CAS Latency or RAM Speed?

hotter-than-Vishera · Jun 29, 2014

Hello, I am looking at getting a set of G.Skill Trident X RAM sticks. Only I don't know which is better, RAM with lower CAS latency or RAM with faster operating speed.

The system would be running with a ROG Maximus VII motherboard, i7-4790K processor, and Radeon R9 290 GPU. I plan to buy 2x8GB of RAM, and the setup will be used for PC gaming (Frostbite 3 and Cry Engine 3 games in particular). Which of these three RAM kits would be best?

- 1600MHz, CAS Latency of 7. $165 Newegg Page
- 1866MHz, CAS Latency of 8. $180 Newegg Page
- 2400MHz, CAS Latency of 10. $190 Newegg Page

*Post-Solution Edit* Chosen RAM: 2x8GB DDR3-2133 with CAS Latency 9, $180 Newegg
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231617&cm_re=G.Skill_Trident_X_2133-_-20-231-617-_-Product

Tradesman1 · Jun 29, 2014

Those go progressively upward performance wise, the wider bandwidth of the higher freq sticks overcomes the higher CL...Also the Tridents are great OCers, been using them as primary DRAM for client builds (and my own, a couple in sig) for a couple years now, great sticks....With Haswell would look at the 1866/8 at a minimum, there's also a 2133/9 set which is the sweet spot of choice for many...Go with whatever fits the budget

ingtar33 · Jun 29, 2014

it depends what you're doing with the ram really, though you can average it out a bit and assume general use... typically ddr3 1600 with a cas of 7 will be about as fast as dd3 1866 with a cas of 8 (or close enough anyway)... it will work out with the ddr3 1866 being slightly faster... but when i say slightly i'm talking like 1.5% faster... using my scratch pad it will look out like this...

1866 CAS 8 > 1600 CAS 7 > 2400 CAS 10... though it will be so close which ram is "faster" will mater more on what you're doing with it and the tests you run on it... i mean no more then 3% separating 1866 from 2400...

There is another consideration though. haswell sees ZERO improvement in performance with ram faster then ddr 1866 (not counting the igpu, and you have a gpu, so this doesn't matter to you anyway). there are other non-ram bottlenecks in the intel architecture... so spending cash on super fast ram will yield absolutely no performance benefits past ddr3 1866 unless you're using the igpu.

btw: in every single one of TOM's ram tests to find the fastest kit of ram with an intel (at least in every test since sandy bridge) Mushkin Redline ddr3 1866 cas 9 ram has beaten every other kit out there... no matter what the timings. at stock settings. So if you want the "fastest" ram possible for your intel system... that would be my suggestion.

hotter-than-Vishera · Jun 29, 2014

Tradesman1 :

I hadn't discovered that 2133/9 set, I think you hit a sweet spot there. Thanks!

To anyone else who might be reading this, the 2133/9 set is here and costs the same as the DDR3-1866 with CL 8, that is $180.

Tradesman1 · Jun 29, 2014

That's if all you do is a single thing at a time. Fast, high freq DRAM shines when multi-tasking, work like video, imaging, CAD, VMs and other memory intensive tasks as well as working with large data sets

Hard Line · Jun 29, 2014

if you are rich and dont' care about money, they do in fact have a ddr3 2400 cas 9 lmao i just came across it myself.$268 for 16GB well i supposed it's not that bad. the logic is every speed grade is equal to the previous with 1 lower cas level as ingtar33 pointed out so roughly speaking 1600 cas 6 = 1866 cas 7 = 2133 cas8 = 2400 cas 9 ddr3 1600 cas 6 is nearly impossible to find now ( my mushkin redlines were the last i think )

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231638

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