Can anyone explain in layman's terms CAS latency?

[JoshBrowne]

What does it actually mean in terms of performance?

What're good timings and what're bad timings?

Why for example 9-9-9-24 - what do the 9s mean, and what does the 24 mean?

When someone refers to "tightening up the CAS timings", they are obviously doing it for a reason, but how does it translate to what the RAM is actually doing?

Thanks!

 

[JoshBrowne]

Haha nice to see you back here 95Thrifles. Found your other reply this morning. Yeah, thanks for the link hangtime I'll definitely read it, but I also question bullsh*tipedia's accuracy.