Issue with P4 mobos and ATA 133 hard drive.

[FluxCap]

I am going to build a P4 system and I am looking at the Asus line. What I don't understand is why it doesn't support ATA 133 hard drives. I have a Maxtor I would like to use in the system but I am bothered by having to run the drive at ATA 100. Why is it like that?

 

[Boonesmi]

ata133 is just a maxtor marketing ploy

no ide harddrive exists that requires the extra bandwidth that ata133 gives... so running your maxtor on an ata100 board will have the same performance as running it on a ata133 board

the fastest ide drives you can buy are the new hitachi drives, and they are only ata100

 

[FluxCap]

Really? I had no clue if that is the case. I am looking at most of the Asus boards and some actually do support ATA 133 but not their best mobos.

 

[AndyHui]

ATA100 and ATA133 speeds are not really an issue, since no drive comes even close to the maximums of those specifications.

As an analogy, if your car can go at a maximum of 80mph, and you raise the speed limit from 100 to 133, there isn't really much use, is there?

Don't worry about top end motherboards not supporting ATA133.

 

[FluxCap]

Ok, thanks. I guess I noticed a huge difference in load times/installs when I went from ATA 66 to ATA 133 that I assumed a jump from 100 to 133 would be similar and to go back down to 100 would be noticeable.

 

[Boonesmi]

Originally posted by: FluxCap
Ok, thanks. I guess I noticed a huge difference in load times/installs when I went from ATA 66 to ATA 133 that I assumed a jump from 100 to 133 would be similar and to go back down to 100 would be noticeable.

new harddrives are much faster then drives of just a few years ago (but it has nothing to do with ata100 or ata133, thats just the bus speed)

they could make a new harddrive using ata66 bus and it would be much faster then a 4 yr old drive using ata66

 

[FluxCap]

Does the 8mb cache make the biggest difference in speed then?

 

[Boonesmi]

Originally posted by: FluxCap
Does the 8mb cache make the biggest difference in speed then?

8mb cache gives a little performance boost... but mostly its just that over time the technology improves and speeds increase