By: Jonathan Kwan
March 7, 2025
From October of last year to early last month, my basement was being renovated. I hired a general contractor that coordinates specialized trades for every job, no different than how actual homebuilders manage a new construction. One of the things this general contractor does that also replicates an actual homebuilder in a construction site is they leave a large disposal bin on my front driveway, which is quite accessible to anyone passing by. This is generally not a big issue, but at one point during the renovations, my bin kept getting construction garbage that I know was not from my project. I did not mind too much at first, but they kept coming. I have a 4K camera that overlooks my front driveway, but while I can see who and when the garbage was illegally dumped into my bin, I have no reasonable way of identifying that specific person. As the unauthorized garbage started to pile, I began to look for hints. Most of the items had no leads, until I came across one shipping box that had a label that had the name and address of a neighbor across the street. Bingo! To do him a favor, I delivered all his items back to his front porch. As it can be seen, no identification can leave us lost without information, while good identifiers can be very useful for finding its origin. Traditionally, your RAM's clock is based off an external reference clock. As RAM frequency increases to heights that were only achievable with our imagination a few years ago, having good signal integrity is necessary to maintain stability at high speeds. The latest Clocked Unbuffered Dual In-line Memory Module, or CUDIMM, adds a clock driver to regenerate the clock signal used by the memory chips to achieve exactly this. We will be covering many CUDIMM kits here at APH Networks over the next few weeks, so to kick off the series, we got the Crucial CT2K16G64C52CU5 DDR5-6400 2x16GB to start. How will it perform, and how does it compare? Read on to find out!
Our review unit of the Crucial CT2K16G64C52CU5 DDR5-6400 2x16GB arrived in a medium-sized brown corrugated cardboard box alongside its laptop counterpart from Hotayi Electronics, a contract electronics manufacturer, all the way from Seberang Perai, Penang, Malaysia. Everything arrived in excellent condition to us here in Calgary, Alberta, Canada for our review today using the FedEx International Priority service. If one were to travel from Calgary to Seberang Perai, the fastest flight will take you close to 24 hours, having the first connection in Vancouver and the second in Singapore.
Crucial uses OEM-grade packaging for their OEM-grade retail memory products. I am quite a fan of it, because it cuts down on waste. The clamshell package is simple and held closed together at the top by two friction buttons. I found this quite appropriate for a mainstream consumer product. Both memory modules can be seen through its clear plastic exterior placed vertically next to each other, where its specifications can be found on the label in front. The label has Crucial's logo on top, as well as information such as memory capacity, configuration, model number, speed, voltage, and CAS latency. The same information can be found on a sticker on the memory modules themselves, which can be seen from the back of the package.
Before we move on, let us take a look at the specifications of the Crucial CT2K16G64C52CU5 DDR5-6400 2x16GB, as obtained from the manufacturer's website:
Technology: DDR5
Module Type: CUDIMM
Density: 32GB Kit (16GBx2)
Kit Quantity: 2
Voltage: 1.1V/(5V ext)
Dimm Type: CUDIMM
Die Density: 16Gb
Default and performance recovery profiles
default(jedec): 52-52-52-103
Speed & timing
Speed: DDR5-6400
CASLatency: 52
Extended Timings: 52-52-52
Warranty & returns
Warranty Description: Crucial offers different warranty levels for different products.
A screenshot of the memory tab in CPU-Z with Crucial's CT2K16G64C52CU5 DDR5-6400 2x16GB installed. The SPD timings table in CPU-Z reads standard JEDEC specifications programmed into the memory. Our ASUS ProArt Z890-Creator WiFi motherboard used for testing had no issues detecting and working with the CT2K16G64C52CU5 RAM right out of the box using the latest BIOS revision. The Crucial CT2K16G64C52CU5 DDR5-6400 2x16GB kit retails for approximately $170 at press time.
Page Index
1. Introduction, Packaging, Specifications
2. A Closer Look, Test System
3. Benchmark: AIDA64 CPU
4. Benchmark: AIDA64 FPU
5. Benchmark: AIDA64 Memory
6. Benchmark: PCMark 10
7. Benchmark: 3DMark
8. Benchmark: PassMark PerformanceTest 11
9. Benchmark: SuperPI 1M, Cinebench 2024
10. Overclocking and Conclusion
