I'm here to save the day! Yes basically the Extreme Edition otherwise known as High Performance RAM has much faster latencies which means that it actually communicates faster with the CPU per clock cycle than Value RAM. Value RAM is rated usually at 3-3-3-8 timings whereas high performance RAM is around 2-3-2-6 depending on what kind you get, there are various forms of the high performance so even some of the high performance are faster than themselves meaning some have 2-2-2-5 timings or something of that nature. Not only that, but the RAM is actually built with quality and assurance in mind. Value RAM is more along the lines of quickly put together and yeah it'll work but we haven't put in a lot of time towards designing it for efficiency whereas high performance RAM they have. Also, RAM that comes in kits such as a 1gb kit which is 2 512mb sticks are tested in Dual Channel so they are certified to run in dual channel whereas if you bought one value ram stick now, and decided to get the same make and model down the road, theres a chance it could run in dual channel and theres a chance it might not, whereas like I said high performance is tested and guaranteed to run in dual channel as long as the motherboard and CPU support it. Hope this helps
Only if he's overclocking. Otherwise that low cycle time (tras) of 5 won't be any problem as far as instability is concerned. Yes the difference between 2 and 3 is pretty big, but also again it mainly comes into play when overclocking. I had a CS3 stick vs CS2 and the main thing I noticed was simply my computer was more stable at higher speeds with the lower cas latency, so in a normal system like I said it's still nanoseconds, but overall much more efficient.
Well again...there's a big difference between 2 and 3 in terms of computers and since you're going from value to high performance in those cases, that's mainly while you'll see a better performance out of your machine. We're talking nanoseconds difference between 2 and 3 muchless 2.5 and 3, the main thing is though is that your RAM has been heavily designed and cared for as a design and not just thrown together like ValueRAM so not only does it perform faster, it performs 'better' generally anyway based on it's architecture. I wouldn't worry too much geo that you have 2.5 instead of 2 but I won't lie that some will argue that 2 is an absolute necessity!!! But, if you went out and got the same stick you got right now and replaced it with CL2 then you wouldn't notice anything.
Pipelines in video cards are basically exactly what they sound like, they literally are 'pipes' that carry information. By adding more pipes and/or making the pipes bigger, they can get information to the CPU quicker and more efficient. That's why the next gen cards have 16 pipelines, they have a lot more instructions per pipelines and info pumped through it.
