16GB at 3600MHz vs 32GB at 2133MHz: Speed wins for most people, capacity only for heavy workloads

For gaming, general use, and most creative apps, 16GB at 3600MHz beats 32GB at 2133MHz by 20-30% on CPU-heavy tasks, especially Ryzen. Only go for 32GB if you actually need the capacity—like 4K+ video editing, massive VMs, or multiple Docker containers—because crashing is worse than slow speed. For 95% of people, speed matters more than capacity.