CAS Latency

Pancake92

Baseband Member
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Could anyone please explain what CAS Latency is? Is it better to have a higher CAS Latency of 9 rather than 8? Any feedback will be much appreciated. Thanks.

Cheers.
 
It's the delay time between the moment a memory controller tells the memory module to access a particular memory column on a stick, and the moment the data from given array location is available on the RAM's output pins.
 
Basically, the lower the CAS latency, the faster the speed of the computer.
 
Oh, I forgot to answer the question of higher or lower.

63083 is exactly correct. You want it as low as possible, but you also want to time it in with the rest of your RAM or it will unstable.
 
However, you still have to account for the actual "speed" (Mhz) of the RAM. DDR2 667Mhz RAM with a (this is just a number; not factual) CAS of 4 isn't necessarily going to be faster than DDR2 1066Mhz with a CAS of 5 or 6.
 
but generally a stick of RAM running at 1333 MHz with a CAS latency of 7 will be faster than a stick of RAM running at 1600 MHz with a CAS latency of 9
 
It depends on what you coin "faster". High bandwidth memory will better serve applications like Photoshop. Lower latency memory better suits faster transfer of files between the CPU and RAM (IIRC), such as in gaming or other 3D uses. Either way, it's pretty hard to really screw up getting fast RAM today. It's getting better everyday. The best of both worlds would be a high bandwidth, low latency module. You'll tell they are slightly superior by their higher price.
 
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