We are all aware of the fact there are more than just MHz when it comes to memory performance. However the real effect of lower latencies is a highly debated subject and more than one site has tested this.
Well now the memory manufacturer Corsair has taken it upon itself to test the very same.
“Memory modules are currently available which support a wide variety of different speeds and latency settings. Speed is easy to understand – in general, faster is better. But what do the latency settings mean? And, what impact do they have on memory performance? This paper will provide a brief background on latency settings and what they mean. Then, we will move to the lab, where we will run a suite of benchmarks over a wide variety of latency settings, and we will measure the impact of these settings on benchmark scores.”
This may also be a very interesting article for those of of you who are uncertain on what and how latencies work since the article begins with a short and brief but very good explanation on what latencies there are (there are more than one) and how they affect performance.
The results are very varying and if there is anything to say it is that latencies do affect performance, but the degree varies a lot.
Read Corsair’s article (pdf)
