RAM - the meanings of various numbers

When looking at various types of RAM, notably when reading this ( http://www.anandtech.com/memory/showdoc.aspx?i=2989) comparison between DDR2 and DDR3, I came accross some numbers that I don't know what they mean. The article refers to memories operating at 4-4-3 timings, or 3-3-3 timings and so on. Apparently, the lower the number the faster the memory, all other things being equal. What do these 'timings' mean? Do they describe some sort of latency (perhaps cycles) or something along those lines?

Another thing I came accross in different sources was that a memory can be 8-way associative or 5-way associative or whatever. What does this mean and how does this impact performance?

Thanks!

 

http://www.techpowerup.com/articles/overclocking/AMD/memory/131
http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/ComputingSolutions/0,,30_288_13265_13295^13335,00.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CPU_cache#Associativity

 

Thank you and have some rep!

For some reason I was unable to find anything on the timings on the internet despite trying. Thanks for those links - I will read up on it!