Ram Help

[KillerBunny]

Hi guys, I'm new, so not very knowledgeable about most of this stuff. Can anyone break ram down for me? I know ddr3 stands for double data rate 3 or something like that and I get the concept, but how do the speeds affect ram performance? like 1333Mhz and 1600Mhz ram? Also, what is cas 7 and cas 9? I heard people talking about it, but cannot make heads or tails of it.

[J.P.@XoticPC]

Hey KillerBunny! I think this article from Tom's Hardware might help you a little bit. Good reading material.

[Judicator]

The speed of the RAM is a measure of how fast the data can be transferred to and from the RAM, so a 1333 MHz stick can handle up to 1333 million transfers per second, while a 1600 MHz stick can handle up to 1600 million transfers per second, for total peak data transfer rates of 10667 MB/s and 12800 MB/s (DDR3 SDRAM - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia). CAS latency is a measure of how long it takes memory to actually access a specific memory location. For general use, however, none of this is very important; the base speeds involved are so fast that you won't notice the difference in changing from one to another.

[KillerBunny]

Thanks guys! I understand it a bit better now

[NightFalcon]

So 1333mhz and 1600mhz have hardly noticeable difference.

12gb 1333mhz ram memory going to be overkill? or 8gb is more than enough?

Is it possible to overclock RAM's Mhz?

[Greg]

8GB is definitely overkill unless you do some really atypical computing. As far as overclocking is concerned you (1) probably will not be able to OC much due to not being able to modify voltages and (2) there is hardly a noticeable difference so there is really no point.

[Ryan]

Yup, if I could choose my RAM again, I would choose the low-voltage RAM from Samsung with 1.35V instead of the standard 1.5V.

The CAS Latency is slower than the counterparts, but the 1.35V should produce less heat and give me a bit more battery life.

[debguy]

Originally Posted by Greg

8GB is definitely overkill unless you do some really atypical computing.

Please define "atypical computing"!
What is atypical about running virtual machines, databases or image editing software?

[privatejarhead]

Originally Posted by debguy

Please define "atypical computing"!
What is atypical about running virtual machines, databases or image editing software?

Probably depends on how many instances of said software you're running at once (or for photo editing, the resolution?). I could smoothly run one or two virtual machines at once on a computer with 3GB DDR2, though I imagine that a dozen or so VMs would gladly make use of 8GB or more.

[debguy]

Originally Posted by privatejarhead

Probably depends on how many instances of said software you're running at once (or for photo editing, the resolution?). I could smoothly run one or two virtual machines at once on a computer with 3GB DDR2, though I imagine that a dozen or so VMs would gladly make use of 8GB or more.

Yes, for two VMs 4GB will usually be sufficient, but with three of them (running one for things you don't want or can't do on your host system, a 2nd for testing new things you might integrate in your host system and simultaneously installing a 3rd one for future tasks) 4GB are easily used up. I have at least two VMs opened most of the time. And the only reason why I have no big DBs at home is because I have them at work and access them via SSH.

As for image editing, what about a bunch of the latest holiday pictures in 15MPx RAW format or something cartography-related like this?:
Interactive Mars Data Maps
Editing the big MOLA map on my old laptop with 3GB of RAM was quite a pain although it had nothing else to do at that time.