1) What are the differences between ram cache and ram disk?
Generally:
Although called a RAM disk. it is not a disk at all but a portion of memory set aside to act as a temporary disk. Temporary in that when the computer is shutdown the ram disk no longer has any data within it. A ram disk is normally seen in explorer as a hard disk/partition, but because RAM is faster, the files and programs stored on it will run faster. You could actually use a complete applicaiton from within a Ram Disk.
RAM cache or disk cache as it is more commonly called is an area of RAM reserved for data recently used from the disk. Recent or most often used data in a disk cache allows your processor to quickly retrieve it if it's needed again. Because the processor searches the disk cache first for every piece of data it needs it slows the process down if the data is repeatedly not present.
2) If my mobo locks the latency at 1600mhz, can I still use ram with her clock speeds? ( mobo only runs at the 1600mhz speed)
Your mobo does not actually lock latency at 1600Mhz as you write but it may only use DDR3-1600Mhz speed for the ram as you say. Not sure I have ever seen such but if your board only ran DDR3-1600 ram then it would make little sense to run faster ram that was not used at its' faster speed.
3) Would a HDD with ram cache be as fast as an SSD with RAM cache?
Because the SSD is most often faster than any HDD, it follows that an SSD with RAM cache would be faster.
4) If I play a game with an SSD using RAM Cache, will the game benefit in loading times or do I have to put it on a RAMdisk
Cache or Caching means set aside for use. Well to get into ram cache you have to mostly have used it previously and loading a game will not benefit from such practice since loading is just that loading or giving opportunity to be in cache. So a Ram disk that is set up to have a game within it would be the way to go. I doubt yet with an SSD that I would be overly concerned with a ram disk though. The idea is intriguing but it takes some work to put an entire game within a Ram Disk.
Thanks in advance
Better stick to a SSD.
