CAS Latency.

[bloodhunter]

What does this mean and the bunch of numbers associated with it?
Is it the lower the numbers the better or the higher the better. Just been looking at getting 16 gig DDR3 1600mhz and there is such a choice.
Is 9-9-9-24 better than 10-10-10-27 for example as i have seen big price differences with like for like numbers.

EDIT... my system currently has OCZ Reaper X HPC with a CAS of 6-6-6-20 so will I benefit from getting 16 gig of 1600mhz over what I have now?

Thanks.

 

[Devrij]

What does this mean and the bunch of numbers associated with it?
Is it the lower the numbers the better or the higher the better. Just been looking at getting 16 gig DDR3 1600mhz and there is such a choice.
Is 9-9-9-24 better than 10-10-10-27 for example as i have seen big price differences with like for like numbers.

EDIT... my system currently has OCZ Reaper X HPC with a CAS of 6-6-6-20 so will I benefit from getting 16 gig of 1600mhz over what I have now?

Thanks.

Lower is better as it refers to latency in cycles. It doesn't make a massive difference to most real world tasks, so generally speaking more RAM beats faster RAM, unless you are performing RAM heavy tasks in which case you'll want both

Keep in mind that if you are mixing RAM, they'll only be able to run at the slowest DIMM's speeds (you can overclock them to tighten up the timings if it's important, but that can be fiddly).