Ram timing question..

[Fallengod]

Im just looking for what ram to buy and done alot of research. How much of a performance difference would it be from like 2-3-2-6(CMX256A-3200LL) to 2-3-3-6(CMX256A-3200C2). Im just wondering because like, there is a $20 price difference between those sticks. Im sure its probably a small difference, but Im just wondering what they are thinking justifying that price difference. That would be $40 diff for 512mb. Kind of a lot for just 1 number lower...... If anyone has any experience benchmarking each themsevles, would be helpfuly. Im curious to what performance difference would be..

Buying a new computer soon, so im trying to choose between kingston hyperx and corsair xms, 3200 and 3500, and single channel or double channel ddr. The single chan dimms I see are a lot cheaper than 2Xsticks which is unfortunate. Probably a performance difference though.

 

[Lord Evermore]

Very little difference in performance, and the C2 memory is almost assured to work at the 2-2-2-5 speeds that the LL is rated for.

HyperX is cheaper and performs pretty much the same. Corsair has a very slight advantage it seems when trying to heavily overclock.

"dual channel" kits are nothing more than two individual modules that have been tested together on a motherboard. Buy whatever is cheapest to get the total amount of memory you want, as well as the performance you want. On an Intel board, dual-channel is king. On an AMD board, there's not a whole lot of difference.

 

[Fallengod]

Thx. Thats what I figured. The only problem I am thinking of with C2 is, ive heard they can have problems syncing up together, which is why there are twinx. Thats the only thing im thinking of now. Ill prolly get hyperx, seems to be just as fast as corsair and about $40 cheaper or so.

 

[Lord Evermore]

There should be no issues of the memory not "syncing up together", since the memory modules timings don't determine any ability to run in dual channel, you just might not get two modules that work well at the speeds and timings you want. Personally I don't think it's worth paying extra for matched memory, or buying Corsair rather than Kingston just to get matched pairs.

 

[Vonkhan]

*matching* RAM sticks is BS

just get the same 2 sticks from the same company and u'll be fine

i had two different revisions of HyperX running together in dual channel w/o any problems!

 

[Lord Evermore]

It's not totally BS. They are tested and guaranteed to work together. Two modules from different batches on different days might be of slightly different quality and so one might not be able to keep up with the speeds and timings of the other. However at stock speeds and even with some overclocking, most modules won't have any problems at all.

 

[gramboh]

What mainboard are you going to be using them on? I was only able to get 2-2-2-5 timings with TwinX512-3200LL. I decided I wanted a gig of ram and have tried the following: XMS 3500 (2 x 512), TwinX1024-3200LL, OCZ Dual Channel Kit 1gig 3500 EL and none have been able to handle 2-2-2-5 even at 2.85v on a P4P800 (1008 final bios). The 865 is stupidly picky about RAM timings for some reason. Dual kits are all hype though, but they cost the same so I just buy them anyway.

The difference between 2-2-3-6 and 2-2-2-6 is probably 0.5-2% in theoretical memory bandwidth (Sandra). Not noticable in real world.

 

[Lord Evermore]

All the memory makers with low latency modules have modified the SPD settings for 400MHz operation to use 2-3-2-5 timings, because of problems using 2-2-2-5 on the new Intel chipsets.