RAM speed / timings

[Gorion]

RAM speeds/timings are confusing.

What is the real difference between 2400MHz CAS 15-15-15-35 and 3200MHz CAS 16-16-16-35 ?

Will the 3200MHz perform better than the 2400, is there a considerable difference or are we talking 1-2 frames, and a couple of seconds faster in other tasks?

That is if a 2400 rated mobo will actually be able to support those speeds in the first place.

[Tutonic]

is there a considerable difference

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From most benchmarks I've seen, the difference is negligible at best. Benchmarks don't always reflect real life performance, but I've always been of the opinion that stability is better than a 1% performance gain - let the motherboard decide which settings to use

[Gorion]

Not the settings per se, but the actual hardware.

If a mobo is by default 2400 rated, should I go for 2400, or 3200 physical ram, in the hopes of improvement.  What I've been reading leads to negligible gaming performance increase, with the possibility of better performance in other tasks.  I don't want to be bottlenecked by RAM.

Example:

RAM

MOBO

CPU

[Chaosphere]

Ddr3 or 4?

Of those 2 I would opt for the 3200mhz, but you will never notice any difference between the two in gaming or normal pc tasks.

[Gorion]

DDR4

If there's no noticeable difference at all, why go for higher clocks?  Can the linked CPU be bottle-necked by 2400 ram?

[Chaosphere]

Because in my experience with ram it's easier to tighten the timings on high mhz ram than it is to increase the mhz on low latency ram. So that 3200 16 16 16 can probably be tweaked to something like 3000 15 15 15, but I think you'd struggle to get the 2400 ram to 3ghz. Bear in mind this is all academic as like I've said neither will actually yield any real world benefit, nor do you need to tweak the settings of either one for general use. Neither will bottle neck you in gaming or normal use.