memory timings importance even tom is confused

[raptor455]

taken from this article wich answer the importance of fast memory timings:
http://www6.tomshardware.com/motherboard/20040119/index-12.html
"We were duly impressed by the Athlon 64 FX-51's scores, which maintained its ranking no matter what kind of memory it was given. This steadfastness is largely due to the integrated memory controller. "


Then from this article who talk about the new corsair memory :
http://www.tomshardware.com/firstlook/20040716/index.html
"While the memory timings on P4 systems don't play too vital a role, the operating mode paramaters in all Athlon 64 systems, by comparison, has a marked effect. The reason is the onboard memory controller that works faster and more efficiently than similar modules within the chipset. Hence, the slowest link in the chain - the random access memory - should also be able to work at full pelt. "

So wich of these articles is right becasue according to the banchmarks i was planning to buy 1gb of RAM with bad timings and use the money saved to buy something that would increase my overall performance more significantly.

The only benchmark im interested are gaming ones so i dont care about the fact that good memory timings will help me a lot when encoding video. I already decided that it will be an athlon processor the soket is still uncler between 939 and 754.

thanks for the answer

 

[jammydodger]

To be honest you are not really going to notice a difference between normall modules and low latency ones. A few % maybe, the main concern is stability.

With regards to the socket 754vs939 question here are the pros/cons:
Socket 939
Pros - Supports dual channel mode
- Is going to be around for a while
Cons - A socket 939 Althon 3000+ is actually clocked slightly slower than a socket 754 one (AMD argues that dual channel make up for this, but it doesnt really).

Socket 754
Pros - Slightly higher clock speed CPU's than equally rated
socket 939 versions.
- Slightly cheaper motherboards.
Cons - No dual channel.
- Limited upgrade path (socket 754 will be phased out for athlon64's fairly soon)
- I think the hypertransport bus is slightly slower on socket 754 motherboards but I could be wrong.

 

[raptor455]

thanks a lot for the information.

As planned ill buy the Ram from a well known company but i wont invest in the latency as i prefer to get a better graphic card or something instead.

As for the socket im not too sure yet as the uprade path is of no concern. it<ll most probably be decided by the money left.