Whats the performance advantage of getting a raptor over a 7200 Seagate

[karma4jake]

I'm looking at 2 drives for my new PC

First a SATA WD Raptor 72Gb 10,000 RPM $177
http://www.newegg.com/app/View...tion=22-144-160&depa=1


Second is a 160Gb Seagate Barracuda SATA 7200 $109
http://www.newegg.com/app/View...tion=22-148-018&depa=1


I"m leaning toward the Seagate but want to hear how the raptor would be better. Would it just speed up load times by a bit or does it make the whole machine run faster, and if it does make the PC run faster is it only like 2% faster or is it something significant.

 

[HeaterCore]

You probably won't notice a huge difference right off the bat. But after using a Raptor for awhile, try going back to a 7200RPM drive -- the whole system feels slower, especially when doing large installs. As for the day-to-day performance increase, yeah, it's noticeable, especially in programs like Photoshop or other memory-intensive apps, though you can minimize that impact by having enough RAM.

If you don't need the extra storage, by all means go for the Raptor.

-HC-

 

[Gamingphreek]

No the difference between that and the Raptor is minimal. It might help sometimes on loading times and what not, but not worth the extra money. You probably will barely even notice the difference.

-Kevin

 

[Simplicity]

There is a difference, but not much

 

[Jeffyboy]

Going to 10,000RPM makes the difference since your random access speed drops. It is most of the help plus you may get data off the platters a little quicker. It will seem visually faster... after-all the HD is one of the biggest bottlenecks. May want to try something like the maxtor Maxline3 with 16MB buffer and NCQ... that'll speed things up too and it's only 7200 rpm.

Jeff

 

[Duvie]

It makes a noticebale difference but not for the price difference....IMO

 

[Sonic587]

What are the rest of your specs? Also, what do you plan to do with this machine?

Generally, I'd suggest you put that money towards better GPU/RAM/CPU instead of the slight difference the Raptors will make (In most apps).

 

[pol II]

I tend to agree with Duvie, it does indeed make a noticible difference, but for the price, I am not so sure it is worth it. It is also a bit loud when seeking compared to other 7200rpm drives I have worked with. But price aside, I would rather have this 10K raptor than a 7200rpm drive (all though I have not yet tried the Maxline3).

 

[beany323]

ok, but for a casual home use, (kids doing their homework,(taking time from my fragging) and for some serious killing online, (fps basically) does the drive speed matter in gaming?

thank you.

 

[raanemaan]

Having the specs on your machine would help with making suggestions.

 

[beany323]

opps sorry. i was asking as a general question. does the hdd effect gaming, (or is it the game itself)

(i play with xbox and ps2 so i am use to load times, dont recall same effect on my pc (which is way to old to play newer games) 1.3 celirion something.

thanks again.

 

[Dug]

I had a couple of 36GB raptors. Got rid of them for a 200GB Seagate.
I like the Seagate a lot more and can't notice a lick of difference. I timed loading levels in different games. There couldn't have been more than a 1/2second difference if that.

The price difference, noise levels, and space make the Seagate a better buy imho.
There is no huge difference between them. (Unless you go back to the older Seagate drives)

All the benchmarks you see on Storage review don't really show the difference in actual time so its hard to see what the difference is.

 

[Duvie]

Noise is BS....I have one and the seagate is louder....

I also since I have not tried the OS on the Seagte can't say it is noticebaly faster. It was definitely faster then my 40gb WD 8mb cache HDD....

All in all SATA is the same scam..sustained is moderatley better then ATA133 and nowhere near 150mb/s....The difference I saw and felt was snappiness in desktop, ceratin applaications actually ran faster (ie encoding, editing, dvd shrinking, ripping, etc...)

Again this was versus a ATA drive so maybe the big diff is not there...

The price is the big diff. I dont think any of the raptor drives have price/performance to where it should be...

 

[dullard]

Head to head comparison.

The 74 GB Raptor is about 1/3rd faster in games* than the Seagate Barracuda. Note: the 36 GB Raptor mentioned earlier in this thread is significantly slower than the 74 GB Raptor. Being ~30% faster is certainly noticible but it isn't night and day different. You need at least a 10% speed difference to ever notice.

* One thing to keep in mind though is that DURING the game, the hard drive is very seldom used. Thus you aren't going to get significant changes in frames per second or a less jumpy experience (that is more video card and somewhat CPU related). But a Raptor will give you maps that load faster or if you happen to run out of memory, less lag due to that (but more memory is a better option in that case).

So is 30% faster loading important to you? Important enough to cut capacity in half and to add $70 to the price tag? For most people the answer is no - hard drive speed just isn't that important. But if you want the best possible experience and to shave some time off of map loading to get the best online position, then yes do it.

 

[karma4jake]

PC will be a 3000+ Winchester, MSI K8n platinum board, 1gb Mushkin cheap $137, and a MSI 6800GT.

I saw a review by anandtech where they compared a single raptor to dual raid 0 raptors and put in a baracudda for comparison. There wasn't much performance increase at all, definately not worth the price.

I'll be using the pc for gaming, internet and college stuff.

 

[Duvie]

In the future dont look at anandtech for excellent drive reviews...storagereview.com smokes them....

Anyways it is a good decision in your case and with your uses IMO....

 

[beany323]

just wanted to say thank you.. good posting everyone.

you made my choice when i put together my system... (which i was considering buying...but after some research (books and 2 magazines) on doing it myself.....(i am still on the fence!! but am leaning toward it!!!)

thanks

 

[imported_PanicAttack]

How about a couple of Seagate SATA Barracuda 80 gig HDs in Raid0? Will still cost less than the WD and give about the same 4.5 ms access time. The Seagates have NCQ which is supported on the new NForce4 MBs.
There's an article I read recently which did a review of the effects of Raid 0 on gaming (I can't find the article. If someone can please post a link). It had almost no effect on FPS, which someone pointed out that with enough RAM there will be no HD access. But it did drop the load times.

 

[beany323]

I saw something here, when i thought i would go raid 0 for my frst 2 drive then a 3rd drive as storage...

 

[Todd33]

Originally posted by: dullard
Head to head comparison.

The 74 GB Raptor is about 1/3rd faster in games* than the Seagate Barracuda. Note: the 36 GB Raptor mentioned earlier in this thread is significantly slower than the 74 GB Raptor. Being ~30% faster is certainly noticible but it isn't night and day different. You need at least a 10% speed difference to ever notice.

* One thing to keep in mind though is that DURING the game, the hard drive is very seldom used. Thus you aren't going to get significant changes in frames per second or a less jumpy experience (that is more video card and somewhat CPU related). But a Raptor will give you maps that load faster or if you happen to run out of memory, less lag due to that (but more memory is a better option in that case).

So is 30% faster loading important to you? Important enough to cut capacity in half and to add $70 to the price tag? For most people the answer is no - hard drive speed just isn't that important. But if you want the best possible experience and to shave some time off of map loading to get the best online position, then yes do it.

"IO/sec" WTF is that all about, some marketing junk? So synthetic and BS becnhmarks aside, can anyone show real load times?

 

[dullard]

Originally posted by: Todd33
"IO/sec" WTF is that all about, some marketing junk? So synthetic and BS becnhmarks aside, can anyone show real load times?

Its an independant reviewer, thus it certainly isn't marketing related. Anandtech tested two games with level loading times. The Raptor II was 7% faster in one and 12% faster on the other. Just on the edge of being noticible. But in some online games that 3-4 seconds saved can be a big advantage. Other than that, it isn't worth the money in my opinion.