p 6400 ddr2 question

[badkitty]

i have noticed most of this speed ram on ebay, whether it be cheap stuff..or OCZ ,infineon and so on...the lowest CAS i've seen is 4...most of the timings are 5-5-5-12 . Is this normal for this speed ? and does cas really matter if im not overclocking?

 

[b1gapl]

Yea CAS 4 or 5 is normal for PC26400. If you're not overclocking, cas is not a high priority.

 

[SpannerMagnet]

4-4-4-12 is faster than 5-5-5-12

If you had 553mhz DDR2 with CL at 4-4-4-12
and 667mhz DDR2 with CL at 5-5-5-12

I'd choose the 553mhz RAM.

 

[badkitty]

ya but by how much ? is there a test that shows % improvement performance wise? just someone telling me its faster isnt enuff. so some people a 8% increase is everything, but if its the difference of $80-$120 for 8% then i wont do it.

 

[will h4x 4 food]

i would wait for that crap to go down in price...its so **** expensive right now.

 

[badkitty]

i dont want to wait. i need now..i upgraded my pc got the E6600 core 2 cuo conroe, ati x1900XTX 512mb, and ABIT AB9 MB....only thing holding me back from using it now is ram. I didnt know the C2D required DDR2..i only have pc3200 and iwant ddr2 800m


so i just read on tom's hardware and intensive test on tight timing low clock speed vs relaxed timing high clock speed. differences are only 2-5% ....but they did find as CPU speeds got towards 3ghz it increased by 3% more.

What was more interesting is they said 2 512mb in dual channel will run better than 2 1gb in DC. because the 512mb can run faster timings than the 1gb stick...hmm

 

[Meithan]

Yup, most reviews report only marginal performance differences between high- and low-latency RAM. A few percents only.

Think of memory timings more like headroom for overclocking. The advantage of low-latency RAM is that you can can loosen the timings to achieve higher FSB and RAM speeds. Essentially you trade latency for speed.

If you're not overclocking, don't bother getting low-latency RAM. Save the money and buy more RAM, better videocard, etc. It's a wiser move in my opinion.

 

[badkitty]

ya i just bought 2gb of PQI Turbo DDR2 Pc6400 timings 5-5-5-12, to go with my new ABIT AB9 MB, E6600 Conroe C2D, ATI X1900XTX 512mb. it will rock compared to my p4 2.4ghz (no HT or Htransport) 1gb pc2700 , Geforce 6600 gt oc.

 

[badkitty]

um by the way..i just CLOSED this window..and i just 2mins of trying to close 60 windwos that popped up for this page...i couldnt even close IE thru taskmanager without it opening more...wtf

 

[Meithan]

Only one recommendation, man: Firefox 2.