Gaming Performance Hard Drive

[xxmakroxx]

Hey guys, I'm building a new computer for gaming and I was wondering if anybody had any suggestions as to what I should for a high-performance hard drive, or if there is such a thing. I cannot afford a SSD nor could I justify it if I could so any ideas on an internal HD would be greatly appreciated. BTW, I'm putting it in a micro atx cube case and there's not a lot of room for aftermarket cooling, so any ideas for a drive that runs cool is even better. Thanks.

 

[Jovec]

I'm gonna say... don't worry about it. Games have pretty decent asset streaming from the HDD these days to preload as you play. Many multiplayer games are also reduced to the load speed of the slowest computer anyway (depending on type of networking they use). MMOs tend to have too many textures to load too. Better off with more CPU or GPU and 4GB RAM minimum so your actual game playing is as smooth as it can be.

You can try placing your OS on one drive, with a separate game/data drive too. This tends to be just as good as any raid stripping.

 

[CurseTheSky]

I would suggest any hard drive that's NOT 5400 RPM. So, for example, a 7200 RPM hard drive should be sufficient. If the price difference isn't very big ($5-10 tops), then a Western Digital Black drive (640 GB or 1 TB) wouldn't hurt.

Don't go spending a ton of cash one something like a Raptor / Veloci Raptor though. You'd be best off saving the cash for a SSD in the future.

 

[PClark99]

WD 1TB Black is probably what you should go for.