what does CAS latency mean? does it REALLY MATTER?

[-1nf1n1ty-]

what the title says plus, is lower better or higher better?(higher the latency the better like 6-6-6 as opposed to 5-5-5 and vice versa

 

[thebeephaha]

Lower is better.

I kind of think of it like I would access times on a hard drive, though it doesn't show up in real life use as much. More of a statistical thing for benchmarks IMO.

 

[Wrigleyvillain]

Sure it matters, better memory read/write performance. Certain applications benefit more from this than others.

Here's a good reference from the good people who bring us MemSet (granted not the best layman's explanations)

http://www.tweakers.fr/timings.html

 

[Studabaker]

I went down from 5-5-5-15-22 to 4-4-4-10-13 and I can SEE maps loading much faster in COD4. I am about to try for 3-4-4-10-12.

 

[-1nf1n1ty-]

interesting.....only because these fatality ddr2 1066 2x2gb sticks got good ratings and i was wondering these sticks have bad timings how the hell
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227364

 

[sneekypeet]

Umm those reviewers are somewhat stoned? No offense but that ram is ass!

 

[Studabaker]

I'm stoned and I know exactly what is going on.

 

[sneekypeet]

Some can handle such things with a better grip on reality than others

 

[dark2099]

I was expecting for some body at Newegg to have messed up and put some DDR3 in the DDR2 area. And I agree with sneeky, ram is asinine.

 

[Wrigleyvillain]

I'm stoned and I know exactly what is going on.

Quote of the week!

 

[nafets]

With tighter (lower) latency timings you may sacrifice memory frequency.
With looser (higher) latency timings you may gain memory frequency.

The general consensus is that memory timings and frequencies have marginal impact on real-world performance. In most cases you'd only see the tangible differences in synthetic benchmarks.

Overall the idea is to set the memory in a fashion that allows for a maximum OC of your CPU. This usually is a combination of loose memory timings along with a high memory clock frequency.

More expensive memory may allow you somewhat tighter timings along with a high memory clock frequency (and also lower voltages with which to run at those settings).

If you're not a benchmark monkey, it's advisable to save money on your memory purchase by buying what will suit you best, and using the extra towards a better CPU or video card. Both of which can and do show greater gains in performance than any suped-up memory ever will...