I'm not saying that the boutique manufacturers dreamed it up. Yes if you compare raw numbers a 10k drive is faster than a comparable 7200rpm drive. It's just been marketed as a must have for gamers, which it isn't.

Also I was talking about RAID 5, not RAID 1. Distributed parity, striping across 3 disks. With dual core + processors, you aren't going to get a big CPU performance hit, plus reads are going to be significantly faster (which is what's important for games). Writes are a little slower but again if you are worried about gaming, you aren't too concerned with write times.

And I never said RAID was a backup solution, it's a data protection solution. If you are using RAID you should still be backing up your data somewhere else as well.

I'm not debating whether they are fast drives, just saying for the money you spend on one there are other alternatives that might suit your needs better. Look at the benchmarks on Tom's Hardware and you can see that the 10k drives have an edge, but it's very slight on the tests that would matter in the real world.

Now if you have the money, RAIDing Raptors would be a fun project...

10/24/2007 8:48:35 PM

Quote :

"toms hardware"

- thank you

10/24/2007 9:07:26 PM

first hand experience > tom's hardware

Quote :

"marketed as a must have for gamers, which it isn't."

i've never seen it marketed as a must have for gamer's. guess where I hear it most? from gamer's themselves who swear by them... nuff said. an "edge" is an "edge" in gaming so why settle for something less.

[Edited on October 24, 2007 at 10:37 PM. Reason : .]

10/24/2007 10:31:00 PM

im torn. Id love to get a raptor as my main drive, and a seagate as a data drive.


son of a gun

10/24/2007 11:37:40 PM

these are some of my other reasons on why not to go RAID:
1) increased power demand
2) increased wear-tear on 3x the drives
3) increased cpu utilization
4) increased heat
5) dependent upon motherboard and drivers

seagate barracuda:
Average Seek Time 8.5ms
Average Write Time 9.5ms
Average Latency 4.16ms

western digital raptor:
Average Seek Time 4.6ms
Average Write Time 5.2ms
Average Latency 2.99ms

10/24/2007 11:57:06 PM

total zinger, they totally got usb now

[Edited on October 25, 2007 at 12:48 AM. Reason : ~]

10/25/2007 12:46:36 AM

AMD Athlon 64 FX-74 Windsor 3.0GHz 2 x 1MB L2 Cache Socket F (1207 FX) DSDC Architecture Processor


or


Intel Quad Core ?


newegg has a deal on the amd + 500gb seagate baracuda hd

11/2/2007 1:59:04 PM

the amd is faster than the Q6600, but you have to pay for twice the power usage

11/2/2007 2:08:26 PM

yea, i was thinking the antec 650 w wasnt going to cut it.

85%

11/2/2007 2:11:00 PM

Antec Nine Hundred Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - Retail

Western Digital Raptor X WD1500AHFD 150GB 10,000 RPM Serial ATA150 Hard Drive




Rosewill RX750-D-B ATX12V v2.2 & EPS12V v2.91 750W Power Supply


Crucial Ballistix 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model BL2KIT12864AA804



AMD Athlon 64 FX-74 Windsor 3.0GHz Socket F (1207 FX) DSDC Architecture Processor Model ADAFX74DIBOX - Retail



Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3500630AS 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM

e-GeForce 8800GT Superclocked 512MB





could someone help with what kind of MOBO would be best with these components

[Edited on November 2, 2007 at 2:50 PM. Reason : x]

11/2/2007 2:49:28 PM

is there a good dual quad core workstation motherboard out there yet?

oh and it needs to be able to do raid 10

[Edited on November 2, 2007 at 4:43 PM. Reason : 

11/2/2007 4:27:47 PM

i pulled the trigger

11/3/2007 3:05:59 AM

Quote :

"AMD Athlon 64 FX-74 Windsor 3.0GHz Socket F (1207 FX) DSDC Architecture Processor Model ADAFX74DIBOX - Retail"

not sure how you ended up in this direction...

11/3/2007 6:47:22 AM

Yeah go with the intel. The q6600 is quad core and 270$, and the FX-74 is dual core and 300$. If you want quad core with the amd you'd have to buy 2. Right? Plus with the new games coming that take advantage of 4 cores (crysis, unlreal 07, etc) i'd recommend the quad core.

11/3/2007 6:18:47 PM

it came with a free 500gb hd... and its a whole lot faster than any intel excet the quad/extreme...but with the free hd... it made it the better deal

11/3/2007 7:11:31 PM

^I bought a e6600 and overclocked it to 3.4, and it outperforms a fx-74 at stock. So it just depends how you want to spend your money. Ask anyone, intel is far ahead of amd right now in terms of price/performance. Amd was in the lead until the core 2 duos took the lead.

[Edited on November 3, 2007 at 7:19 PM. Reason : .]

11/3/2007 7:17:22 PM

Are all "hardcore gaming viable" motherboards coming with SLI these days? I'll be upgrading my machine soon, but I dont ever plan on using SLI or Crossfire w.e

11/4/2007 5:03:12 PM

NC86, you need a DSDC (dual socket) motherboard, there shouldn't be that many available

11/4/2007 10:20:37 PM