RAM & Latency

I have a question how much does the Latency ratings effect your RAM?

Is lower better or higher better, I researched but couldn't come up with the trade off answer.

For example 9-9-9-24 DDR3 1600 VS 5-5-15-24 DDR2 1142

I am confused any help would be usefull.

Originally posted by Blue_Jay33
I have a question how much does the Latency ratings effect your RAM?

Is lower better or higher better, I researched but couldn't come up with the trade off answer.

For example 9-9-9-24 DDR3 1600 VS 5-5-15-24 DDR2 1142

5-5-14-24 (lower latency) is better than 9-9-9-24.

Although the DDR3 is running at a better frequency (1600) its higher latency makes it slower on almost all functions. They do make DDR3 with a lower latency, but it still doesn't beat the DDR2 1200 5-5-15-24 from my understanding of the testing.

In the images below you can see that DDR2 1200 5-5-15-24 beat the DDR3 9-9-9--24 1600, even when they overclocked it to 7-6-6-18.









Lots more graphs and info here.


[edit on 8/31/08 by makeitso]

In nearly every instance, latency refers to the delay in transmission reply. When it comes to RAM latency, you are talking about the amount of time it takes the CPU to retrieve data from memory. While their are limits, it is possible to overclock and get latency very low without crashing your system.

Check out wikipedia and whatis to find out more specifics.

However, as makeitso stated, the lower the latency ratings, the faster your system will process.