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Hi,
I'm looking to get a 1GB stick from a quality manufacturer soon (wanting to fill all 4 slots on the mobo in the future), but getting memory this big normally means the CAS level will be a '3'. So what I want to know is does latency really matter? No one ever notices differences between high and low latency levels, do they? And if it does matter, is it possible to get a CAS 2 or 2.5 1GB stick?
I'm looking to get a 1GB stick from a quality manufacturer soon (wanting to fill all 4 slots on the mobo in the future), but getting memory this big normally means the CAS level will be a '3'. So what I want to know is does latency really matter? No one ever notices differences between high and low latency levels, do they? And if it does matter, is it possible to get a CAS 2 or 2.5 1GB stick?
Thanks for all the info, people, you've changed my mind on things! I'll have a 2GB target made up of four 512k sticks with low latency. Thanks again :)
WickedWare wrote:
> So pc3200 1GB is ok with CAS 3? Being just one stick I'm buying it
> wont be running in double mode, so I guess the speed will be just
> 200MHZ until I double up.
You'll be better off buying 2 512Mb sticks then you can take advantage of the dual channel mode if your motherboard is capable of it.
"200 MHZ until I double up" <- you mean until you activate dual channel mode?
Dual channel mode doesn't increase the RAM speed.It simply opens up another "lane" allowing a theoretical doubling of memory bandwidth.
> So pc3200 1GB is ok with CAS 3? Being just one stick I'm buying it
> wont be running in double mode, so I guess the speed will be just
> 200MHZ until I double up.
You'll be better off buying 2 512Mb sticks then you can take advantage of the dual channel mode if your motherboard is capable of it.
"200 MHZ until I double up" <- you mean until you activate dual channel mode?
Dual channel mode doesn't increase the RAM speed.It simply opens up another "lane" allowing a theoretical doubling of memory bandwidth.
When software actually begins to need 4 GB of RAM then things will have moved on so much that you need a considerably faster processor which would also require a new motherboard. I have a gigabyte of RAM just now, and apart from Farcry and somethings like database programs, nothing needs that much memory.
Getting two sticks of 512 MB RAM with a lower latency will improve performance, especially so with a dual channel board for Athlons like the NF7 et al.
Getting two sticks of 512 MB RAM with a lower latency will improve performance, especially so with a dual channel board for Athlons like the NF7 et al.
Notorious Biggles wrote:
> You mentioned you wanted to fill all the other slots in the future -
> well when you need 4 GB of RAM you won't have that processor or
> motherboard.
What do you mean by this?
Anyway, It will be purely for games, and I was thinking that maybe when games become more uber and surpas the new graphics card I have the memory might compensate for this. Well, having 4GB's of the stuff might.
> You mentioned you wanted to fill all the other slots in the future -
> well when you need 4 GB of RAM you won't have that processor or
> motherboard.
What do you mean by this?
Anyway, It will be purely for games, and I was thinking that maybe when games become more uber and surpas the new graphics card I have the memory might compensate for this. Well, having 4GB's of the stuff might.
So pc3200 1GB is ok with CAS 3? Being just one stick I'm buying it wont be running in double mode, so I guess the speed will be just 200MHZ until I double up.
Yes it does matter, but how much depends on what you do. If all you need is just vast quantities of memory then it won't matter. If you just want high performance, i.e. for games, then it matters. The reality is, if you don't benchmark, you won't notice the difference between CAS 2.5 and 3, and will struggle to tell the difference between 2 and 3.
So whilst I think it isn't that big a deal, what I would say is a better idea would be to get two 512 MB sticks with a lower latency. You mentioned you wanted to fill all the other slots in the future - well when you need 4 GB of RAM you won't have that processor or motherboard. I run two 512 MB sticks in dual channel mode and it offers a decent performance increase.
The other way to minimise the effects of the CAS latency is to increase the FSB.
Clearly tig has the faster fingers.
So whilst I think it isn't that big a deal, what I would say is a better idea would be to get two 512 MB sticks with a lower latency. You mentioned you wanted to fill all the other slots in the future - well when you need 4 GB of RAM you won't have that processor or motherboard. I run two 512 MB sticks in dual channel mode and it offers a decent performance increase.
The other way to minimise the effects of the CAS latency is to increase the FSB.
Clearly tig has the faster fingers.
Well if you're running at stock then yes it does matter (slightly), but you will find that all the high speed RAM has latency of around CAS 3, but the sheer brute speed makes up for the high latency.
Yes, memory latency really does matter.
Hi,
I'm looking to get a 1GB stick from a quality manufacturer soon (wanting to fill all 4 slots on the mobo in the future), but getting memory this big normally means the CAS level will be a '3'. So what I want to know is does latency really matter? No one ever notices differences between high and low latency levels, do they? And if it does matter, is it possible to get a CAS 2 or 2.5 1GB stick?
I'm looking to get a 1GB stick from a quality manufacturer soon (wanting to fill all 4 slots on the mobo in the future), but getting memory this big normally means the CAS level will be a '3'. So what I want to know is does latency really matter? No one ever notices differences between high and low latency levels, do they? And if it does matter, is it possible to get a CAS 2 or 2.5 1GB stick?