Upgrading to DDR 400...

[GiladGaron]

I'm going to upgrade my Asus P4T with a P4 1.6 to P4P800 with a P4C 2.8.
I having a hard time picking the DDR to go with it, what company? what CAS Latency? If someone could briefly explain all the diffrent numbers (IE - C3,3.3.4) and their effect I would appreaciate it.
I'm not going to overclock my system.

Gilad

 

[david__t]

I am sure that many people will agree with this: Corsair is the very best memory you can buy.

The numbers that you are talking about are all latency numbers. So that means smaller numbers are better since we are talking about a "lag" to use lamens terms. There are usually 4 timings shown in the bios - The CAS latency, RAS to CAS delay, CAS precharge time and many other similar descriptions depending on your motherboard. RA is row addressing and CA is coloumn addressing. So basically these numbers are describing the delay or time it takes to address a memory location.

Bog standard memory runs at CAS 2.5 3-3-6 (the usual order in the bios) Then the more you spend the faster the timings get with out the need for overclocking. If you want good speed without paying the earth then I would say go for CAS 2 2-2-5. I actually have 2 Corsair modules that were rated at CAS 2.5 but both run fine at 2-2-2-5.

The modules come with heat spreaders which makes them a favourite with overclockers but also increases their stability for general use. Some people might recommend OCZ but I have read quite a few posts questioning the stability of that memory. Kingston HyperX is another candidate often mentioned by posters.

4.77MHz to 4.0GHz in 10 years. Imagine the space year 2020

 

[GiladGaron]

So what you're saying is to buy good memory and then overclock it in the bios, trying to lower the DIMMs timings to get better performance, and the maximum I can get is CAS 2 2-2-5? does it make a real differnece perforamnce wise?

One more thing, will I be alright with a normal CAS 2.5 by kingston? not Hyper X

Thanks alot!
Gilad