Is DDR5-5600 CL36 good? Performance, latency, and JEDEC guide

DDR5-5600 CL36 is the pragmatic default for any non-enthusiast build. Not the fastest, not the cheapest, but the spec where DDR5 is flat-out better than any DDR4 kit you can buy for the same money.

DDR5-5600 CL36 is the current Intel 14th-gen JEDEC spec, and the default rating for most OEM laptop and prebuilt DDR5 memory in 2026. Its 12.86 ns first-word latency is comfortably better than DDR5-4800 and matches a well-tuned DDR4-3600 kit. This finally means DDR5 has reclaimed meaningful ground on the timing front.

By TechCompare · Updated July 2026

First-word latency

12.86 ns

CL36 @ 2800 MHz bus

Row cycle time (tRC)

40.0 ns

tRP + tRAS

Peak bandwidth

44.8 GB/s

Per channel

Preset

Data rate

MT/s

CL (tCL)

clk

tRCD

clk

tRP

clk

tRAS

clk

Timings are in memory clock cycles. True latency in nanoseconds is derived from the data rate.

True Latency

First-word latency (CL)

12.86 ns

Time from a read command to the first bit of data arriving.

I/O bus clock

2800 MHz

Cycle time

0.357 ns

tRCD delay

12.86 ns

tRP delay

12.86 ns

tRAS

27.14 ns

tRC (tRP + tRAS)

40.00 ns

Peak bandwidth per channel44.8 GB/s

Assumes one 64-bit channel. Dual channel doubles this, quad channel quadruples it.

How this is calculated

2800 MHz bus clock puts a single cycle at 0.357 ns, so 36 cycles of CL is 12.86 ns. Peak per-channel bandwidth is 44.8 GB/s, about 40% more than DDR4-3200 and 17% over DDR5-4800. This is the speed grade where DDR5's latency disadvantage vs. mature DDR4 finally evaporates for most workloads. Gaming benchmarks start tying or slightly winning against DDR4-3600 CL16 here.

Verdict

DDR5-5600 CL36 is the pragmatic default for any non-enthusiast build. Not the fastest, not the cheapest, but the spec where DDR5 is flat-out better than any DDR4 kit you can buy for the same money.