Is this http://www.scan.co.uk/products/16gb...0)-non-ecc-cas-9-9-9-27-xmp-15v-x79-z68-and-p better than this? http://www.scan.co.uk/products/16gb...pc3-12800-(1600)-non-ecc-cas-9-9-9-24-xmp-15v is it the higher CAS the better or the other way round?? It seems that buying Quad works out much cheaper than Dual, I will be using it in a Z68 setup, thanks in advance.
Lower latency settings are better, they refer to the amount of CPU cycles that the ram waits before repeating that particular process. Much like engine timings, too soon and it will misfire giving you bad data or crashes. Too late and it just makes things slower. It used to be that with the correct timings I could have 266MHz DDR giving better performance than 333MHz DDR at the next timing notch down, but that was way back in the day of the Nforce 2 and Athlon XP's. Nowadays with the ridiculous about of ram bandwidth available (especially Quad Channel) Latency doesn't seem to have much of an effect any more. Although with some applications being more sensitive to latency and others to raw MHz, I don't believe the tests have been in depth enough, Especially considering that the amount of timing options in the bios have gone from 3 to 27 recently. I expect the difference between the 2 is very minimal esp considering it's for quad channel. The deciding factor would probably be whether you can accommodate the fins or if the memory slots are too close to your CPU cooler for them to fit. I'd also consider whether you were going to upgrade your cooler at any point for bette overclocking.
Thanks for that clear explanation. The cooler is not really a priority at the moment, it seems to tame the current Q6600 quite well, not letting it get over 65 when gaming so Iam hoping it will do the same with the 2500K. If it starts giving me concern when trying to push the CPU then it will be changed. Iam probably going to go for the LP memory just to be on the safe side with regards to clearance. thanks again
