ram timings

[zeroordie]

I've heard only very little about ram timings, just that to make the most of an overclock you need to bring them down. how and where can you change them in BIOS?
thx for your help

 

[DJ-CHRIS]

See the sticky in this section...

 

[zeroordie]

i did but it isnt very precise, and it'd be nice if i had a complete explanation about ram timings, thx

 

[Codeine]

Processors work alot faster then RAM. Timings are the delays your processor must wait while communicating with your RAM. These delays are the time it takes for RAM to process data. The smaller the delay, the faster data will process. Which is all about megabytes per-second.

When you OC, data will be processing very quickly from your cpu, thus you have to loosen timings. Which means you need bigger delays, since more data is streaming at a faster rate from your processor to your RAM. Get what im saying..? Yes it is in your BIO's.

 

[gaara]

If you want a precise guide that will teach you everything you could possibly want to know about memory latency, than this is what you are looking for.

 

[Him]

::bump::

 

[zeroordie]

many thanks gaara, your guide was very very helpfull.
what brought me down, actually, where my ram timings when i could manage to find them in my BIOS (they were hidden, and you had to bypass a security feature, etc).
so my timings read as follows:
Active to precharge : 15
CAS latency : 4
RAS to CAS : 5
RAS precharge : 5
Write recovery time : 5
Refresh cycle time : 35

Since my cpu runs at 3.2 and i OCed it at 3.6, my ram is really pulling my performance down eh?
Since this is all very new to me, what changes would you recommend I make in order tu use my OC and cpu performance as best as possible?
thanks alot for your help

 

[Him]

Just experiment. Take one setting and lower it one setting, restart and see what happens. If it dosent work, restore it and try a different one. If it works, proceed with the next timing. It is really all a matter of experimentation. All RAM/CPU/MOBO cominations are different, so timings will all differ for performance.

 

[gaara]

Not neccesarily true, there's no particular guessing game when it comes to adjusting memory timings or DIMM voltage, each one has a specific effect on the performance and stability of the memory, and with proper research you should be able to have a pretty good idea as to what tweaks and configurations you need.

Experimentation is how you perfect your results, but you need a basic understanding of the concepts in order to make an educated guess and save you headaches, and possibly even damage to equipment.

Since this is all very new to me, what changes would you recommend I make in order tu use my OC and cpu performance as best as possible?

DDR2 has fairly high latency to begin with in order to compensate for speed so if you have your memory and FSB on a 1:1 ratio right now I believe you may have to resort to dividers.

 

[zeroordie]

From ram timings that were:
4-5-5-15

I got them to:
3-3-3-7

I'm guessing that that is much better, even though I dont really see a notable difference in speed. do you know any good memory benchmarks? and making my mem run faster, I havnt had any instabilities yet. Is this normal or is my OC just not working.
and Gaara what do you mean by resorting to dividers? do you mean i chould change my FSBRAM ratio (which is 1:1)?
and now that i've managed to OC my ram, can I further OC my cpu?