USB 3.0 External HDD

[olds]

Is an external USB 3.0 hdd fast enough to game from?
FPS at high settings.
CPU = i7
video card = GTX 660
RAM = 32 GB
OS = Win 7 Pro

 

[Zap]

Most games (but not all) do all their loading at once, and FPS has nothing to do with that.

But yes, it sounds reasonable.

 

[mfenn]

Latency would be the only thing that I'd worry about. Even then most games do bulk loading like Zap said.

 

[Zap]

Oh yeah, if you aren't rolling your own (buying HDD and external enclosure separately) then make sure to do research on what drive is in the device before purchasing. Nothing will suck worse than discovering after you start using it that it contains a "green" drive that head parks all the time.

 

[Vinwiesel]

FPS at high settings.

I read that as "First Person Shooter" at high settings, in which case you're probably fine. The game should load the map and everything at the beginning. In an MMO game where it loads textures as you go, the slower the drive, the more stuttering you would see. Some mmo's are better optimized than others.

Any reason you can't go internal, or SSD? Gaming on a work machine? :sneaky:

 

[olds]

Looking at buying a machine that will only run 1 internal hdd and looking at adding an external for more storage.

 

[Zap]

Building your own, or a pre-built?

 

[olds]

Prebuilt, alienware x51