Can someone give me a lesson on Memory timeings

-ADREN-

Not sure what is ment by memory timeings (sp?)

Like when it says 2-2-2-1 or whatever.

Thanks,
-Coz.

Mac daddy

It is the way the colums get adressed

All you need to know about memory

Mac daddy

Originally posted by -ADREN-
Not sure what is ment by memory timeings (sp?)

Like when it says 2-2-2-1 or whatever.

Thanks,
-Coz.

If i remember correct it was something like this

The first 2 =CAS latency
The 2nd 2 = RAS to CAS
The 3Rd 2=RAS precharge
And the 4th one 1= active to precharge

-ADREN-

Ahh right i get what those numbers are now, so what you want to do is get them all lower if possible, how is this done,and what are the main benifits?

Mac daddy

1- if you have faster timmings the memory data access is faster

Right simple Columm with 2-2-2 sdram timings
....0 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
0
1 d
2
3
4
5

data is indicated with a d

Step 1
/RAS (Row Address Select) and /CAS (Column Address Select) access.
this is an extreme oversimplification, think of tRCD this way. The time it would take you to move down to Row 1 and across to Column 1 is RAS to CAS action. Now he his his first bit of data,
Step 2:
He takes the data and waits for the CL2/CL2.5/CL3 clock cycle and moves on again to the next bit.
while he is waiting the RAS precharge will have taken place after that the RAS/CAS happens all over again.

This is the easiest way that i can explain it without blowing your head off with info.
So if you tighten the timings- there is less of a charge and less delays, data access,colum adressing and transfer improvement.

If not entirly correct please feel free to correct me

hope this clears it up a bit for you

-ADREN-

oki doki :rolleyes:

Em, how do you go about tightening your ram then?

Is it needed when you overclock your cpu or something, are they related?

Mac daddy

Depends on the mobo normally there is a option in the bios for this-

Redrocket

no adren, if you tighten or reduce the time between each part of addressing the data, less time is spent finding data, so it can be retrieved from ram faster, which means faster ram performance. get good ram faster than it should be for overclock, ie ddr400mhz for overclocking say a barton 333mhz.

if you overclock the ram it is goin faster than it should, and might not be able to handle the overclock with tight or even factory timings. handling the overclock means the ram could be whats crashing your system.

so loosening the timings should let the ram overclock better to keep up with the rest of the machine. a slight performance hit when addressing data, but you got your overclock

-ADREN-

Ahh cool, all good now thanks.

Tis good also got DDR400 with the Barton core Xp2500, which I think is at 333mhz and wilbe clocking that up to 400mhz