How Do Memory Timings Work?

What do those sequences of memory timings on your RAM modules mean?

[ksmasterchif]

THE NUMBERS MASON!!! WHAT DO THEY MEAN!?!?!?

[JMUDoc]

Think of memory as a guy throwing numbered tennis balls on command:
1. the bandwidth is how MANY he can throw every second,
2. the latency is how quickly he can FIND the balls he's asked to throw.
Memory performance = how long it takes the guy at the other end to receive the balls he's asked for. Thus, it's a combination of the two.
If, like me, you're more into tightening timings than upping bandwidth - recent AMD platforms seem to favour the former approach - the first number is the hardest one to reduce stably and it has the biggest impact on real "nanosecond" latency, the second number is second in both regards, and so on. An additional wrinkle on AMD is that the numbers can't be odd; if you try an odd number it will default to one higher.

[LastofAvari]

Luke is tilted by about 5° to the left during the whole video.

[darkontt]

Thank you Luke for making these videos! It's been more than one and a half decade since I had a desktop, and wathcing your videos in the past few years, along with Linus's, Jay's, Paul's and Dmitri's is what gave me the knowledge and motivation to finally build one completely on my own. I just ordered the parts yesterday and can't wait to start.
Greetings from Hungary!
TT

[TheMacClayne]

The good old days when Luke was around :'-]

[MrZodiac]

Went from 2400MHz CL15 to 3600MHz CL16 which I worked out was a 12.5ns to a 8.9ns. I've noticed framerate is slightly better, in some cases it's a fair amount better from comparing them, but my lows are much better and I get fewer stutters and microstutters, in CPU intensive games like Battlefield 1 and 5 my average improved by a fair amount.

[erwinlee]

request techquickie: how increasing voltage helps overclocking. thanks

[sttate]

A techquickie that might be worthwhile: Why exactly does increasing the voltage across RAM/CPU when overclocking prevent errors?

[KTSpeedruns]

I've been testing different timings and getting them pretty tight and I'm going to continue re-watching this. Thanks for this video.

[Kr]

Sorry but after seeing small Linus in the MKBHD tour, it's really getting to me, and I'm giggling an hour later XD

[kapitanuran]

C'mon guys it's 2017! If you can download more ram you can surely undownload the timings right?

[marcelr]

Nice to finally have a source of information that actually explains the other numbers, rather than ignoring them. Thanks!

[AfonsoSousa]

Some "Crucial specifications" you say?

[Telogor]

Pro tip for boosting Ryzen performance: if you can't get your memory to be stable at your desired frequency, you can hack it to work properly by increasing your timings. First, find your maximum stable memory frequency. Next divide your desired frequency by your stable frequency. Take that quotient and multiply each of the numbers in the memory timings by that amount, and use those products as your new timings. This should usually result in a stable overclock. You may need to slightly increase the memory voltage and/or loosen the timings a little more for full stability. This may slightly increase overall memory latency, but it can help you make the Infinity Fabric that much faster.

I love gamers nexus but their video about memory timings is like 25 minutes and is titled "part 1"... You guys do a great job explaining these things so they make sense

[matthewtrott]

You said adjust The 4th number accordingly (tRAS)... according to what???

[dertyp]

Thank you! Very well explained! I Wasted an hour searching forums for the plain basics 😅 now after watching this all the details i read about make sense!

[kefka]

I miss my old Winbond BH-5 modules. 2-2-2-5 @ 400Mhz (was 333). I'm sure the brand was Kingston. That Ram survived me overclocking an 1800+ palimino, 1700+ thoroughbred (b?) and my 2500+ barton core and last but not least my 3200+ Athlon 64.

[Traumglanz]

This was a useful and simple techquickie which totally blew it by not explaining sub-timings. :p

[Jader]

These videos are devolving into
"And thats how X works, assuming you're not playing with the RGB settings."