RAM has just as a processor a clock frequency which is important for the performance but there are other elements in a memory module which are also important for the performance. These are generally called latencies and in short you could describe these as specified waiting times for how long (how many cycles) it will take for the module to e.g. fetch the data and then store it on the correct spot. Even if the clock frequency is very high the memory can’t always accelerate due to the long waiting times.
There are several different latencies which are crucial for the memory’s performance and at Hardware Secrets they’ve published an article which discuss these, how upp they work and gives a more detailed description of why it is important with aggressive latencies. An interesting article for those who wants to know more about how and why you optimize the memory performance by combining frequencies with aggressive latencies.
