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Does memory timing make a noticable difference?

I'm getting 3600MHz, which has higher latency. But 3200MHz has lower latencies.

 

3600 - 18

3200 - 16 (I don't know the other numbers but from what I understand they're not as important)

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Timings is not latency, combination of frequency and timings gives you latency. Here they have equivalent latency with greater transfer rate. Whether it matters depends on the CPU, board and budget.

CPU: i7-2600K 4751MHz 1.44V (software) --> 1.47V at the back of the socket Motherboard: Asrock Z77 Extreme4 (BCLK: 103.3MHz) CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D15 RAM: Adata XPG 2x8GB DDR3 (XMP: 2133MHz 10-11-11-30 CR2, custom: 2203MHz 10-11-10-26 CR1 tRFC:230 tREFI:14000) GPU: Asus GTX 1070 Dual (Super Jetstream vbios, +70(2025-2088MHz)/+400(8.8Gbps)) SSD: Samsung 840 Pro 256GB (main boot drive), Transcend SSD370 128GB PSU: Seasonic X-660 80+ Gold Case: Antec P110 Silent, 5 intakes 1 exhaust Monitor: AOC G2460PF 1080p 144Hz (150Hz max w/ DP, 121Hz max w/ HDMI) TN panel Keyboard: Logitech G610 Orion (Cherry MX Blue) with SteelSeries Apex M260 keycaps Mouse: BenQ Zowie FK1

 

Model: HP Omen 17 17-an110ca CPU: i7-8750H (0.125V core & cache, 50mV SA undervolt) GPU: GTX 1060 6GB Mobile (+80/+450, 1650MHz~1750MHz 0.78V~0.85V) RAM: 8+8GB DDR4-2400 18-17-17-39 2T Storage: HP EX920 1TB PCIe x4 M.2 SSD + Crucial MX500 1TB 2.5" SATA SSD, 128GB Toshiba PCIe x2 M.2 SSD (KBG30ZMV128G) gone cooking externally, 1TB Seagate 7200RPM 2.5" HDD (ST1000LM049-2GH172) left outside Monitor: 1080p 126Hz IPS G-sync

 

Desktop benching:

Cinebench R15 Single thread:168 Multi-thread: 833 

SuperPi (v1.5 from Techpowerup, PI value output) 16K: 0.100s 1M: 8.255s 32M: 7m 45.93s

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Highly depends on what you're doing, but will you notice a difference without an FPS meter or benchmark? No. The difference is not potato vs 4k 144hz; it's marginal gains territory. Check out the LTT video on the topic.

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5 minutes ago, Jurrunio said:

Timings is not latency, combination of frequency and timings gives you latency. Here they have equivalent latency with greater transfer rate. Whether it matters depends on the CPU, board and budget.

Oh, my bad. 

13 minutes ago, boggy77 said:

they are very very similar. the 3600 will probably be like 1% better in some games 

Ok, well it doesn't matter because I managed to get a deal on the 3600. It ended up being cheaper to get that, surprisingly. 

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There are a lot more timings that effect RAM latency, even more than the usual 3 to 5 that are advertised. It’s easy to overthink them. Anyway, the timings are how many clock cycles it takes the RAM to perform a given task. Conversely, the mhz is twice the number of clock cycles it is performing in a given period of time (hence the “double” in “Double Data Rate”).

 

If you ever want to calculate the latency from these numbers for yourself:

 

Random timing #1, 3600Mhz/2 = 1800Mhz/1,800,000,000 clock cycles per second.

1000/1800Mhz = .555555555 nanoseconds per clock cycle. .555555555 x 18 clock cycles = 10 nanoseconds of latency.

 

Random timing #2,

3200/2 = 1600Mhz

1000/1600Mhz = .625ns

.625ns x 16 = 10ns of latency.

 

In this case, latency is the same. Go with the higher speed RAM for the overall data rate benefit. If the timings were say... 20 for the 3600Mhz sticks, and only 15 for the 3200 Mhz sticks, then it might be worth it to go with the lower clocked sticks to get the overall lower latency. Usually never works out this way though, and generally higher clocked stocks will end up with the same, or lower, ram timings.

 

 

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