CAS latency 3 is bad?

[elitebear4]

im not an overclocker, so is it perfectly fine to have a 512mb ddr400 stick with CAS latency 3? what sorts of advantages does a stick with 2.5CL have over this? (im not exactly sure what CAS latency is)

[Jon]

It's not bad, just not optimal. When your PC needs to access memory, it scans your physical memory for what it needs. This is set up in sort of a spreadsheet format. You have rows and columns with each area assigned an address. The chipset will first check the row of addresses for what it's looking for (RAS). It then waits 2-3 clock cycles before accessing the column of addresses...that 2-3 clock cycles is your CAS latency.

Since you're not an overclocker and not really pushing the envelope, I hardly doubt you would notice anything between CAS 3 and 2.5.