I'm a cross-poster. What can I say ;). What follows was posted earlier in the general discussion form.It's been a very long weekend, and I'm looking for some help. I decided to assemble a new system to use with WidevieW (my final one to give me a right side view). I spent a few weeks doing my homework (as much as I could), and decided in the end to go with a Gigabyte MB (Tom's hardware top pick for KT333 chipsets) with Corsair 3000 memory. The details aren't important, because after roughly 24 hours of heartache in 2 days, I'm certain that the MB is defective (to review how I arrived at this conclusion would probably be more painful to me than to you).After numerous benchmark tests (Gigabyte board couldn't complete any 3D Mark2001SE tests), I found that there was no difference between my Corsair 3000 (CL2 platinum) and Samsung (CL2.5) memory modules when running my current "server". One of the reasons I bought the Corsair was that I thought the CL2 would improve performance. So here is my question/problem: I now have to admit to myself that I still don't really understand cas level. My rudimentary understanding (from Tom's hardware) is that this has to do with the latency period after a processor cache miss (failure to load the necessary instruction set). The lower the cas level, the shorter the number of clock cycles before the needed instruction set is delivered from memory. After seeing Paul's score with his new system, I hoped that the step up to better memory would imrpove my performance. What I don't know is how to set up my BIOS to take advantage of the improved memory. I thought that the BIOS normally detects the memory module and sets the optimal cas levels. However, when I placed the Corsair memory in the "server", it still showed CL2.5. I know that I'm still somewhat short on information here, but I think I've gone on long enough. Elrond, Paul, Max, others - care to take some time to help out this poor misdirected neophite?

David,Is the motherboard running the newest BIOS? And do you have a Turbo setting in the BIOS menu for the RAM? I know in my BIOS I can change the timings to suit and I run my 2 x 256 XMS3000 sticks at 2,2,2,5? You should be able to manually asign the Cas timings via the BIOS menu.

Hi John,I am indeed able to change settings in BIOS, but until I know what they do, I'm reluctant to tinker too much. Do you mind explaining what you mean by 2,2,2,5? There is more information on my problem in the general discussion forum. I won't repeat it here, but I'd be happy to have your input.

Hi David,You know, I didn't fully understand myself, I just know the lower the timings the faster it is.I found this on the Corsair site, makes for an interesting read and explains it quite well I believe.http://www.corsairmemory.com/main/trg-cas.html