Well, I have been waiting for someone who knows what they are talking 
about to answer this, Peter, and since nobody has, I will step in and 
give you my understanding.

First of all the  "1066" and "1600" refer, I think, to the FSB speed.  
(Front Side Bus.)  The 1600 can be reliably run at a much faster speed 
(is certified to run at a higher speed) than the 1066.  Higher CLOCK 
speed of the FSB.  The other numbers are the number of clock cycles to 
do individual operations in the accessing of the memory.  Since they are 
clock cycles, they are not a reliable indicator of speed except relative 
to the same FSB speed.  In this case, if your motherboard (FSB) will 
support the 1600 chips, then you will get significantly better 
performance than with the 1066 chips for those operations that require 
the memory access.

If somebody wants to give a better answer, I am happy to yield the 
floor.  :)

Dean Kukral

On 11/28/2010 4:07 PM, Peter Shkabara wrote:
> I thought I understood RAM, but I find myself confused now. Looking at two
> 240-pin DDR3 SDRAM specs.
>
>
>
> RAM 1: rated as DDR3 1066 with timing of 7-7-7-18
>
>
>
> RAM 2: rated as DDR3 1600 with timing of 7-8-7-24
>
>
>
> What I don't understand is why RAM 2 has a faster clock interface (1600MHz),
> but its timing is slower! Which will be faster in a system? Any explanation
> or pointer to references will help. Thank you.
>
>
>
> Peter Shkabara
>
> --------------------------------------
>
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>
>
>    

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