Placebo effect doesn't exist in the forum! :LMAO:But seriously speaking, I am going to have to side with Stephen on this one [We had a thorough discussion about this in the new Avsim teamspeak].He basically summed it up as this:FSX will always take advantage of faster hardware.When you have a really fast CPU, GPU, and SSD, FSX will take advantage of them.But your performance will always "fall to the lowest denominator" of your system.If you don't have the fastest RAM in place, data will not be fed as quickly to the CPU...

In theory, all of that sounds very pretty. In practice, however, it doesn't ring true. Not to an extent that is worth mentioning... or spending the extra dough on!Who said placebo?! NOT ME! :search:

This is not a shot at anyone, nor does it prove anything at all, just a fun story.Couple of months ago I had a guy contact me asking for advise on a tight budget build for FSX. Of course I suggested the ubiquitous 2500K + P67 + CM212+ combo, coupled with a GTX460 and 1600 CL9 RAM.I even helped him with the overclockLater he sent me an email telling me that he'd been told that his RAM was too slow and he needed tighter timings, that he had tried CL7 and he went on on how much smoother it all run and blah blah.So of course I asked him how could that be that he was running CL7 on CL9 rated RAM and when I loged in via Teamviewer and checked CPU-Z sure enough, his BIOS had reset his ENTIRE Bios to defaults, including the OC.Oh lord what a laugh

Edited February 13, 201214 yr by dazz

This is not a shot at anyone, nor does it prove anything at all, just a fun story.Couple of months ago I had a guy contact me asking for advise on a tight budget build for FSX. Of course I suggested the ubiquitous 2500K + P67 + CM212+ combo, coupled with a GTX460 and 1600 CL9 RAM.I even helped him with the overclockLater he sent me an email telling me that he'd been told that his RAM was too slow and he needed tighter timings, that he had tried CL7 and he went on on how much smoother it all run and blah blah.So of course I asked him how could that be that he was running CL7 on CL9 rated RAM and when I loged in via Teamviewer and checked CPU-Z sure enough, his BIOS had reset his ENTIRE Bios to defaults, including the OC.Oh lord what a laugh

LOLOL :Nerd:

his BIOS had reset his ENTIRE Bios to defaults, including the OC.Oh lord what a laugh

Talk about placebo! :LMAO:

Who said placebo?! NOT ME!

I loged in via Teamviewer and checked CPU-Z sure enough, his BIOS had reset his ENTIRE Bios to defaults, including the OC.Oh lord what a laugh

HahahahaPlacebo oh yeah.Lets think of what the RAM timing actually mean.When the CPU don't have the required data in the cache it has to fetch the data from RAM before it can execute the instruction. This affects the FPS. How long (short) time this takes depends on both the timing (latency) AND RAM speed (bandwidth). The latency number just tells you how many RAM cycles has to pass after the RAM recieves a request for data before it will start sending it. Once the RAM starts sending the data to the CPU the bandwidth affects how long time the transmission of the data takes.So you can't say that CL7 RAM will get rid of stutters. The timing is just one part of the process of getting the data from RAM to CPU. With the older Core2 systems the memory controller wasn't integrated in the CPU. That added valuable time to the transmission of data from the RAM to the CPU. The data had to be transfered from the Memory bus to the FSB in the chipset. So the effect of RAM latency could be magnified in that conversion. But Intel has integrated the memorycontroller in the "i" series CPUs removing that bottleneck.To return back to the original question. Does latency matters?Well, yes and no.If the latency and/or the bandwidth becomes too slow for the CPU you will see a big effect. But 1600Mhz memory in dual channel at any availible timing is sufficient for Sandy bridge. Yes, tighter timings or faster speeds, trippel or quad chanel will affect the FPS but only by a tiny ammount.Is it worth it? You and your wallet has to decide. Some people are happy to feed loads of voltage through an expencive CPU in order to squeez out those last Mhz while overclocking. Those last Mhz will have a small impact on FPS. As will lower latency RAM. Question is, Does it matter to you?

I slowly feel that deciding for the right RAM is not that easy.

I slowly feel that deciding for the right RAM is not that easy.

If anything, the above comments should tell you deciding for RAM is very easy. When I say you won't notice a difference between 9-9-9 and 7-7-7, I mean you won't notice a difference at all. What the guys above are saying mostly comes back to not wanting to say something completely wrong. They're factoring in the 1/2FPS gain you'll get with tighter timings or higher speed. So yeah, tighter timings are a good thing. Higher speed is good, too. But you won't see any returns for the money. None.1600 or 1866!

Edited February 13, 201214 yr by ZachLW

In theory, all of that sounds very pretty. In practice, however, it doesn't ring true. Not to an extent that is worth mentioning... or spending the extra dough on!

Ya'll come outta thayah! Ya heaah?

Ya'll come outta thayah! Ya heaah?Posted Image

I just lol'ed....... :LMAO: