Should I follow the memory timings table in CPU-Z?

[darkstar845]

I just want to experiment on the timings of my Memory which is a DDR3 with a maximum of 1333 Mhz. The BIOS automatically set it's timings to "7-7-7-19" although CPU-Z reads it as "7-7-7-20". I managed to overclock my Core i7 930 to 3.48 Ghz using 21X166 without changing memory timings, the memory ran at 1333 Mhz at "7-7-7-19" timings and I ran Prime95 Blend test for about an hour just to check if the computer can run at full load.

CPU-Z Timings Table:

Are there any risk if I follow or do not follow those memory timings? cause I'm worried that My pc won't boot or won't be able to go into the BIOS.

And is there a huge difference between "7-7-7-20" and "9-9-9-25" memory timings?

 

[jsc]

Generally, when you get too aggressive with the memory timing, the worst thing that happens is that you need to go in and manually clear the BIOS.

Some motherboards, Gigabyte for example, will try to boot and when they can't, will automatically reset the BIOS to a bootable condition.

I estimate the difference between the two sets of timings at around 10% of memory i/o, not true system speed. Without a really good memory benchmark propgram, you won't notice the difference. Any increase gained by overclocking will totally swamp the small decrease in mem i/o.

 

[wolfram23]

Yea what jsc said

I've fooled around with my timings quite a bit, and didn't notice a single difference. This includes all the advanced timings like read to write, write to write etc. If too agressive it would just reboot maybe get a BSOD but you can always go back to the BIOS unless the mobo is fried, but that won't happen from the RAM. The only difference I found was in running the RAM faster - from 1600mhz to 1800mhz did make a difference but it wasn't all that significant.