What's the advantage of a rounded IDE cable?

[Kung Lau]

I see some places selling these including Newegg and Plycon and want to know if there is a performance issue with these.

 

[Jonty]

I've just bought one of these cabled from http://www.overclockers.co.uk/

It's a very sexy cable, but not 100% if there's any improvement. To be honest, I thought the idea of the original UDMA66 cables was to have the insulating strip between each data strip. Surely having all the strips bunched together nulls the concept?

A review of such cables can be found at http://www.pcpowerzone.co.uk/reviews17.html

 

[tigerbait]

I think people use them to improve case cooling.

 

[Jonty]

Very true, but sacrificing data transfer efficiency as a result?

Ponder ponder ponder...

 

[JohnnyPastrami]

Rounded cables are used so that the flat cable does not block airflow.

What I do is buy self adhesive wire clips (do a search at http://www.mcmastercarr.com) which are the width of the cable to hold the cables against the inside of the case. Fold the cables at 90 degree angles and route them thru the clips to their destinations. Look inside a Dell or HP and you'll see how the dress their cables and what I'm talking about

Much cheaper than the rounded cables.

Johnny

 

[Jiggz]

I don't believe there is a data transfer performance hit when using rounded cables. The spec for the UDMA 66 cable (80 wires) is to provide a separate return line for each data wire (40 wires). Since each wire is insulated, bundling them together does not defeat the purpose. Use of rounded cables is more of cooling and comestic purposes. It does make cooling easier and makes the inside a little tidier.

 

[Kung Lau]

I was thinking there could be an inductance issue as the individual cables would be tightly packed together. I see how it could help with airflow issues in an overclocking environment. Heh, I'm not too picky of how my computer looks, more so in how it performs. If I thought I'd get better performance from these newer rounded cables, I'd buy them.

Thanks

 

[BurntKooshie]

If you're worried about performance loss, check this out. over here.

 

[millsy]

I looked at the powerzone review and they seem to work okay. They also help airflow around the case, so must be a good idea.
They do the 0.45m and the 0.9m. I am sure the 0.9m is way too long.
I need them for the Antec SX840 case so 0.45m all round should suffice.

 

[Madcowz]

They have done testing with rounded cables, and compared to the regular stuff... they don't do jack for case cooling. So if you're looking to have lower case temps than it certainly isn't worth it, but if you like the inside of your case nice and tidy, than I say go for it!

 

[Mem]

The reviews I`ve seen on rounded cables do lower temps,however you only get 0.5c or 1c max off temps but they do make your case look tidy and any figure that lowers temps is better then nothing ,overclockers want all the coolng they can get .

 

[Flatline]

kudos to burntkooshie for the informative article link! I've been thinking about rounding my cables (I've got lots of drives and the cables are getting a bit tangled in spite of my best efforts) but I've been worried about the possible performance hit. Now I can go ahead with my plans.

 

[Diffusion]

Err... unless you were using the full IDE bus (and it is unlikely that two 7200rpm drives could saturate an ATA-66 or ATA-100 line) you would not see a difference. The 40 extra pins in an 80 pin cable are there to minamize crosstalk. By removing them, you will notice no major performance degredation (since you are most likely not using the full bandwidth of an ATA-100 line), however, you will see a decrease in data reliability. I personally would expect more corrupt files.
As I previously mentioned, that article means nothing, they are measuring speed, not reliability. Sure, it defutes the claim they were refering to (that performance is lower by 60%), however, it does not prove that the data is reliable, nor that if the bus was fully used that performance would be lower.

 

[RC7]

I remember seeing on a casemod and/or overclocking site that rounded cables did not improve airflow significantly. Aslong as you neatly arrange your ide cables you should be fine. The only reason I see to purchase them is for cosmetic reasons. If you are going for the rounded ones, I would get these really cool silver ones here. I would get them for my case, but I don't have that sort of cash to spend on something that isn't totally necessary.

 

[whitelight]

i round the cables by myself to improve the airflow in my case. the flat strips block a lot of air if positioned incorrectly. the round cables allow the air to flow around the cables with much more ease.