Memory Latency
 Now we are getting technical... In the simplest terms Latency is delay. In a computer it is the inevitable pause between asking for some data and having that data available to be used. To give a real life example I looked at the Newegg site and found a couple of pairs of 1GB DDR PC3200 RAM modules which would look nice in my system, but am I better off ordering the OCZ Gold RAM with 2-3-3-8 timing or the Mushkin High-Performance RAM with 2-3-2-6 timing? What the heck do those numbers mean anyway?
 I'll try to offer a simple explanation, but if all this terminology really makes your eyes glaze over then just remember if all else is equal then the lower the numbers are, the better the RAM will perform. Then skip to the next section. For the rest of us here goes:
 Data is stored in your computer's memory chips in a similar way to storing data in a spreadsheet - it is organised in rows and columns and is sequential along a row. For example in a 16Mbit chip there would be 4,194,304 address locations or "cells" arranged in 2048 rows and 2048 columns. Each cell in the chip holds four bits of data. Part of the chip might look like this: