It is not a dumb question. To be honest, I have never paid attention to gear ratio. What I have looked at is line speed. But there is a trade off. The fast winches do pull down under load and draw more amperage than the slow line speed winches. You might also look at Superwinch. They have a fast line speed winch for a good price. The line speed is nice when reeling in the line with no load though and I would not trade that now that I have one.