CAS2 and CAS3 RAM

[buckeye]

Folks,
whats the difference between the two? which one is better? I have seen posts like "my ram is running at 133 MHz cas 3, but I wish it were cas 2"....seems to me that cas2 is better than cas3. what difference does it cause in performance (if both cas2 and cas3 running at same speed)...I got the kingston RAM with Nanya chips. can it run cas2? please let me know...should I keep this ram or fleabay it?

 

[Viper GTS]

The CAS rating is how many cycles the RAM takes to respond. Obviously CAS2 is better, since it responds faster. In spite of the apparent 33% decrease in response time, there's only a <5% difference in performance, typically.

If you want to know if your memory will do CAS2... Try it. You're not going to hurt anything, if it's unstable just set it back to CAS3.

Viper GTS

 

[buckeye]

thanks viper...but how do I change it to cas2? (newbie)....

 

[Viper GTS]

You'll need a low wattage soldering iron, &amp; a spool of pure gold solder.

Basically you have to remove each of the memory chips, turn them around, &amp; then re-connect them.

Check here for more information.

J/K...

Actually, you just need to go into your BIOS. On an ABIT SoftMenu III board it's under &quot;Advanced Chipset&quot; settings, or something like that...

Just look for RAM settings with only 2 &amp; 3 as options. That'll be it.

Viper GTS

 

[davidkay]

Eh?

To run Ram at CAS 2 dont you have to buy special type of RAM?

 

[Viper GTS]

No. If you want guaranteed stability at CAS2, then you'll want to pick up RAM that's rated at CAS2. But I used to run one stick of PC133 CAS3, &amp; two PC100 CAS3 sticks all at 112 MHz CAS2. No problems whatsoever.

View it like OCing a CPU. You can buy the guaranteed 1 GHz, or you can get the 800 &amp; try for one Gig, you never know what you might get.

Viper GTS