Memory differences

[brad1138]

I built a comp. about 1 year ago and started with 2x2GB Ripjaws DDR3-1333 purchased here.

I just bought another pair to go to 8 GB. I noticed in the bios timings setting a few differences between the new and old. The major timings are all the same (8-8-8-24) but some of the more obscure ones are different. most are very close except for "DRAM TRFC" which is considerably different. I know that there can be slight differences in production runs, but this seems like a big difference. Should I worry about anything? I ran Intelburntest v2.53 and the memory checker that comes with Ubuntu, no problems.

The memory is running at 1466 MHz (10% FSB OC).

Thanks,
Brad

[brad1138]

I just found this forum with someone with very similar memory with the exact same timing difference. I would think that is intentional then, and that likely if I swapped the memory, the timings would stay with the slot, not the memory.

[Tradesman]

What you are seeing is the timings programmed into the SPD of the individual stick as it's read by the BIOS, the newer sticks prob have updated SPDs to help mesh with newer socket mobos while maintaining compatibility with the older mobos. If the sticks were higher freq (1600 and up, you prob also see additional XMP settings to comply w/ XMP 1.3 (newest) as well as the older XMP 1.2

[RamJam]

Ran into that same thing, GSkill said the SPDs had been updated as T mentioned

[brad1138]

So if the newer set has better timings, should I try to manually set the older ram to match?

[Tradesman]

You'll want the base timings at 9-9-9-24 and let the BIOS handle the advanced timings, what programmed for Advanced is for a single set of two sticks, with four sticks it may in many cases be the same and others will change, i.e. tRFC will be higher for 4 sticks, than for 2

[brad1138]

You'll want the base timings at 9-9-9-24 and let the BIOS handle the advanced timings, what programmed for Advanced is for a single set of two sticks, with four sticks it may in many cases be the same and others will change, i.e. tRFC will be higher for 4 sticks, than for 2

Curious, why would I want to set the base timings slower that the memory is rated at? I have noticed that when I set the BIOS to "auto" they come up at 9-9-9-24, but they are rated at 8-8-8-24, and when I manually set them to that they run faster.

[Tradesman]

I listed the base timing wrong, you want the rated timings, had a couple posts up I was looking at...sorry bout that