ram timings

[ravenc]

ive looked but havent found a good answer mebbe someone can point me to a good site.

other then high scores on pcmark and other benchmarks what advantage do "tight" ram timings make like 3 3 3 8 or 6 7 4 12 is there really a noticable difference?

and will i notice a difference between 166 and 200 mhz ram timings



1.8 gh sempron
512 x 2 kingston 3 3 3 7 ram
250 gig sata 16 meg cache

 

[Arcygenical]

Ram timings don't refer to ram speed but 4 individual values that indicate the "delay" that certain things in the ram stick take to finish a job. There should be 4 values (like 2-2-2-5). The number above (or around) 200 is the "divider" setting (note that 200 is the default FSB value, if you set this to 166 your ram would run at 166mhz stock and adjust appropriately when you overclock).

Reducing your "divider" from 200 to 166 will have a moderate impact on memory bound applications (games, 3d programs etc.) but timings will have little impact on real world performance. Generally, people loosen timings to achieve a higher overclock on the FSB without the need to lower the "divider" (ie from 200 to 166). the 166 divider should be a 5:6 ratio divider, meaning that the Ram runs at 5/6 the speed of the FSB (so a FSB of 400 would allow the ram to run at 333mhz, which is insane, but just an example ).

are you overclocking your processor? if not, don't change the divider setting, and edge the FSB to about 15mhz over stock .

Eh, if that's confusing i'm sorry, it's late .