harleyds wrote:
Or point me to a website with details?
I'm tyring to get up to speed on some new things since I last built a PC.
Seems now there are timings, heat spreaders, CAS latency, and voltage.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLi … ;maxPrice=I was shopping on NewEgg and am a bit confused.
I hear with timings, the lower the numbers the better. I also read that some people changed their timings. I'm guessing that if I buy a matched set, then they are already tested to the fastest speed which is listed?
heat spreaders - I'm also guessing that memory getting too hot is the latest trend?
Is Gold XTC or Titanium Mirrored Copper or whatever else that is offered better than one another?
CAS Latency - ????
Voltage - OK, I know what that is, but what does it do and why does it matter?
I'm not limited to just OCZ, its just a brand that a friend recommended that I did some research on.
For the Average Joe, these things mean very little, as they're likely to be purchasing RAM that they want to simply work. But for the technical inclined and for the overclockers, timings and voltage are two important factors when it comes to choosing memory. The heatspreaders that come with the RAM are just added bonus and will help with cooling the memory chips when you overclock them.
Voltages will be vital to you in the sense that additional power given to the memory will enable the memory to perform beyond the documented specifications. It can enable someone, for example, to attain DDR580 speeds by providing a 2.8v. Is it good? That depends on how you evaluate additional boost in performance regardless of the amount gained or lost.
CAS latency is one of many memory timings that may be documented by the RAM manufacturer. Usually the lower the CAS latency, the better. To get those better timings, you'll end up spending more to get them. The performance benefit from having lower CAS latency is very very small. In fact, for some people it's not even worth bothering to spend the extra dollars for such a miniscule boost in performance.
When viewing memory timings, you'll find a series of numbers... formatted in one of two ways: 7-3-3-2.5 or 2.5-3-3-7. The 7 in those numbers is the Tras timing which is the RAS active time. The two middle numbers often represent the RAS to CAS timing and RAS precharge timing. Which one goes to which is beyond me. The 2.5 is lastly the CAS latency timing, which common timing values can be 3.0, 2.5, or 2.0. Lower is always better but pushing the memory beyond its specifications may inhibit instability with the memory's operations. Softwares can crash even though a thorough stability test may not reveal any error. So such actions can come with a price and risk. After taking another look at your link, I see that your system is going to be DDR2-based, which has different timing values from DDR. I'm not well versed enough to know about the timing differences between the two so I cannot provide you much help as to what's better for DDR2.
All these things factor in as to how your memory will perform. If you're just like any Average Joe, getting the standard memory for your system is enough for that and voltage and timings won't matter much in it.
There are various brand name choices to choose from, which also includes OCZ. Patriot, Mushkin, Corsair, Kingston, and Crucial are all well-known names. All of them can provide you with the basic memory to get the system up. And for an additional price, you can get some of their faster products.
I hear with timings, the lower the numbers the better. I also read that some people changed their timings. I'm guessing that if I buy a matched set, then they are already tested to the fastest speed which is listed?
I forgot to answer this bit. Yes, the lower the timings, the better... but the lower the timings, the more likely you'll be paying more to get those timings. Any memory listed with advertised timings are timings for the advertised speed... like DDR400 for instance. When you set the memory at that speed, the memory will (or should) operate with those timings. If not, even setting them manually in the computer's BIOS will work, as that is the specified "limit". You can always go beyond that... but it's a risk and you have to know your way around overclocking to grasp and understand what you're getting yourself into.
It's not so much that this is the fastest the memory it can go. It's just that the timings advertised is the timings that's guaranteed to work under their warranty.
Have I missed anything? Lemme know if I forgot something.
Last edited by sixshot (2006-02-04 21:27:26)