John said:
How much difference does memory timing make?
For example, the difference between these, given a system that can
make use of the faster memory:
2.5-3-3-8
2-3-2-6
Is there another technical statistic like memory timing that makes a
difference between memory modules? I'm not talking about general
quality or heat dissipation.
Thank you.
This article benches with different CAS settings. That is the
first number in your string of timing numbers.
http://www.tomshardware.com/2004/01/19/ups_and_downs/page7.html
There was also a systemcooling.com article that had some interesting
results, but both the article and the web.archive.org copy of the
article are not available any more.
I've been doing some overclocking runs the last couple of days,
using some CAS2 memory. I've run DDR380 or so at CAS2 and
DDR470 at CAS3. Those were both dual channel. I also did a run
in single channel mode (to see whether my Northbridge was preventing
more overclocking), and to be honest with you, I couldn't tell the
difference. In my overclocking experiments, I did find that the
game I've been playing, has slightly fewer hesitations when the
overclock is applied (about 15% faster), but that is about it
for subjective observation.
Yeah, if I was doing benchmarks and bragging to my friends, of
course there'd be a difference. Maybe if I had some tasks to
do, where they ran long enough to be able to use a stopwatch,
the difference would be worth it. With your two choices of
CAS2 and CAS2.5, I doubt there is enough diff to waste even
an extra $0.10 (thin dime).
Note that the CAS2 premium memory does have a use. I found on
my Nforce2 board, that the CAS2 memory made operation at
DDR400 speeds possible. I had some other memory, and it could
not be made stable. If you have a "picky" motherboard, sometimes
the main value of a CAS2 memory, is to make stable system
operation possible. If your current system cannot pass Prime95
torture test, you might consider some CAS2 as a bandaid. My
Intel 875P based system on the other hand, never had a problem
no matter what config or speed of RAM was used (even four sticks).
Paul
