What's CL on RAM?

Discussion in 'PC hardware help' started by GlueEater, Mar 12, 2006.

  1. GlueEater

    GlueEater Regular member

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    All I know is that it's Cas Latency or something. I don't know what that means? Is it important? What if I use the wrong CL? My mobo docs say CL 2.5 for ram but the already installed ram says CL 3.
     
  2. flip218

    flip218 Moderator Staff Member

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  3. sammorris

    sammorris Senior member

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    CAS latency. Lower is better. it's the number of clock cycles it takes to complete a request. If you have 400mhz memory running at 2 cycles CAS, then a request is complete in 2/400 million seconds = 5ns. If you have 500mhz memory running at 3 cycles CAS, then it takes 6ns to complete a request, noticeably longer.
     
  4. GlueEater

    GlueEater Regular member

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    Thanks, so using ram with different CL values won't hurt anything right?
     
  5. flip218

    flip218 Moderator Staff Member

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    no it won't hurt, may just be slower.
     

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