Memory timings - Do they make a big difference in performance?

Prophet · 31 Aug 2007 at 11:57

I'm going to upgrade soon so will need some new RAM. The OcUK RAM looks really good but the timings arnt as tight as some of the other makes. I'll be looking at a 2160 CPU on a ABIT P35 Pro board.

How much difference do RAM timings actually make?

decto · 31 Aug 2007 at 12:41

Compared to the system as a whole, unless the timings are very different then not a lot.

4-4-4-12 vs 5-5-5-18 probably 1%

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binaryknight · 31 Aug 2007 at 13:58

they do to an extent but for me on my oldie system running cas 2.5 @ fsb 200 yeilded far better performance than cas 2 @ around 170 fsb

Hen_Dawg · 31 Aug 2007 at 14:07

With DDR2 relaxed timings with faster clocks beats tighter timings and slower clocks.
I.e. Best performance comes from relax timings and an FSB overclock rather than keeping cas etc. down. I am right?

pieman109 · 31 Aug 2007 at 21:08

Hen_Dawg said:
With DDR2 relaxed timings with faster clocks beats tighter timings and slower clocks.
I.e. Best performance comes from relax timings and an FSB overclock rather than keeping cas etc. down. I am right?

With an AMD based system, yes, tighter timings and keep ram speed as near to stock if possible. On the other hand, intel, like c2d prefer high speeds and relaxed timings due to the system loving the higher bandwidth available.