Conclusion

We left no stone unturned in approaching this review. We took the fastest AMD Ryzen processor model, the Ryzen 7 1800X, and paired it with a G.Skill Flare X DDR4 2x 8 GB memory kit, which is advertised by its makers as being recommended for AMD Ryzen processors. It was extremely easy to crank the kit's memory clock all the way up to DDR4-3200, with reasonably tight CL14 timings on an Aorus AX370-Gaming 5 motherboard. Adding to that, we used the latest stable build of Windows 10 with all its updates installed and the latest NVIDIA GeForce graphics drivers for our game tests. We did away with the synthetic memory bandwidth and latency tests and focused on how the various memory clock speeds translate into performance across our benchmarks.

We are happy to report that you can save some money by choosing a slower DDR4-2133 or DDR4-2666 memory, at least until DDR4-3200 or higher memory becomes more affordable. You lose practically no performance to slower memory on the Ryzen platform, when averaged across our CPU tests. The fastest memory configuration in our bench, DDR4-3200 CL14, is about 3.1 percent faster than the slowest DDR4-2133 configuration. In specific tests, the differences in performance can be larger than the average. WinRAR handles a 1.5 GB compression job 5 seconds faster on DDR4-3200 than DDR4-2133, for example.

The story repeats in our game-tests, where the biggest difference, all of 5.5 percent, takes place at the lowest resolution (1920 x 1080), while the difference is a meager 0.8 percent at 4K Ultra HD. It's important to point out here that at 1080p, games become more CPU-limited and faster memory is somewhat rewarding (again, 5.5 percent). At 4K Ultra HD, the game is more GPU-limited, and hence, the differences aren't as pronounced. We kept game settings constant at all tested resolutions. We didn't want to test on 720p resolution or lower because nobody with a Ryzen-powered machine will game on that resolution.

It came as a bit of surprise to us that memory speed didn't even affect performance of CPU-intensive tests, such as video-encoding in which large data streams are being pushed in and out of the main memory. There was a slight performance drop with slower memory in 7-Zip file compression, another test where vast amounts of data is run through the memory. Productivity apps, too, see only minor performance differences between the various memory configurations.

So should you make do with slower memory? Memory prices are hot, but the price differences among the various speeds isn't huge. Looking at these results, you could buy a 2x 8 GB DDR4-2400 kit for $100 or a DDR4-2666 kit that's about $15 costlier. DDR4-3200 could be about $40 costlier, which results in a 40 percent increase in price for a 3-5 percent performance uplift. If you're alright with that, then maybe spend another $50 to pick up a 32 GB DDR4-2133 kit for future-proofing (16 GB is sufficient for high-end gaming today).