Maximum PC

Hello,

Need a little help. I'm looking to build an AMD64 system with an SLI board. I've gotten most of the parts picked with the exception of hard drives. I'm looking to do some serious gaming (HalfLife2, Doom3...etc) and would really appreciate some advice. I understand that the Western Digital Raptors are the best with the fastest seek times.

I was wondering though, is there a performance difference between a 10k RPM drive and a 7200 RPM drive, both SATA, when the transfer rates are the same for each, rated at 150MB/s?

150MB/s is the highest transfer rate that SATA 150 can allow. That does not mean that both drives will continue spitting out data at that rate. With gaming, a hard drive is nothing much to consider except for the capacity of the drive.

I'm not saying you shouldn't go with a Raptor, but a 7200RPM drive would be the smarter choice, IMO.

The only other difference is the GB per dollar you will be spending. A Raptor 74GB is around $170. While it's cheaper than what it used to be, you can get a 250-300GB drive for the same price or even lower! These days, even an 80GB hard drive can fill up fast.

Does your mobo support SATA II? If so, then look into hard drives that support the SATA II feature (which is 3.0GB transfer as opposed to the 1.5GB transfer on SATA I). Such drives include the Maxtor MaXline III+ which just recently came out. As of now, NewEgg has the 300GB model for $239 (sold out as of this post, but I'm sure you can find a better deal from ZipZoomFly or ChiefValue).

Thank you OCNoob and maxime29. You've un-confused the confused! As for SATA II, that's one I didn't know existed till now. As for the transfer speed of SATA II it's something I can use since I move a lot of files to my external drive. I will check those MOBO's for that spec since I haven't made a final purchase yet. Thanks again.

On newegg.com you can get a NCQ enabled 80GB Seagate Barracuda for only $70. Is that a good deal or what. OEM only!!

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDe ... 040&depa=0

That depends what you do with it. Really a 40 gig master is more than enough for the normal gamer. You then get a bigger slave 160gig + and throw all of your important stuff of that- my documents can be run from a slave, downloads, even backups of games. This IMO is the way to go.

Blondie is on track with what I plan on doing. My 3rd box had an 80GB and I used my 160GB external for storage and backups. I found using the 80 was actually a waste of space after the OS and other apps were installed and a 1.5GB page file. I haven't used 40GB's of drive space yet and this after 2 years of use. But then again, maybe the extra space was a good thing? Not sure, but I don't think I'd get anything over 80GB's anymore. If I can get away with a couple of 40's (RAID), that'll be just fine for me but I might stand the chance of disk thrashing going that small huh?