4-4-4-12 RAM, does it suck?

ZeroWing

ZeroWing

New Member
When I first built my comp I didnt realize 4-4-4-12 was kinda low for a gaming comp. I was wondering if it would affect my frames in games like UT3 on maxxed settings with a 9600gt.
 
You didn't give us the most important piece of information, what type and what speed is the RAM? If it's DDR400, then yes that is very slow. However if it's DDR2 800 then CL4 is very good.
 
I took out the AMPX and my experience went to 5.9 with the Patriot. I was wondering if this would increase my frames at all in games.
 
well probably not, really. timings affect games very little, its processor and GFX cards that really affect FPS.
 
in simple terms, latency refers to the time it takes to read bits of information from different parts of the RAM module. each latency (i.e. cas) refers to the time it takes ot read a different part of the "grid." the lower the latency, the less time it takes to read the memory, and the faster things are read
 
ZeroWing said:
So can you tell me what the advantage of having low latency RAM is? Sorry for the dumb questions. :(
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2-2-2-5 used to be good timings. that was for ddr400 ram.

generally they've been increasing frequency and heightening timings. now the standard is 4-4-4-12 ddr2-800. thats double the frequency and twice the timings. but, since the frequency effects the performance and bandwidth a lot more than the timings do the bandwidth went up.

unfortunately, memory bandwidth can only increase performance significantly if its already bottlenecking it..
 
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