Transcend a good brand?

[martwick]

Hello, I noticed at my local retailer that transcend ram sticks are like atleast 5-10% cheaper than other brands.Does that make them any less good than brands like A-Data? Also, what does CL9 mean at the end of Transcend 4gb DDR3 1333 MHz CL9?

 

[ujaansona]

Transcend is good brand. I've used Transcend's DDR2 & DDR3 RAM on six builds over past 5 years. They are all working flawlessly. (CAS) latency, or CL, is the delay time between the moment a memory controller requests RAM module to access a particular memory column & the moment the data is available at the RAM output. In general, the lower the CAS latency, the better. CL9 is the normal latency of 1333MHz DDR3 RAM. But from my personal experience, I know it is possible to run them at CL7 (7-7-7-14 which is faster & tighter) @ 1333MHz without increasing RAM voltage.

 

[C12Friedman]

Transcend has been around for quite a while and actually produce their own products. They are a reputable company but finding independant reviews is difficult especially on their newer products.
The CL9 is a CAS latency number, this is what Wikipedia has to say about that
"Column Address Strobe (CAS) latency, or CL, is the delay time between the moment a memory controller tells the memory module to access a particular memory column on a RAM memory module, and the moment the data from given array location is available on the module's output pins. In general, the lower the CAS latency, the better. In asynchronous DRAM, the interval is specified in nanoseconds. In synchronous DRAM, the interval is specified in clock cycles. Because the latency is dependent upon a number of clock ticks instead of an arbitrary time, the actual time for an SDRAM module to respond to a CAS event might vary between uses of the same module if the clock rate differs."
Full article here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cas_latency

 

[martwick]

Tnx for your replies guys