How to find out my latency?

[DEATH eVADER]

This is just a simple question. How do I find out my Cache Latency of my RAM? The reason is because I don't know whether to upgrade.

Unfortunately, my boot up doesn't record the memory type. Is there a 3rd party application to find out?

 

[WhiteZero]

Do you mean CAS Latency?
If so...
I believe CPUZ has info on your memory module.
You might also want to try PC Wizard which gives full system information (freeware). It's what I prefer.

Chances are it's between 2 and 3. Not that even the difference between 1 and 3 is very much anyway.

 

[DEATH eVADER]

cheers, just downloaded it, give you full system specs later on tonight

 

[63]

Everest can do this too I believe...

 

[psyno]

Chances are it's between 2 and 3. Not that even the difference between 1 and 3 is very much anyway.

No one makes CAS 1, but the difference between CAS latencies of 2 & 3T is huge. For practical applications, the difference can be worth the equivalent of increasing the RAM's clock rate by up to 50%.

 

[duffers20]

No one makes CAS 1, but the difference between CAS latencies of 2 & 3T is huge. For practical applications, the difference can be worth the equivalent of increasing the RAM's clock rate by up to 50%.

Wow I didn't think it had that big an effect on performance

 

[sinkoman]

Wow I didn't think it had that big an effect on performance

Neither did I.

Although I recal a 100 point 3Dmark jump in 3Dmark05 after tightening up my CL timings.

 

[Asus]

Performance really depends on the program but Tom's hardware did a test and showed that in a number of games a P4 2.8GHz with low timings did better than a 3GHz with average timings.

Also there is an aditional setting for memory that can really boost performance and that's setting it to T1 or T2 i believe.

 

[WhiteZero]

For practical applications, the difference can be worth the equivalent of increasing the RAM's clock rate by up to 50%.

*cough*
http://www.tomshardware.com/motherboard/20050721/geil-10.html
http://www.tomshardware.com/motherboard/20040119/index-09.html#application_benchmarks
http://www.tomshardware.com/motherboard/20040119/index-08.html

When it comes to the CAS clocks (tCL, not including tRCD, tRP, and tRAS) the jump from 2 to 3 is negligible for casual users and even high-end gamers, expecially for the price increase.
The only time I see CAS being really important is in a server enviroment when you have 10+GB of RAM working together.

Also, heres an interesting article on latency:
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,1637762,00.asp

Our tests show that improving RAM latency only makes a small difference in the performance of modern high-end PCs. The amount of improvement varies greatly depending on the application you're running, but it's safe to generally characterize the improvement by saying that, compared with CAS 3.0 RAM, CAS 2.5 will give you a 1% to 2% speed boost, and CAS 2.0 will give you 2% to 4%. Those are definitely small numbers, to be sure. System manufacturers often fight with their competitors over performance variances that small, though, so it shouldn't be viewed as insignificant. In fact, it's not uncommon for a new high-end CPU to be released that's just a couple hundred MHz faster than the previous best, giving you a performance advantage of 5% or less.

 

[psyno]

http://www.hexus.net/content/reviews/review.php?dXJsX3Jldmlld19JRD05MjgmdXJsX3BhZ2U9NQ==


Point is latency matters.

:cheers:

 

[Asus]

Yeah it's the same percentage as going up in CPU models. But depending on the program it might be more memory or CPU sensitive. When looking at CPU models, even GFX cards at times, we are looking at only a few Percent.

 

[WhiteZero]

http://www.hexus.net/content/reviews/review.php?dXJsX3Jldmlld19JRD05MjgmdXJsX3BhZ2U9NQ==
Point is latency matters.
:cheers:

The lower clocks at lower Mhz showed the biggest difference in Memory benchmarks, but if you look at the next page of game performance, there isn't quite as big of a difference.

Also, in those tests, their pitting 2 different Corsair XMS sticks (some of the best RAM on the market) against some random Generic RAM. Not a very good control there for comparison.