Memory ratings

[wazy15]

Hi,

I am trying to get some 512MB DDR400 PC3200 Memory and wondered if the CL rating makes that big a difference. I have all my PC bits including Doom 3 and not sure wheather to wait a few days for a CL 2.5 rated memory from Ebuyer or get a CL 3.0 now at the same price from my local computer shop. Is there much of a performance difference between them> The CL3.0 is made by a company called Twin Mos, never heard of them before.........

Waz

[Super Stu]

CAS 2.5 is obviously faster like, but I wouldn't like to quantify it. Would be better off nipping to tomshardware.com or hexus.net etc and trying to fish through some reviews.

[yashiro]

Lower Cas Latency is better.
Also check round the net for users with your motherboard. Some makes of ram have compatibility issues with your board that you will want to avoid.

[Ciaran]

My god, Yash your on a roll tonight, thats 11 threads answered in a row.




I have Twin Mos ram in my computer. It can be good stuff depending on the chips they use. You can get lucky and sometimes get the same ones Cosair use (winbond chips).

[wazy15]

Out of intrest, if I have a 512MB CL3 DDR400 stick in my board and added another 512MB DDR400 stick but with a CL2.5, would that cause problems. Bear in mind I don't have dual DDR400 controllers as I have a socket 754 board (Athlon 64).

Waz

[csuzw]

No it won't cause problems. I think it will slow the CL2.5 to CL3 though.

[gunrock]

Out of intrest, if I have a 512MB CL3 DDR400 stick in my board and added another 512MB DDR400 stick but with a CL2.5, would that cause problems. Bear in mind I don't have dual DDR400 controllers as I have a socket 754 board (Athlon 64).

Waz

Most BIOS's allow you to set the CAS latency manually, and from personal experience, I'd say that most memory will run withouout problems as the next CAS speed up (i.e 3 > 2.5, 2.5 > 2, etc).

Set it and then run memtest86 overnight to see if there are any issues.

Gunrock

[fifty?ballz]

If your intersted theres a good article on RAM just been published here:

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,1637763,00.asp

Apparently if you go for CL2 RAM you can get a 4 - 14% performance boost
over CL3.

[wazy15]

thanks for link