi, I need a new ram kit, but for 1 month, it has to run a A320 motherboard, before switching over to z690. Will Crucial Ballistix MAX post on Asus ex A320. Speed doesn't matter,just have to run.

[@TheTechTank]

Hi, yip it'll run fine as long as you keep speed/voltage reasonable, or just don't enable XMP. If you don't change any settings, the motherboard should default to settings that work.

[@Mearzsy]

This isn’t directly related to this, but is the crucial ballistix 16gb cl16 ddr4 dual channel? I’m looking to build a pc with a 5600g waiting for price drop in gpu, thanks

[@TheTechTank]

Dual channel means two memory modules in the correct slots, so if you only have one 16GB module, then you're running single channel. If you have two 8GB modules and have them in the correct slots, then you'll be running dual channel.

[@Mearzsy]

@@TheTechTank ok thanks mate

[@rokku87]

When I bought my 5800x I made sure to get 3600 MHz CL16 memory because I knew achieving a 1-1 of 1800 megahertz on the FCLK was much more realistic. It would be very interesting to compare numbers with my kit versus what you have! Awesome content really enjoy your style please keep it coming.

[@TonyD_za]

I made the same decision with my 5600x for the same reason, and it was relatively cheap too!

[@zamir8041]

Is Cl18 still good for it?

[@TheTechTank]

I really appreciate that, man! I actually have a big RAM project coming up that I think is going to be super interesting!

[@dragtr0n]

Bro i got 3000mhz cl16 corsair Ram. I ordered 5600x for upgrade. Is it fine? And how much should be ne flcl mhz??

[@TheTechTank]

It should be totally fine, 3000 is plenty fast enough. Whatever your motherboard's XMP profile automatically sets it at should be fine, or try to set the FCLK to 1500 if it doesn't.

[@dragtr0n]

@@TheTechTank Thank you so much for your prompt reply

[@waseemh3863]

Also Also, that shirt looks sick bro. Nice

[@TheTechTank]

Haha, thanks man, it's basically falling apart at this point unfortunately. Got it about six years ago or more at a flea market.

[@salty6902]

I bought ryzen 5 5600g, and im planning to buy ballistix 2x8 3200mhz. It will work smoothly right?

[@TheTechTank]

Very smoothly, it's just memory over 4000 MHz+ that you shouldn't buy for Ryzen.

[@salty6902]

@@TheTechTank but its fine right? I only play valorant. I think the fps is alright for now wo gpu

[@TheTechTank]

@@salty6902 Yes, it's totally fine.

[@JayzBeerz]

i run 3733MHz on my 5950x and 5900x and it runs great.

[@TheTechTank]

Nice, that should run like a dream with those two chips. I'm so jealous of that 5950X 😍

[@JayzBeerz]

@@TheTechTank The 5950X is down to $599.99 in the US. I saw it a few times for $549.99 the past few weeks.

[@necktwister666]

most 3000 / 3200 cl14 kits do 3800 / 4000 cl16

[@dainluke]

5000 18-25-25-23-48-2T beat out 3800 13-17-17-34-1T in 3DMark and synthetics, and gaming performance was practically identical. Access latency was slightly in favour of 3800C13. In that regard I can’t totally agree with you. I do think that dual rank would be more ideal and a dual rank 3800C13 would’ve demolished the 5000 config. Obviously, dual rank 5000 would not be possible, even on a S-tier 5900X like I had at the time. Speaking of S-tier, it’s funny how I got handed practically the worst 12900K on Earth this time around. Really makes me wish I had never sold my 5900X.

[@TheTechTank]

Interesting stuff. However the point wasn't so much that the MAX isn't performing high enough, but that it performs very similarly on Ryzen even though it's significantly more expensive. If you don't mind me asking, why'd your jump from the 5900X to the 12900K? I'd personally expect to stick with a chip like the 5900X for like five years or so, lol.

[@dainluke]

@@TheTechTank In that regard you are correct, I can’t really argue with that. It’s just that there’s a bit of a misconception that Gear 2/1:2 memory configurations are totally horrible. Funnily enough, currently in South Africa, the distributor that does Crucial are trying to get rid of stock, so you can purchase the 16GB 4400C19’s for the price of a 3600C18 G.Skill kit, and the 32GB kit is a very reasonable price, and cheaper than the other 32GB G.Skill kits as well. They’re basically giving them away. To be honest I sold the rig I owned with that chip (at least the core parts of it) for a stupid reason. Once I realised I had made a mistake I began to repurchase component. I ended up on a Comet Lake setup as I’d always wanted to try Comet Lake and I got some decent deals. I was enjoying my 10850K and the board I had was super nice and super cheap, and I further scored on some really good Samsung B-die. Like an idiot one day, I saw the Z5s listed on Wootware for MSRP and I decided that I wanted to go for Alder Lake with D5 even though I had told so many people why it’s a bad idea, and it was. I’m struggling with memory training along with a lot of other D5 owners. I dunno why this is happening, but some of the ADL chips just cannot train high speed bins (5600C36) for instance. Prior to this, the BIOS available when I originally built was so broken for me that my system was unusable. The latest one thankfully fixed that. Alder Lake to me has been a terrible launch and a terrible platform. The issues I had getting my friend’s DDR4 to work at higher speeds, and the stuff I’ve seen for myself and people I’ve met online leads me to believe that Intel were allowing through worse silicon on average to keep the prices down. It’s a bit of a wild theory but it would explain a lot. I mainly wanted the new stuff for benchmarking and possibly to make content with the new Z5s, but I also wanted to see what highly tuned D5 along with the 12900K would do in older titles that would’ve benefited from higher IPC. From what I’ve seen, IPC on this platform is insane and I was curious as to if it would fix games like Sniper Ghost Warrior 3 for instance.

[@daniwalmsley611]

Yeah ryzen is really dependent on keeping that 1:1 infinity fabric, (81% of cpus can run 3777MT/s or higher 63.8% 3800MT/s 38.5% 4000MT/s) you have push your memory much faster to overcome the performance penalty of decoupling the infinity fabric. Latency is definitely king but remember a doubling in timings = half latency so 4000 MT/s CL20 = 2000MT/s CL10 both having a latency of 0.005 seconds (CL/MTs=Latency in seconds) With a 4200 kit your probably best keeping 1:1 with infinity fabric even if that means running your memory slower than its stock xmp, and tightening timings best you can. The trident z rgb 4000MT/s CL15 8gb dimms are amaIng for amd barely being beaten by the Crucial balistix max 5100MT/s CL19 in latency and costing 1/4 of the price (and with rgb) but I know that you can really push the micron die with MT/s I haven't seen whats been done with CL timings though if you don't push MTs

[@waseemh3863]

Fun fact... When I first moved to a system that needed ddr4 there was a ram shortage. I couldn't buy any particular fancy sticks so I ended up retrofitting old ddr2 server memory heatsinks onto a pair of otherwise pretty forgetting looking (and performing) ram sticks.

[@TheTechTank]

Now that's a big brain move. I love repurposing old hardware for new projects too. I remember that DDR shortage, wasn't that back during UFD Tech's SA era?

[@waseemh3863]

@@TheTechTank Yip, it was definitely around then.

[@TheTechTank]

@@waseemh3863 Yeah that was definitely not the time to buy new RAM, the pricing was insane. Still not as insane as the GPU prices now though 😭

[@SauvageHeske]

I am speed

[@TheTechTank]

😂 I can't remember the last time you weren't first. One day I'll have a trophy made for you!

[@SauvageHeske]

@@TheTechTank 😂just showing support man, it is really inspiring and hope you don't forget me when you blow up😂

[@waseemh3863]

Hi there. High there. Heye there. :-)

[@L91]

Cinebench R23 doesn't really care about RAM speed so pointless comparison 🙄. Crucial Ballistix Max 4400MHz kit is worse out of the box, due to it's poor XMP Profile for Ryzen. But definitely better than your other kits. Plus have built in temp sensor. I don't think you have much knowledge of what makes a good RAM kit. These Ballistix Max Kits are cherry picked dies from Micron and 💯 better than your other kits. All you need to do is little fine tuning which can be done easily within a day or two with 0 knowledge to begin with 😉, tune those kits below 4000MHz and guarantee they are better. At the same time, your better off getting Crucial Ballistix 3600MHz C16 kits if your just care about gaming. XMP Profiles are bad in general vs little fine tuning 🙂

[@Wookiestick]

I'm new to Overclocking. I got the BLM2K8G44C19U4BL ( Crucial DDR4-4400 PC4-35200 CL 19-19-19-43 ). I am discouraged as my "slower" 3600 kit is faster in both read and latency and matches it roughly in write. What settings should I set for BIOS on my asus rog strix b550-f gaming WIFI? I have heard 3800 may be the way to go.

[@L91]

@@Wookiestick depends on your CPU?