CAS Latency 9 vs 11.

[GameLifter]

I am going to be building a new gaming PC soon and plan on getting 16GB of RAM. Newegg is having a sale right now on a 8GB (2x4) set of G Skill Ripjaw X RAM for $50.99 but it has a CAS latency of 11. Other RAM I have looked at that is a little more expensive has a CAS latency of 9. Will having a CAS latency of 9 be that much faster than a CAS latency of 11? Thanks in advance!

 

[ShintaiDK]

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4503/sandy-bridge-memory-scaling-choosing-the-best-ddr3

 

[cmdrdredd]

Small difference in benchmarks not much real world performance difference to the end user. It does seem that memory clock speed plays a bigger roll but again it's not a huge difference overall.

 

[RaistlinZ]

I miss the days when low CAS latency was the norm.

 

[GameLifter]

I see, according to the article that ShintaiDK posted it seems that if anything makes a real difference at all it's the speed of the RAM but in some tests that didn't even make a difference. Another spec I see when looking at RAM is the PC3 rating. I noticed in the articles about RAM that I see, they never seem to mention this rating. Does this rating make any kind of impact? I am torn between these two sets of RAM.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820231550

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820231468

The Ares model has a lower speed and PC3 rating than the Ripjaw X but it has a lower latency. I have also read that the Ripjaw X series had some issues with certain motherboards. They are both on sale right now with the promo codes but the Ares model would be a tad cheaper. Which one would you all recommend?

 

[Blain]

If I were shopping for high quality memory, I would use the following parameters as a guide...

* DDR3 rated at 1.5v or lower
* DDR3 rated at the lowest CAS I could afford
* DDR3 rated at the highest clock speed I could afford
* Limit the scope of my purchease to G.Skill, Mushkin, Corsair XMS or Crucial (non-Ballistix)

While not wavering on the voltage point, I would balance the other issues with my budget.

Remember kids my goal is not pure "benchmarking" performance, but simply finding the highest quality memory I can afford. ^_^

The only reason I pay a premium for low latency, high speed, low voltage memory is...
Quality and quality alone.

1.5v is the JEDEC DDR3 voltage standard.
Stay with 1.5v or less if you can afford it..

What he said.

I'd buy two of These Mushkin 996988 Kits if I were building a 16GB machine today.

 

[IGemini]

What he said.

I'd buy two of These Mushkin 996988 Kits if I were building a 16GB machine today.

Not Sniper memory?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820231461

CAS ratings aren't as important as they used to be, rated speed @ lowest voltage possible is what one needs. IIRC, the only reason to get RAM rated higher than 1600 are in scenarios looking for iGPU performance. Most relevant in Llano, not so sure about Intel HD.

 

[cmdrdredd]

I believe the Mushkin are lower profile so they will fit under large CPU HSFs a little easier.