Question Needing advice on completing my newest build - RAM questions

[chrisr34000]

Dear system builders,

the time has come to upgrade my beloved oc'd Intel i5-2500K build and I need your advice.

I currently have the following system:

CPU: Intel i5-2500K oc'd @ 4,5 Ghz
cooler: Scythe Mugen v.2 with Arctic Silver MX4
RAM: 4 x 4 GB Ripjaws DDR3 800 Mhz
Mainboard: Asus P8P67
SSD: Samsung 850 Evo 250 GB
HDD: 1 x WD Gold 6 TB, 1 x WD Gold 10 TB
case: Nanoxia Deep Silence v. 1
PSU: Seasonic S12II 330W
GPU: Geforce GT 1030 2 GB
sound: Asus Xonar DX PCIe card + external headphones DAC (Audio-GD compass)
monitor: Dell UltraSharp U3415W 34"
OS: Windows 10 Pro

This system is my personal desktop machine. I am mainly using it to browse the internet, to edit Photos with Photoshop once in a while and as a 24/7 fileserver for my Nvidia Shield and other devices / computers the home network. I do keep a lot of firefox sessions with many tabs open and I want to keep doing this without experiencing lag, as I do know. I am not gaming at all, nor do I intend to on this machine.
I plan the following upgrade:

CPU: Ryzen 9 3900 X (already bought)
Cooler: Noctua-DH15
Mainboard: MSI Tomahawk x570 WIFI
RAM: DDR4 32 GB, either 3200 or 3600 Mhz
SSD: Samsung 980 Pro 500 GB (already bought)
case, PSU, GPU, sound: same as above

My expectations from this systen are that I can open and use many programs at the same time (many browser sessions, Photoshop, other tools), without experiencing any lag or freezes.
I am still relatively unsure what RAM to choose and have following questions:

1. What CL should I aim at? Does it really matter if I get CL14 or 16 or 18 for my purposes? I want to auto-OC the Ryzen, maybe tweak it manually to get an even better OC. RGB is not important to men.
2. Is it important to get Samsung B-dies? I noticed that these sticks have a lower latency, but that does it really matter in real life applications? Is it worth the price premium?
3. Do Samsung B-dies have a better mainboard compatiblity? Or does this not play a big factor and I should just get something from the QVL list and this would be fine?
4. If I get two 16 GB RAM sticks and I would want to upgrade in a few months to 48 GB RAM by adding 2 x 8 GB RAM, is this easily doable? Or do I have to match the kits really well (same vendor, same timings, same chips)?

It is important for me to get a kit which gets along very well with my chosen motherboard. I don't want to end up building the system, get no POST and have to RMA the RAM and get another. I'd rather go for something which is being successfully used by many others. Also I don't want to go overboard with the budget. If the lower latency is not worth the money, I'd rather save here. It should also be a choice, which leaves room for an easy upgrade to 48 GB or 64 GB in the near future.
Would I go wrong with something like the Crucial Ballistix 32GB, DDR4-3600, CL16-18-18-38 (BL2K16G36C16U4R)? Or do I need to invest more?

Thank you very much for help!

 

[Muadib]

Did you look at the QVL list for your motherboard?

MAG X570 TOMAHAWK WIFI | RETURN TO HONOR

Military style with Pre-installed IO shielding, tuned for better performance by Core Boost, DDR4 Boost, M.2 Shield Frozr, Wi-Fi 6, Frozr Heatsink Design, Lightning Gen4

www.msi.com

 

[SamMaster]

I have the exact same board with a 5600X. I got myself 2x16 GB of RAM from Team at 3200 CL16. I set it on XMP in the BIOS and it runs quite well (my previous system was an i5 2400 non-K, so big speed difference). I found it on sale and just had to jump on it.

If you want faster memory, you will pay a premium for better latency or speed, and the performance difference isn't that great. You'll see a bit more performance using quad ranks (four single rank modules or two dual rank modules) with AMD 3xxx and 5xxx systems, but when not gaming, the price most likely will not be worth the small performance gains.

Edit: syntax and grammar corrections

 

[killster1]

overclock wont do much for performance but will def use more power. ram with applications shouldn't matter a whole lot, i have machines with 2x8gb b die and 2x16 cl18 pc3200 i dont notice any difference and have yet to run out of memory with 16gb. get what ever ram you can afford with lowest cl. cl14 3200 will cost 40+$ more and get you what 1.2% better speed might be worth it.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Dear system builders,

the time has come to upgrade my beloved oc'd Intel i5-2500K build and I need your advice.

I currently have the following system:

CPU: Intel i5-2500K oc'd @ 4,5 Ghz
cooler: Scythe Mugen v.2 with Arctic Silver MX4
RAM: 4 x 4 GB Ripjaws DDR3 800 Mhz
Mainboard: Asus P8P67
SSD: Samsung 850 Evo 250 GB
HDD: 1 x WD Gold 6 TB, 1 x WD Gold 10 TB
case: Nanoxia Deep Silence v. 1
PSU: Seasonic S12II 330W
GPU: Geforce GT 1030 2 GB
sound: Asus Xonar DX PCIe card + external headphones DAC (Audio-GD compass)
monitor: Dell UltraSharp U3415W 34"
OS: Windows 10 Pro

This system is my personal desktop machine. I am mainly using it to browse the internet, to edit Photos with Photoshop once in a while and as a 24/7 fileserver for my Nvidia Shield and other devices / computers the home network. I do keep a lot of firefox sessions with many tabs open and I want to keep doing this without experiencing lag, as I do know. I am not gaming at all, nor do I intend to on this machine.
I plan the following upgrade:

CPU: Ryzen 9 3900 X (already bought)
Cooler: Noctua-DH15
Mainboard: MSI Tomahawk x570 WIFI
RAM: DDR4 32 GB, either 3200 or 3600 Mhz
SSD: Samsung 980 Pro 500 GB (already bought)
case, PSU, GPU, sound: same as above

My expectations from this systen are that I can open and use many programs at the same time (many browser sessions, Photoshop, other tools), without experiencing any lag or freezes.
I am still relatively unsure what RAM to choose and have following questions:

1. What CL should I aim at? Does it really matter if I get CL14 or 16 or 18 for my purposes? I want to auto-OC the Ryzen, maybe tweak it manually to get an even better OC. RGB is not important to men.
2. Is it important to get Samsung B-dies? I noticed that these sticks have a lower latency, but that does it really matter in real life applications? Is it worth the price premium?
3. Do Samsung B-dies have a better mainboard compatiblity? Or does this not play a big factor and I should just get something from the QVL list and this would be fine?
4. If I get two 16 GB RAM sticks and I would want to upgrade in a few months to 48 GB RAM by adding 2 x 8 GB RAM, is this easily doable? Or do I have to match the kits really well (same vendor, same timings, same chips)?

It is important for me to get a kit which gets along very well with my chosen motherboard. I don't want to end up building the system, get no POST and have to RMA the RAM and get another. I'd rather go for something which is being successfully used by many others. Also I don't want to go overboard with the budget. If the lower latency is not worth the money, I'd rather save here. It should also be a choice, which leaves room for an easy upgrade to 48 GB or 64 GB in the near future.
Would I go wrong with something like the Crucial Ballistix 32GB, DDR4-3600, CL16-18-18-38 (BL2K16G36C16U4R)? Or do I need to invest more?

Thank you very much for help!

I have a question which -- in the asking -- makes me wonder if I'm not embarrassing myself. I see you're going to replace an i5 Sandy Bridge, which you'd overclocked.

And I'm looking at the two of my own, still running, still serving the fam-damn-ily for their limited but varied needs. It would be easy, with some newer parts I've acquired, to replace them.

Are you going to try and sell the parts? Or are you merely going to recycle -- that is, to "junk" them to the county electronics recycler -- those parts like maybe the processor, motherboard and RAM, which you can't redeploy very well in your new rig?

 

[chrisr34000]

I am most definitely selling the parts: CPU+MoBo+RAM+PSU+SSD.