I'm kinda unsure which route to take with my overclock.

I've been testing the threshold of everything, and my cpu maxes out at 2.82 and the fastest I could get the ram was 275mhz with the timings 1t 2.5.3. 3.7. (so I have to use 275x10)

I just wanted to know which is going to perform better. Max mhz with the current timings, or something lower with tighter timings. I was thinking if I could get it to run at 256 with tighter timings, then i'd be able reach the max cpu speed (256x11=2818).

I guess I'll probably just have to experiment with different setups, but I just wanted to know if there was a general rule of thumb or something.

I've read tons of guides and stuff, but I don't think I'm smart enough to understand how ram works

well in the past when i was a Intel Overclocker, i found that the pest performance across the board was making sure everything was running 1:1. i had a chip that would clock like mad but was limited in memory. so i clocked the ram as high as i could, and ran it with the tightest timmings i could. it proved to be the best in my case, but with current technology i am kinda out of the loop. so the best thing you can try is just play with the settings to find the best for you.

In my testing, the higher speed has always benched better in both synthetic tests and real world game tests. I can see that there is a difference using tighter timings at the same speed, but crank up the MHz a bit and the difference goes away quickly.

I've alway's had better performance running @ 1:1 on Intel PC's. My new X2 is performing pretty good at 5:4. Every PC is a little different. You really just need to take the time and test it yourself. It should teach you a few things.
Tell me how and I probably forget it
Show me how and I may remember it
Let me do it and I've got it for life.

The 256Mhz with tight timings, along with the max CPU speed would be the best balance. Higher RAM with a lower CPU speed wouldn't be as good.

Righto, I guess its was corsair's marketing that kinda drew me into thinking It'd be best to keep the timings as low as possible. They put so much focus on this ram working at 2225, I thought I should try and keep it as close to those numbers.

I loosened the timings to 2.5, 4, 3, 8 and now it's stable at 282mhz. Got a couple of hundred more in 3dmark05 compared to anything else, so I think this is gonna be the best for me. I've been at it for a week constantly now, so I don't think I can be bothered to tweak it any more at the moment. I wanna play games now!

It has gotten me wondering though, If I loosen the timings more, I might be able to get them running at 9x313!

Cheers for the tips guys!