WD Raptor and gaming issues?

[mojothehut]

Hey all
I recently installed a new WD Raptor, 10k rpm, 500gb, 64mb cache.
Everything is going great except for gaming. Metro2033, Dragon Age 2, Crysis 2 all are suffering from a bad 2-5 second stuttering issue. I've played all these games on a slower 5000gb 7200rpm 16mb cache drive and never had issues like this.
This is a fresh win7 pro install. Latest bios, drivers installed.
I thought upgrading from 7200 to 10k rpm and 16mb to 64mb cache might be a decent upgrade. Sadly the only game that is running smooth as silk is WoW :$

These freezes or pauses are so bad I can hardly play the game. No matter how low or high I turn graphic settings, nothing helps. They completely pause the game, even sound stops working. I can almost set my watch to the freezes. Every 30-45seconds, I'll get the 2-5 second pause
Any ideas what could be causing this across three different games?
Rest of my hardware is tried and true,
Sabertooth 990fx mobo
AMD 975 @4.0ghz
16gb DDR1600
Sapphire 7950 (950/1300)
Corsair 650watt psu

 

[BrightCandle]

I think its unlikely that its the HDD. But you should use resource manager/ performance manager and trace machine to see what it is that is happening every 45 seconds. Presumably its happening outside of games as well so shouldn't be too hard to find it.

 

[AnonymouseUser]

Try a new SATA cable.

 

[Puffnstuff]

Is everything on the same drive? Have you tried defragging it? If it continues move the drive to another port.

 

[mojothehut]

Well I tried a new port and new cable. Still same issues, also yea defragged. Nothing

However! I uninstalled cat 13.1 and installed 13.2 beta.. um BAM! Problems fixed. Its crazy, Crysis, Metro, Dragon Age, all running smoooth now...
Guess it was a driver issue

 

[Puffnstuff]

Glad you found the problem.

 

[AnonymouseUser]

Glad you found the problem.

This, and thanks for replying with the solution.