Crucial Pro OC Gaming Edition DDR5-6400 Review
Letting go of its enthusiast brand way back in 2022 didn’t leave Crucial without offerings for computing enthusiasts: Its basic DDR5-5600 reached DDR5-6400 a year later, its Pro series added heat spreaders to attract show system builders a few months after that, and the firm finally combined the overclocking and gaming themes with its first Pro OC Gaming Edition last spring. Dropping its premium brand has allowed Crucial to continue providing premium parts without chasing the bleeding edge.
| Crucial Pro OC Gaming 32GB DDR5-6400 C38 CP2K16G64C38U5B | |
| Capacity | 32 GB (2x 16GB) |
| Data Rate | DDR5-6400 (EXPO, XMP) |
| Primary Timings | 38-40-40-84 (2T) |
| Voltage | 1.35 Volts |
| Height | 34.9mm |
| Warranty | Lifetime |
| Price When Tested | $120.00 |
Each Pro OC Gaming DDR5-6400 package contains two aluminum-covered DIMMs in the buyer’s choice of black (CP2K16G64C38U5B) or white (CP2K16G64C38U5W) finish.
Programmed with both AMD EXPO and Intel XMP enhanced timings sets (at 1.35V), Crucial would like to point out that those are each 25% quicker than JEDEC (industry standard) spec. Our motherboard automatically configures it at DDR5-4400 C36, but a look at its table of standard-voltage timings includes DDR5-4800 C40 and DDR5-5600 C45 so your results may vary. Enabling XMP profile 1 got it to DDR5-6400 C38 without further fuss.
We’re retaining the hardware from our Pro OC Gaming DDR5-6000 review to evaluate Crucial’s new DDR5-6400 variation.
| Test Hardware | |
| CPU | Intel Core i9-13900K: 24C/32T, 3.0-5.8 GHz, 36 MB L3 Cache, LGA 1700 |
| CPU Cooler | Alphacool Core 1 Aurora CPU, VPP655 with Eisbecher D5 150mm, NexXxoS UT60 X-Flow |
| Motherboard | ASRock Z790 Taichi Carrara, BIOS 12.13 |
| Graphics | ASRock RX 7700 XT Phantom Gaming 12GB OC |
| Hard Drive | Crucial T700 PCIe Gen5 2TB M.2 SSD |
Overclocking & Latency Tuning
That Crucial’s new DDR4-6400 memory reached DDR4-7200 after raising it to C42 timings wasn’t all that surprising, as its 6000 kit had already been flirting with that speed (running it for a while before crashing) several months ago. Perhaps slightly more surprising was that it got there using the same D8DKS generation of Micron Memory.
We got a big surprise when we tried to drop it down and shorten the timings, though, as its CAS number really didn’t want to budge. DDR4-4800 C32 really would be kind of crappy, unless we were comparing the industry’s non-enhanced C40 standard.
| Lowest Stable Timings | |||
| DDR5-6400 | DDR5-5600 | DDR5-4800 | |
| Crucial Pro OC Gaming 32GB DDR5-6400 C38 CP2K16G64C38U5B | 34-37-37-74 (2T) | 34-32-32-64 (2T) | 32-28-28-56 (2T) |
| Crucial Pro OC Gaming 32GB DDR5-6000 C36 CP2K16G60C36U5W | 34-37-37-74 (2T) | 30-33-33-66 (2T) | 26-28-28-56 (2T) |
| Viper Elite 5 48GB DDR5-6000 C42 PVER548G60C42KW | 32-38-38-76 (2T) | 28-33-33-66 (2T) | 24-28-28-56 (2T) |
| Lexar THOR OC DDR5-6000 C32 LD5U16G60C32LG-RUD | 32-38-38-76 (2T) | 28-33-33-66 (2T) | 24-28-28-56 (2T) |
Benchmark Results
After seeing some unusually high bandwidth numbers in Sandra and AIDA64, we decided to throw everything at this memory and see what, if any, real-world applications might indicate that gain. Unfortunately, it wasn’t until we got to the lowest test settings of our second game, Cyberpunk 2077, that we finally got the boost.
We spotted the same performance gain in our timed 7-Zip compression benchmark, which has the real-world advantage over its also-ran integrated benchmark. Conversely, Handbrake showed a slower encode when running the new memory.
Crucial’s Pro OC Gaming still wins the XMP test, and that’s probably the most important since hardly anyone manually tweaks there’re memory. Still, those few users who do tweak their memory will find greater gains available in other kits.
Though the best reason to choose Crucial is probably its reputable support network, we’ve suffered so few memory problems in recent years that we’d probably pick ours from among nearly any premium brand based on XMP performance, a motherboard-complimenting aesthetic, and basic price.
| Crucial Pro OC Gaming model CP2K16G64C38U5B | |
| Pros | Cons |
| Includes XMP and EXPO Top XMP performance Top overclocking data rate | None so far |
| The Verdict | |
| Because most builders don’t do manual memory tuning, Crucial’s top-performing XMP should put it on their shortlist. | |
On the other hand, superior XMP performance should be enough to compel builders who don’t tune their own memory to pick Pro OC Gaming DDR5-6400 over most alternative non-RGB system memory options.
