tighter timings or higher speeds

[thetallone]

well i got 2gb of crucial balistixs 8500 ram and i was wondering would it be better to run it with tighter timings and a 1:1 ratio instead of the stock 1066 and 5-5-5-15 timings. i will be using a e6600 and do not plan on overclocking it as of now.

THX

[moditir]

you should be able to keep the same speeds while lowering the timings if that was your question

[thetallone]

i know that but i was asking if its better to have low timings and a low memory speed to get the 1:1 ratio between the fsb and the ram or have it at a higher sped with more relaxed timings..

[sswilson]

Each combination of timings vrs clockspeed is going to affect bandwidth/performance differently.

It depends on how tight you can get your timings, or how high you can set your clockspeeds and how loose you need to set your timings to get there. Some setups will allow for tighter timings than others, so that would provide better performance, while others will allow for higher clock speeds and thus better performance.

The only way to know for sure is to try both settings and do the benchmarking on your own system.

I'm just starting to play with this kind of benchmarking on an Intel platform, but my own experience with S939 A64s was that there was little difference between max clockspeed w/ loose timings, or max "tightness" with lower clockspeed.

There is a balance to be found.... obviously running your mem just slightly faster than what allows you to run tight will not be as efficient as running the slightly slower clockspeed w/ tight timings.

Short answer is that there is no real way to tell which works better for your setup other than doing the benching yourself.

Personally I prefer to run slightly tighter timings rather than higher clock speed. I'm running 4x1GB of Crucial Ballistix Tracer PC2-8500 and I find I can't overclock the speed of the memory very high, so I've found a good stable spot at 800-850MHz 4-4-4-12. I also don't like much voltage through my mem, so I run only 2.05V

[Babrbarossa]

Hi- I found in my benchmarks with the ballistix that higher speeds tended to increase performance more than tighter timings, but then again if your highest speed is 1200 with 5-5-5-12 timings, but it will also do 1120 with 4-4-4-9, then you'll probably be best with the slight drop in speed to get the much better timings- it's a bit of give nad take, but again- I found higher speeds are better- this is especially true with the p35 chipsets.