Memory question

[Wishiwasdead]

so im not 100% sure but im pretty sure when it comes to ram the higher the speed and the lower the cas latency the better... right? that being said what is more important? because it seems like you are trading one stat for the other... as you get higher speeds, your cas latency increases with it... can someone explain this to me? and is there a happy medium i should be shooting for or just the fastest speed regardless of the cas latency? or what?

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Productcompare.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007611%2050001459%204814%20600006050%20600006073&IsNodeId=1&bop=And&CompareItemList=147%7C20-233-706%5E20-233-706%2C20-233-659%5E20-233-659%2C20-233-662%5E20-233-662&percm=20-233-706%3A%24%24%24%24%24%24%24%3B20-233-659%3A%24%24%24%24%24%24%24%3B20-233-662%3A%24%24%24%24%24%24%24%3B20-233-339%3A%24%24%24%24%24%24%24

 

also what does the 'timing' do exactly? im thinking the lower the better? but not sure or even why... if thats the case... if it even is....

[Oshino Shinobu]

Yes, higher speeds and lower CAS Latency is better. Timings refer to how many clock cycles the RAM delays before returning the requested data. Lower is better for timings. What you want would depend on what applications you're using. For games, lower CAS Latency is better, and for video editing, rendering and such, higher speeds is often better. 

 

Between those sets of RAM, the 1600MHz CL 7 would be my choice. I wouldn't worry about the specs too much, there's often very little, if any real world difference in performance. 

[Wishiwasdead]

Yes, higher speeds and lower CAS Latency is better. Timings refer to how many clock cycles the RAM delays before returning the requested data. Lower is better for timings. What you want would depend on what applications you're using. For games, lower CAS Latency is better, and for video editing, rendering and such, higher speeds is often better. 

 

Between those sets of RAM, the 1600MHz CL 7 would be my choice. I wouldn't worry about the specs too much, there's often very little, if any real world difference in performance. 

ok, yes, gaming mostly lol... but i have been noticing that my ram sits like 5-8 GB of usage which is like 30%-50% of my total ram when im not even doing anything, because i constantly have a crap ton of programs going on in the back ground... all the time that i leave on 24hr/day... so i was thinking i should up grade from my 16GB to a 32GB set... do i even need to? and if so the 1600MHz you say?

[Wishiwasdead]

ok, yes, gaming mostly lol... but i have been noticing that my ram sits like 5-8 GB of usage which is like 30%-50% of my total ram when im not even doing anything, because i constantly have a crap ton of programs going on in the back ground... all the time that i leave on 24hr/day... so i was thinking i should up grade from my 16GB to a 32GB set... do i even need to? and if so the 1600MHz you say?

never realized how much steam, origin, teamspeak, all my peripheral drivers, overwolf, anti-virus...etc etc etc actually use on ram... and if you run them all at the same time constantly.... plus 10+ tabs of enterwebs... and a bunch of other shit...

[Oshino Shinobu]

ok, yes, gaming mostly lol... but i have been noticing that my ram sits like 5-8 GB of usage which is like 30%-50% of my total ram when im not even doing anything, because i constantly have a crap ton of programs going on in the back ground... all the time that i leave on 24hr/day... so i was thinking i should up grade from my 16GB to a 32GB set... do i even need to? and if so the 1600MHz you say?

No point in getting more RAM unless you're actually using 16GB. Increasing the amount of RAM is only needed when you're actually completely filling your RAM. If you're using 70% of it, you're not going to get any performance increase from adding more. 

 

1600MHz is normally the sweet spot for price. In games, speed of the RAM makes very little, if any difference. CAS Latency with DDR3 also makes very little difference in real world performance, but lower is generally better. 

[Wishiwasdead]

No point in getting more RAM unless you're actually using 16GB. Increasing the amount of RAM is only needed when you're actually completely filling your RAM. If you're using 70% of it, you're not going to get any performance increase from adding more. 

 

1600MHz is normally the sweet spot for price. In games, speed of the RAM makes very little, if any difference. CAS Latency with DDR3 also makes very little difference in real world performance, but lower is generally better. 

well the thing im worried about is that if im using up tp 50ish% while my PC is basicly idling... what is it doing whilst im gaming?

[Wishiwasdead]

well the thing im worried about is that if im using up tp 50ish% while my PC is basicly idling... what is it doing whilst im gaming?

the only in-game over-lay i have is just for my GPUs not my ram... or CPU... which i really wish i had btw...

[typographie]

well the thing im worried about is that if im using up tp 50ish% while my PC is basicly idling... what is it doing whilst im gaming?

 

If your PC needs more memory than the physical RAM you have installed, Windows will shuffle off the programs you aren't accessing frequently into your page file. RAM is reserved for higher-priority programs when it's in high demand. If you're playing a game, it will run fine as long as it itself has all the physical memory it needs. It doesn't really matter how many Chrome tabs are sitting in your page file. There may be a relatively longer delay to switch back to Chrome, though.

 

Here's an interesting read:

http://www.techspot.com/article/1043-8gb-vs-16gb-ram/

[Nena Trinity]

No worries I got guide in my sig! :3