9-9-9-24 vs 8-8-8-21 and other settings

[a.verb]

Hi All

I have a question on memory timings but first my specs.
Gigabyte MA785GT-UD3H Bios is at F7 everything set to AUTO - No OC'ing
AMD 955 BE quad core w/ Kama angled V cooler
4 gig of F3-10600CL8D-4GBHK

I built the system back in Dec 09 and all ran well until 3 or 4 weeks ago when I started getting random BSOD that traced to memory failure. My RMA was painless and turnaround for the new sticks was quick (about a week total), so I'm pleased with the CS I received.

I usually don't try to run things at higher speeds than necessary, I'm not a gamer, just a surfer and Office user with occasional Doom or Far Cry game every couple months but I do like safe speed without burning things up.

Now my Q... my bios defaults the timing to 9-9-9-24 but I see on the memory label 8-8-8-21 so I ran memtest86 with both configurations and it passed with no errors either way.

I also see my clock speed defaults to 1333 (x6.66) but I read in another post a suggestion to either reduce that to 1066 (x5.33) or increase the voltage to 1.6 ?

Also the Row Cycle Time defaults to 33 but I have read that reducing this to 15-18 range could increase performance a few percent- is this safe to do also?

Which settings are recommended to use?
stability is more important than speed but speed is cool.

thanks
arf

[wevsspot]

Hello a.verb,

Your kit is rated to run at DDR3 1333 and 8-8-8-21 timings with the DRAM Voltage set at 1.5v

Accordingly, you should set your four primary memory timings and your DRAM Voltage accordingly. Not surprising that your kit would pass Memtest in either configuration, since CL8 is tighter than CL9. If it passed at CL8 it would almost certainly pass at CL9.

Anyways, as I said run your memory at the G.Skill specified speed, timing and voltage.

Don't mess with the RCT settings. You won't gain much, but can certainly move backwards from what appears to be a stable setup already.

The only thing you might tweak is to see if the memory will run at a 1T command rate instead of 2T command rate. Other than that the only timings you should concern yourself with are the four primary. Every other memory related tweak can be left on auto unless you're a memory junkie

[a.verb]

That was a great answer and just what I wanted to know.

Thanks very much
AL

[wevsspot]

My pleasure.
Enjoy your rig

[a.verb]

I have been running with the new settings since my last post and no problems as of yet. I changed the command rate to 1T at the same time so it looks like it is good so far.

Thanks
AL

[wevsspot]

You're very welcome.

Take care.