Upgrade For Better Timings?

Overslop · 27 Dec 2007 at 06:51

I currently have 4GB (2 x 2GB) 800Mhz RAM in my system. That's nice but the timings are poor - 5-5-5-18.

If I upgraded to similar RAM but with timings of 4-4-4-12 for instance, would I noticed an increase in performance? It would cost me about £30 to do so and I want to know if it's worthwhile.

I have tried to overclock but can only achieve tiny gains which don't effect performance at all.

WJA96 · 27 Dec 2007 at 07:01

There will be a very small improvement in things like SuperPi and other memory restricted benchmarks, but overall, I wouldn't bother.

The timings are the pauses generated by the system to wait for the RAM to complete it's lookup cycle. If the system is waiting for something else to complete before going back to the RAM, you'll see no benefit. Very few real-world scenarios rely on RAM to that extent. If you are running F@H or another application that runs using 100% of your CPU processor cycles all *** time, then you will see a greater benefit.

Overslop · 29 Dec 2007 at 04:31

Thanks!

How about RAM that would easily overclock to 950Mhz?

Cob · 29 Dec 2007 at 04:43

Only useful if you are running your CPU's FSB at 475mhz.

Overslop · 30 Dec 2007 at 18:07

Just at or above too?

Overslop · 2 Jan 2008 at 13:13

Cob · 2 Jan 2008 at 18:05

If it easily clocks to 950Mhz then it should go above it too.

But as Mr WJA96 says, your current stuff is fine.