Question 16GB C16 or 32GB C18?

[In2Photos]

My son is building his first computer, he's been using a Dell for the last 2 years. Primary use will be gaming and internet/watching youtube. He may get into some streaming at some point. He is 13 and wants RGB. He likes the Corsair Vengeance Pro RGB kit. We had settled on 3600 speed to go with a Ryzen 5600x and 16GB in capacity. I found a C16 (16-19-19-36) kit for $109. But there is also a 32GB C18 (18-22-22-42) kit for $135. My initial thought is to go with the 32GB kit as the difference in speed will be minimal, but the extra capacity could be handy down the road. Thoughts?

16GB Kit https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B08PW4QZP2/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o03_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1

32GB Kit https://smile.amazon.com/CORSAIR-Ve...ix=corsair+vengence+pro,electronics,85&sr=1-7

 

[CakeMonster]

Definitely 32GB, 16GB is getting risky with normal usage + a newer game, and especially with streaming on top. The effect of the timings is miniscule, and only practically relevant in competitive gaming, even then a very small edge in limited scenarios.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

More RAM is always preferable to faster RAM. Unless you have a specific case where latency really matters.

Also, since there are more ranks on larger capacity DIMMs, they'll perform better. A (two DIMM) 32GB kit should be dual rank DIMMs*, so they'll perform better then a single rank 16GB kit. More ranks = more parallelism can be extracted = better performance in most workloads.

*If you're willing to search a bit, you may be able to find some older 8GB dual rank DIMMs, so you could get quad rank with 4 DIMMs. Of course you'll sacrifice frequency, so the trade off may not be worth it. There isn't a perfect solution, so you'll need to work out which is the best solution for you.

 

[In2Photos]

Thanks. We'll go with the 32gb kit.

 

[Shmee]

Yeah makes sense, 32GB is a good amount for coming games and with streaming in mind. One thing that might also help with that, would be to go to a 5800X, as the extra 2 cores might help in the long run with games, and with streaming at the same time. Also, the 5800X has a bit higher frequency. The 5800X has been on sale recently for not much more than the 5600X was, just got to look for the deals.

 

[In2Photos]

He's already over budget. He plays on a 4790 with a 1660 now so this should be quite the upgrade. The 1660 is the only thing he's keeping until GPU prices come back to Earth.