SATA HD important for gaming?

[Plutoburn]

A sata HD with 8mb cache vs a ata HD with 16mb cache, which one is better for gaming?

 

[Googer]

Originally posted by: Plutoburn
A sata HD with 8mb cache vs a ata HD with 16mb cache, which one is better for gaming?

If all spec's are the same, with the interface being the only differance. The truth is that SATA does not give you any extra performance advantages. I would go with the 16mb ATA133 drive (must be the maxtor you are referring to), you will get better performance.

 

[Chode Messiah]

i like satas because their cables impede airflow less. the ata is faster, and u could always tie the cable.

 

[AnandThenMan]

SATA does not technically give much better performance no. But from my experience disk access is better overall systems with SATA drives seem more responsive to me, maybe it's my imagination.

If you want real performance benefits then put 2 SATA drives in RAID0. You will get MUCH faster load times. The downside is if one drive fails you lose everything. I personally run a RAID zero array and have a big but slow drive for backups.

 

[Plutoburn]

Is there only one maxtor HD with 16mb cache that is ata133?

 

[imported_rod]

Cant you find a SATA drive with a 16MB Cache?... Well, the ATA drive there should give better performance, due to the larger cache size, unless they have different rpm ratings or something.

Personally I went with SATA because it means i can keep using it in the future after ATA is phased out.

RoD

 

[Steve]

ATA133 does not give any performance advantage over ATA100, since drives do not reach either speed anyway.

 

[imported_Phil]

I'd be willing to bet good money that you'd be unable to tell the difference between a moderately-fast drive and a fast drive when it comes to gaming. If you really, really want silly speeds, then you'll be wanting a SCSI drive, or a decent SCSI array.

That, however, costs a fair chunk of cash.