Low Latency Worth It?

[fatsheep]

Ok say I'm running my RAM at stock speeds. Now would I notice a large performance difference between 3-4-4-8 and 2-2-2-5 timings? Would it be large enough of difference to justify the larger price? Should you go for capacity over timing?

 

-sheep

[LoArmistead]

what processor do you have?

[fatsheep]

what processor do you have?

549127[/snapback]

 

This is a theoretical situation. Let's say an AMD 64 3000+ or something of the sort. What I'm basically trying to get at is if I'm building a system for a friend then should I get them low latency (more expensive) RAM or higher latency to save $$$ since they won't be overclocking.

 

-sheep

[Kamikaze_Badger]

Higher latency, higher capacity if they won't be OCing or doing uber gaming.

[hardnrg]

on an A64 it doesn't make THAT much difference... obviously there IS a performance drop, but from my testing, it's not as significant as the performance drop on an AXP rig...

 

there is no reason imo to have CL3 PC3200 ram... CL2.5 can be found quite easily and at VERY low prices (e.g. Twinmos UTT, OCZ value) and you even stand a chance of overclocking such "value" ram to performance speeds...

[fatsheep]

Gotcha. Thanks

 

-sheep

[Verran]

on an A64 it doesn't make THAT much difference... obviously there IS a performance drop, but from my testing, it's not as significant as the performance drop on an AXP rig...

 

there is no reason imo to have CL3 PC3200 ram... CL2.5 can be found quite easily and at VERY low prices (e.g. Twinmos UTT, OCZ value) and you even stand a chance of overclocking such "value" ram to performance speeds...

549138[/snapback]

nrg said exactly what I was going to.

 

2.5 cas is pretty much the "happy medium" these days. 2.5 is so close in price to 3 that it's DEFINATELY worth it. But going down to 2 I don't think is worth it (unless you're OCing, in which case it gives your ram more headroom).

 

Right now, with the rig in my signature, my ram is at 2-3-3-6-1T. It's rock solid stable there, but I wanted to see if I could pull off 2-2-2-5-1T with a bit more voltage, so I tried. It wasn't stable enough to go 24/7, but was enough to run all my benches. The drop to 2-2-2-5 from 2-3-3-6 gave me about 50 points in 3DMark03 and about 100 points in Aquamark3. In 3DMark05, the difference was well within the margin of error, and pretty much unnoticable. Overall the differences were very small. I don't believe the difference is even close to big enough where you'd notice it outside of bench scores.

 

After seeing that, I don't think the low latencies are really that big of a deal. The real reason to get low latency is if you're OCing, because then you loosen timings as you raise your OC and really "open the ram up".