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More DDR vs WD RAPTOR: best system performance upgrade?

J

jasonjm

Member
Heya all

Got my new rig, Asus 865PE chipset, pentium 4 2.4C with 512MB XMS twinpack DDR (total 512MB) and western digital 8MB 200 gig hard drive 7200 rpm


Which do you reckon will add more system performance in terms of general day to day usage: browsing the web, burning CD's, basic photo editing, playing a game now and then, etc etc - you know, make everything load faster and alt-tab between windows quicker, etc etc

Adding another twinpack 512 MB DDR
or
Running OS off western digital raptor
 
I haven't tried any of the sata drives yet, but I honestly can't see any difference when going beyond 512 megs of system memory when it comes to general every day type stuff. If you're really into gaming, the memory would probably be your best bet though.
 
If you don't reboot frequently, having stacks of RAM lets your operating system cache your apps in RAM so they can be re-launched at RAM speed instead of at HDD speed. If this fits your usage pattern, then more RAM is a good idea. The first launch will be at HDD speed, subsequent launches at RAM speed (until your OS has to bump something off the stack to make room for something else, anyway).

Try it now... shut down, restart, then open your photo editing program. Now close it and re-open it. It was faster the second time, wasn't it? The more RAM you have, the more apps the OS can do that to (during one session, that is).

On the other hand, a snappy hard drive will also make those first launches faster, in addition to everything else that the system does with the HDD. Also, to think outside the box, have you ever considered a SCSI drive as an alternative? Fujitsu MAS-series 15000rpm SCSI drive + a U160 or U320 SCSI card, and you'll be cookin' with gas for sure 😎
 
Given that hard disk transfer rates and access times are the limiting factor of ALL pc's, if you really need the extra performance, it maybe worth getting an SATA Raptor for main applications / operating systems and a PATA drive for general storage.
 
I would say Hard Drive.

The price of DDR will drop so later you can add more for cheap.

Get the 36gig Raptor right now instead. Yeah down the road they'll come out with bigger Raptors but if you look at the big picture it doesn't look like you are gasping for space with that 200 gig 😉 So if they come out with a 72 gig Raptor it isn't any big loss...

Besides you said O/S and Apps...36 gigs should easily be plentiful.

I have 16% free on my 80 gig...of that perhaps 9 gigs are my apps/os/games/etc. The rest is all fansubbed anime

And if you have movies and crap like i do - toss them on that 200 gig 😀

EDIT: Grammar, Clarity
 
I have Two WD Raptors in RAID 0 n be careful, it'll spoil ya and then you'll think everyone elses system is slow. I do have another 80Gb WD SE for storage of my mp3s, .iso's, Recorded TV, all that fun stuff that doesn't need a good seek time.

I know that for me i hardly ever go past 512Mb memory usage. I did some tweaks like loading kernal into memory n stuff that brings me up to like 250mb at boot, but i don't pass the 512mb barrier much, so i'd go with the raptor.

That is if you have enough time to reinstall everything. Oppose to slapping 2sticks of ram in there.
 
I just built my first p4 system. I decided to get a raptor with it, and wow, it makes a difference. I tried booting off one of my 7200rpm 200 gig WD drives, and while it is still fast, i notice things opening snappier off the 10,000 rpm drive. I may break down and get another one in the future so that I can run raid 0, but right now this is fine.
 
Originally posted by: jasonjm
Heya all

Got my new rig, Asus 865PE chipset, pentium 4 2.4C with 512MB XMS twinpack DDR (total 512MB) and western digital 8MB 200 gig hard drive 7200 rpm


Which do you reckon will add more system performance in terms of general day to day usage: browsing the web, burning CD's, basic photo editing, playing a game now and then, etc etc - you know, make everything load faster and alt-tab between windows quicker, etc etc

Adding another twinpack 512 MB DDR
or
Running OS off western digital raptor
Click to expand...

Either way you can't go wrong - I might lean toward the raptor, by the way how do you like your TwinXMS memory?, I'm trying to decide between TwinXMS and the single sticks of XMS.
 
I'd get a Raptor, as your computer probably won't be using 1gb of ram anytime soon. You'll probably notice a difference in load times with the Raptor.
 
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