Newbie question about ram timing

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s37d

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Hello, I am having some lag issues with my FPS in games such as World of Warcraft, and although this might belong in the gaming forums, I had a more specific question pertaining to ram. How exactly does timing, voltage and the speed work. I'm assuming DDR400 means 400 mhz is its max speed, and the timing and voltage listed on my ram are there to tell you not to run it any higher than those settings. So basically what I'm asking is, how does RAM timing work, how would I configure my BIOS to allow my ram to operate at its full potential, and would that be overclocking or not. I don't necessarily want to overclock as I'm having heat issues as it is, but I want to get the most out of my ram. I have one stick of generic 512 ddr400 which came with computer(got it prebuild from a small company), and one stick of Kingston 512 ddr400(http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820141424). Thanks.
 
Thanks, read the article and did my best to understand what it was saying. I couldn't pinpoint what the timing or volts means though, and how to max them out. I was also confused at what it said about 'ideal' SDRAM speed being 5-1-1-1. I look at certain SDRAM info on websites and the timing says 2-3-2-5 and such other numbers. Basically I still have no idea how timing works and what defines faster timing.
 
the only thing i know about timing is that the first nuber is the CAS latency, usually the lower the better, 2 or 2.5 is good 3 is ok but anything lower than 2 is not worth it, you only need to increase the voltage if your going to start overclocking
 
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Ah k, that helps a bit. Now say if the ram's timing is 2-3-2-5, when you put the RAM in, is that the speed its going to run at? I know my BIOS has many features on auto and wasn't sure if it would change the timing to a slower speed (higher number?) for some reason. Thanks.
 
I would put 266 in a 266 MB, 333 in a 333 MB & 400 in a 400 MB ... and leave it. ;)
 
s37d said:
400 meaning set it to 400mhz for the ram's speed if its ddr400?
Click to expand...

err, you wont "set it to 400mhz" ... just plonk the stuff in and the MB will do the rest. ;)

Got to remember ... manufaturers love playing with numbers ... non tally up, they cant count. :D
 
heh ok
My motherboard has a feature for auto-overclocking, you can choose 5%, 10%, etc up to I think 25%. Is that a safe way to overclock or is it a better method if it's done manually? asus p4p800s is mobo
 
If ya do it maually be ready to reset the bios using the bios reset jumper on the MB. Record the original settings in case ya lose it.
Set the cycle times like ME2001 says.
Start low and go up untill ya start having problems then back down one.
You might go all the way without having problems, but sometimes it wont. I had problems with clocking Kingston sticks.
If it wont boot cause ya went to high reset the bios and start over agian, set the bios like how you recorded it.
If ya set the voltage up dont go to high above the specs it can damage. One step above the specs is probably ok.
Feel the temp on the memory if its hot to touch back down. Check the CPU temp also, too hot to touch is bad.
Turn off memory interlacing ya get better performance, its used for reducing AM radio noise.
 
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great thanks, I just installed new ram I ordered, 2x http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820220045 . Got rid of the old ram since mobo only has 2 ram slots. Games run much smoother now its amazing. This ram is better to overclock with I would assume. The timing on it is 2-3-2-5, and I understand CAS latency is the first 2, but what are the other 3 numbers? I saw some numbers on the BIOS Ram menu, 5 different numbers that could be adjusted..are those representing the RAM's timing?
 
the second is RAS to CAS delay
third is RAS precharge :confused:
and the last is the cycle time (TRAS)
 
The rule is

The thing about speed in a computer system that is very often overlooked is this,
YOUR FASTEST speed will be the speed of your SLOWEST component.
I believe this is a totally correct way of looking @ any system.
 
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Taino said:
The thing about speed in a computer system that is very often overlooked is this,
YOUR FASTEST speed will be the speed of your SLOWEST component.
I believe this is a totally correct way of looking @ any system.
Click to expand...


Hi Taino
YES YES a slow hard drive, CPU, mem, will slow it all down, and sometimes its how windows is tweaked.
Mostly overlooked is the DMA controllers are turned off by default in some Windows operating systems 9X- 2000 click in hardware manager on the hard drive to check it. XP SP2 DMA is always on, has cache but its on by defalt.

A lot of spyware can become a very tight bottleneck also.
 
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