Memory "timings" - what?!

[AhmedIlyas]

I am coming into the new era of computers. I used to build them 10+ years ago. Things have changed.

 

I now see, and have done a lot, about "timings" in memory. What the heck is this stuff? And why is it needed? I don't care about overclocking as long as perf is fast. Is this more specific to overclocking or should I pay attention to it? What configuration do you recommend for an Intel i9?

 

Educate me  

[DreamCat04]

2 minutes ago, AhmedIlyas said:

I am coming into the new era of computers. I used to build them 10+ years ago. Things have changed.

 

I now see, and have done a lot, about "timings" in memory. What the heck is this stuff? And why is it needed? I don't care about overclocking as long as perf is fast. Is this more specific to overclocking or should I pay attention to it? What configuration do you recommend for an Intel i9?

 

Educate me  

Memory timings are how many clock cycles it takes for an action to be completed. Up to a certain point, the lower the better. If you don't care about that 1-5 FPS that the fastest RAM gives you, you don't need to bother that much about timings, just get decently fast RAM, around 4000MT/s for Intel DDR4 and around 5000MT/s for Intel DDR5

[SavageNeo]

ram speed (mhz) is how fast ram can calculate.

Ram timing (cl) is latency, and lower latency = how many times it can do calculations in a X speed.

 

So you are looking for fast and low latency ram, to max out our performance.

[AhmedIlyas]

Thanks!

[RONOTHAN##]

Why they exist and some brief explanation of what they do: 

 

14 minutes ago, AhmedIlyas said:

Is this more specific to overclocking or should I pay attention to it?

It's mainly important for RAM overclocking, but they do affect performance. They've been around from the start of memory, mostly because it makes RAM manufacturing significantly cheaper. The tighter the timings, the more stuff gets done per clock cycle and therefore the faster your RAM is. 

[Somerandomtechyboi]

1 hour ago, AhmedIlyas said:

I used to build them 10+ years ago

What year?

What platforms?

 

Ram timings have existed for a long long while definitely from the ddr days but unsure if timings predate ddr (problably do)

 

 

Lemme clear up the idiot trap that is fast rams

 

 fast rams are overclocking exclusive and you straight up cant buy your way in (high bin 4000+ usually have atrocious subtimings = terrible performance, bdie bins like 3200 cl14 have meh stock subtimings at best vs oc capability) so if you dont wanna play around with overclocking dont even consider fast rams

 

Timings are just how much stuff gets done in a clock cycle, tighter = better, think of it like an ipc jump from an older cpu to a newer one, even if same freq the newer one is faster. although what timings you tighten does matter as the more frequently used timings (usually the subtimings and not the god damn primaries) will have a greater effect on performance than tightening a less frequently used timing like cl. Most important subtimings are trfc, sr dr dd (r/w/pre/act), trrd(-l/s), and tfaw but other subtimings like twr can also provide a performance bump, on intel apparently trcd is important so yes diff platforms vary in ram oc characteristics

 

all ram ics have diff characteristics and not the same, different revisions of the same brand or different brands will behave differently and there are only a few ic manufacturers mainly samsung micron and hynix (there are lesser manufacturers like nanya, psc, etc. But quite hard to come by). Main ics to look at for ocing are 8gbit bdie, rev e, and djr along with 16gbit rev b. microns (particularly 2666 cl19 bin rev e) are ludicrously cheap in bare pcb form so thats a good entry into proper ram oc (4600+ capable), though high freq ram oc will drive you nuts pretty quick so dont reccomend that

 

 

I assume you arent gonna go deep into this rabbit hole and tbh you really dont need to youll gain like 7% max on very few applications (thats assuming a dual rank config and a tight subtimings 3800-4200 oc). I just went in this rabbit hole just for fun cause i like sqeezing the most out of my system and doing this dumb shenanigans for showing off, also cpu oc got boring quick

Spoiler

 

1520mhz ddr2 in a 1x3 config mostly stable

 

[AhmedIlyas]

Thanks all! I feel very informed