SCSI / Raptor / RAID? DX10?

[imported_chL]

Hi, I'm starting to shop around to build a new PC around Christmas so I need to update myself as I haven't followed hardware that much in the past 2-3 years except when changing my GPU about 6-10 months ago.

So basically I'm thinking of throwing in my new PC either one or two raptors (in RAID0 if 2) to put my games/OS on and have my data on different bigger HD's but I wanted to know first if the boost from 7200 to 10000 RPM really made that big of a difference in loading times (games and OS) and if RAID on top of it was worth it. I'd also like to know if I'm better off with a Seagate Cheetah SCSI 73GB 8MB or a WD Raptor SATA 16MB 74GB? Is SCSI faster? And can a regular motherboard have SCSI HD's? Also, is it possible to RAID SCSI HD's?

OK Also my second worry is DX10, when will those cards be available, will they be very expensive and will the boost be worth waiting untill they come out since I won't be buying untill XMas anyways?

Thanks a LOT!

 

[Ayah]

SCSI -> For Servers, 15k or don't bother. Rather useless for single user environments. The best for multiple users accessing at the same time. To my knowledge, no current "desktop" boards support native SCSI. It's usually limited to Servers and Workstations. Yes, you can RAID SCSI.
You'd be much much better off with a Raptor. Also, you can RAID raptors.

 

[imported_chL]

Alright thanks for the quick reply, =now for raptors is the boost significant over 7200 RPM HD? And how about 1 Raptor -> 2 in RAID, huge boost again or not that much?

Thanks a bunch.

 

[Ayah]

Originally posted by: chL
Alright thanks for the quick reply, =now for raptors is the boost significant over 7200 RPM HD? And how about 1 Raptor -> 2 in RAID, huge boost again or not that much?

Thanks a bunch.

Yes, raptors are fairly faster than their 7200 counterparts.
A perpendicular 15k raptor would be beautiful though.

 

[obeseotron]

I would guess you might see a 15% drop in load times going to a raptor, and then maybe another 15% going from 1 to 2 raptors in RAID0. If it were me I'd put the money other places, but they are faster. The difference between a 25 and 30 second level load isn't that big a deal to me.

As for the DX10 stuff, it's all more or less rumors, much of it from the Inq, it may all be wrong:
G80 from nVidia was originally going to come out around October, fully DX10 compliant, but holding over much of the design of the G70. Now it looks like it may be delayed, possibly to better compete with r600, possibly for unrelated reasons. Last rumor I saw had it as a 32 pixel shader card, with I'm not sure how many vertex shaders (8 or 16 probably.) I'd still expect it out by the end of the year.
R600 from ATI apparently shares more architectural heritage with the R500 (Xbox 360) GPU than the R520 (x1800) and R580 (x1900). The rumor mill believes it to be a 64 unified shader GPU (vs 48 unified for the R500, or 48 pixel/8vertex for the R580).

I would expect the shader units in both GPUs to be more efficient and flexible than previous generations, in addition to being more numerous. GDDR4 is probably going to be on both cards.

Can't tell you whether to wait, only that I have a 6800gt showing it's age, and I'm waiting.

 

[Bill Brasky]

Originally posted by: chL
Alright thanks for the quick reply, =now for raptors is the boost significant over 7200 RPM HD? And how about 1 Raptor -> 2 in RAID, huge boost again or not that much?

Thanks a bunch.

Yeah, there's a decent boost in a raptor, but it's not huge. It's most noticeable for me when I'm gaming, and I am usually the first to join a map.

I can't recommend raid 0. There is little performance gain, and not very smart if you value your data. Your question got me thinking about raids, so I went back and read some articles (I get a raid itch that needs to be supressed every now and then). I'll link the pages for kicks.
Here's one at Storage Review, and another by Anand.

As for the video card, I'm also waiting for DX10 with an x800xl.

 

[ojingoh]

i use a 15k scsi raid 1 stripe with an lsi logic raid card on the pci bridge. i built this in march of 2003. i went scsi for reliablility first, speed second.

PROS:
1. reliable -- no problems at all 99.99% uptime duty cycle for 3 years and counting. didn't know if the wd raptor was worth it, it was a new drive class, and i knew a lot about scsi at the time.
2. speed -- raid 1 rules with fast drives and a card with a co-processor on it (vs using xp to control raid -- i hear that xp changed this, that it's basically the same now.) a lot of scsi drives are in essence dumb -- they have no proc that handle the i/o of the card, they make the cpu do all that crap.


CONS:
1. spendy -- see below
2. noisy -- no seriously IT'S NOISY -- the squeal, the head clatter and the enclosure is not designed to squelch any HD sounds
3. hot -- added 5c to my computer enclosure


when i built this, 36g 10k raps were the only game in town. now that you can get a 160g raptor and abundant SATA interfaces on motherboards i would advise against scsi if you are purchasing now. you will spend ~$900 to get 73g/raid 1 and that's before a hot swap enclosure. frankly there is no point to raid besides 0 if you are not going to hot swap. and raid 0 is for suckers, n^n error rate is terrible. don't do it.

i bet you could go 73g raid 1 raps for oh about $350, that's bound to be 95% of what the $900 will get you. with the money you saved you could get 4gig of ram or a EE or FX proc. in fact, if you are in the market for this, ask yourself if you are hardcore enough to get one of those first.

 

[Rommel44]

Raptor is faster but not much (1/10) - its no worth it. Just buy new WD or Seagate ist almost as fast and you´ll have more space for less money.