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I guess not. I was looking at RAM comparisons and for most desktop use, 3200 does seem to be the sweet spot and it doesn't seem worth upgrading with C16 3200 RAM if I already have C15 3000, so the only RAM probably worth considering is some of the G-Skill 3200 C14 RAM but it is so expensive and the gain possibly not that huge, that it's not worth it.

Any comments please? Thanks.

On my Z370 based desktop with i7-8700K, I currently have Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4 2x16GB 3000MHz (CMK32GX4M2B3000C15), with Tested Latency 15-17-17-35. I don't use the machine for gaming but general office type use. How much difference would it make if I were to swap out the RAM for another with higher frequency like 3600MHz but with marginally higher latency? e.g. Crucial Ballistix DDR4-3600 (16-18-18-38) Patriot Viper Steel DDR-3600 (Base Timings 15-15-15-36, Tested Timings 18-22-22-42) Thanks!

If I'm not mistaken, the BIOS chip is U48 the 2nd image, and EC chip is U36 the 1st image, so you have them the wrong way around in the caption, which could cause confusion. I'm just posting as I used this as a reference and ended up getting in a total muddle because of conflicting information. Thanks for posting the images however. Both chips are located on the top side of the motherboard, underneath the black adhesive plastic sheet.

So U48 is definitely the BIOS chip and U36 is the EC chip? I just want to double check as I saw another thread on this forum where it seemed to imply it was the other way around, although was rather ambiguous. Thanks!

I bricked my M17x R4 whilst trying to update the BIOS from A02 to A14. I was updating it incrementally, in Win7 using the BIOS exe files, first A05, A05 v2, then A08, and it finally killed the machine at A09. When you press the power button the lights come on momentarily then it shuts down. I have read through some of the tips on reflashing the BIOS and am not sure about the file name. The BIOS update file is: M17R4A09WIN64.exe Unzipping this reveals a number of files, however the only '.fd' extension file is isflashWIN.fd'. I renamed this to M17R4.hdr, put it on a FAT32 USB stick, removed the battery and power cord, inserted the USB stick into the E-Sata slot, pressed end key, reinserted power cord, and the machine's lights all came on and the fans were at full, and it stayed like this for a few minutes, then a bleeping started every second for a while and then a few minutes later a faster bleeping, for a minute, then the bleeping stopped and the machine continued with the lights on and fans at full so after a few more minutes I pulled the power cord out. I didn't think it was working. However I later read in one post that it can take 10-15 minutes to complete. Unfortunately most of the posts were non-specific about what actually happened after restarting it with the USB. Do I try it again with the same file and file name or do I rename it to something else? I tried switching it on again but now the lights don't come on. I spoke to Dell who said it needs a new motherboard but a USB restore might work but he was doubtful as I couldn't get into the boot menu but then they probably would say that.