Memory Choice

[andy_93]

Hi all,i am looking at upgrading my pc soon,i was only going to upgrade the GPU but with the rig i have at the moment the GPU would only get bottle necked. So i am looking at memory,now memory is something i know little about,so i am turning to you guys for some advice.
Should i go for a higher Mhz memory or smaller timings,for example iam looking at either some 2133Mhz CAS 9-10-9-28 or some at 1600Mhz CAS 7-8-7-24. So could someone please advise me on which i should go for.I only use my pc for gaming if that helps.
Many thanks

 

[inzone]

You should list you Pc spec's we can't give advise if we don't know what is inside your computer , also what were you going to upgrade your video card to and how much ram are you thinking or getting.

 

[andy_93]

Ok,at the moment i have a Phenom 9950 BE oc @ 3ghz,two 1 gig 4870`s in CF,8 gig of 1066 OCZ Ram,a Asus M3A32-MVP Deluxe MB and a OCZ 1000watt PSU. I was thinking of upgrading to a 6970 GPU,i want to start playing games in DX11,such as Dirt 3,F1 2011,BC3 and Mondern Warfare. If i have to upgrade all my pc then so be it,i will just have to shake the money tree in the garden lol. But the main thing is the memory,i am really not sure what to go for as listed above,any help would be very much appriciated.
Cheers

 

[beenthere]

The timings and frequency on DDR3 RAM make very little difference in system performance because of the higher frequency, bandwidth and single cycle real time compared to slower DDR2 memory. Tom's and Anandtech have both run tests on RAM to confirm this if you want to see the data.

Thus basically you can buy RAM based on actual need. The fastest stable RAM frequency that most folks see with a Phenom II quad core is ~1600 Mhz. when OC'ed from the default of 1333 Mhz. Thus buying RAM with a higher frequency than 1600 Mhz. is just throwing money away as you can't use it.

I'm not sure that faster RAM will help your system performance much as my testing from 1333 Mhz. to 1600 Mhz. showed less than 1% improvement in system performance with an AMD 965 BE.

 

[andy_93]

Thank you for the reply and the feed back regarding the memory,its something i can take into consideration when upgrading. I know very little about memory timings and frequency but this has pointed me in the right direction.
Cheers.