From what I have heard, its best to concentrate on matching CAS ratings for all your RAM as opposed to going for the fastest rating.

Also it would be better to buy CAS3 RAM from a quality manufacturer than to buy cheap CAS2 stuff.

I don't know the tech details offhand, but of course faster is, in most cases, better, in the PC world. However, I seriously doubt you will notice a speed difference with CAS2 over CAS3, but YMMV.I'm sure a google search would turn up a lot of relevant info.

mitz

Thank you for your reply...
Do you consider Twin-MOS being a quality manufacturer?
Or Kinston?

Never heard of twin-mos.

Kingston and Crucial are good names.

So what issues can so called "no-name-budget-RAM" cause?

Random instability, untraceable crashes, data corruption, etc.

You see, there are only a handful of RAM manufacturers in the world. They thoroughly test their stuff. The stuff that doesn't pass the test is either thrown out if its way too bad, or sold to others at a reduced price, if it doesn't quite meet their stringent standards.

The buyers of this sub-standard RAM turn around and sell it to the public under a different name, or, as generic, non-branded RAM, and for a cheaper price.

HI,

first Cas3 vs Cas2 wont matter unless you teak the memory settings in the bios.

CAS stands for column address strobe, the diff between 3 and 2 is the latency.

RAS is row address strobe..

in the bios there is a multitude of tweaks for memory (unless you have an intel mobo)

the faster the latency the faster the memory.
but again only if you set it in the bios to do so.
other wise all you have is overhead (which is good to)

also you can buy higher DDR such as DDR 466 rated at Cas (or CL which stands for cas latency)3
and run it DDR400 CL2.

the more memory banks you populate the better memory you need to run at tweaks setting. 2 in alright when you get to 4 it gets tricky..
that why servers have ECC REg (which will always be CL3)

name brand does not always equate to quality...
Microns DDR only runs at CL3.. big deal nor do i find it very stable with 4 sticks..

Samsung is amoung the best for DDR.
however there is many module builders who sell high end memory which has been tested and rated to CL2 @ DDR 466. generally has heat spreaders on it..
module builders do make memory but asssemble the module using others memory and then they program the Eprom.
these guys make some of the best memory and some of the worst.
a few examples Kingston, Muskin, MaLabs (superT)
Simple tech, Viking.

people who make memory. Micron, Samsung, Mosel, Infineon, Winbond, Hundai.
best thing to do is find a vendor who has a clue...

bottom line faster cas will improve memory bandwidth,

Scott
ADK

I put Crucial memory in all my client's machines. 100% reliable, no call backs or random problems.

That said, you install the RAM specified by the board maker. Splitting CAS numbers is tighter than splitting hairs... nothing noticeable. You will get FAR more bang for the back by streamlining your system and disabling trillions of cycles wasted on useless system functions. Opus has an excellent document for doing this.

Thank you for the information about CAS latency.
Well I ended up ordering Samsung 2 x 512 Mb.
It's going to be a proper ANUS with almost all of the Opus-Tweaks ( oh gosh how I miss him.... just would be nice to hear a word from him)
But I'm very happy that you guys are around here.
I'll be back when I start to build... I guess I'll have another question or two.