which hard drive is fastest for games? raptor vs 16mb cache

[Vesper8]

hi everyone.

I just bought a new hard drive and it's a Maxtor DiamondMax 10 300GB SATA 7200RPM 16MB 9MS FDB RoHS

I also have a 74gb raptor (10k rpm)

and I was wondering which of the two would make games like call of duty 2 and fear run the fastest

those are two games that have loong loading times.. specially fear. I figure it would be the raptor but.. i'm trying to understand in what circumstances exactly does having twice the cache memory really give me a boost?

thanks for your input

 

[insename2]

nvm

 

[petesamprs]

mini-bump for good questions that i would like answers to as well.

 

[cKGunslinger]

StorageReview's Comparison Database

 

[Vesper8]

well according to that website the 10krpm drive is flooring the maxtor on far cry level loading test.. so i guess that answers my question as far as level loading games

but i'm still wondering in which games/cases would the 16mb cache give a significant advantage over a 8mb cache drive

 

[t3h l337 n3wb]

Why do you care about loading times so much? You save like 5 seconds, but pay about 5x the amount per GB.

 

[InlineFour]

how much ram do you?

 

[DaveBC]

Actually upgrading from 1gig of ram to 2 gigs drastically decreased my loading time. As far as drives go. I use raid 0 for OS and 160gig 7200 8mb maxtor for games.

 

[alimoalem]

why not the western digital 16mb?

 

[Vesper8]

i have 1gb of ram right now

if i were to upgrade to 2gb.. would i need to buy the same ram ? right now i have ocz platinum rev.2.

raid 0 for os and games would be what i'd want to get in the future.. that must be sweet as candy

 

[SickBeast]

Originally posted by: alimoalem
why not the western digital 16mb?

It performs about the same as the Maxtor.

I have one and it's nice; it's faster than my 36GB Raptor.

OP: You should definately sell the 74GB Raptor if you can. It's only 10% faster than your new drive. Invest the money in a system bottleneck.

 

[Pr0d1gy]

Originally posted by: SickBeast

Originally posted by: alimoalem
why not the western digital 16mb?

It performs about the same as the Maxtor.

I have one and it's nice; it's faster than my 36GB Raptor.

OP: You should definately sell the 74GB Raptor if you can. It's only 10% faster than your new drive. Invest the money in a system bottleneck.

Hard drives are the biggest bottleneck in any modern PC.

 

[voyager622]

I have had both, 2-36 gig raid zero (I thought they were fast). Then I got 2-74 gig raid zero (could not believe the increase in speed). Now I have 2-150 gig 16 meg cache drives raid zero (fast but not a whole lot faster than 74 gigs).
Did a HD bench mark on the 74s and got about a 111 mb/s read. Now with the 150s I get 160 mb/s read.
Benchmark is much better but all around feel and load times are not noticeable better. Also considering a fast HD is helpful, it has been proven by Maximum PC that load times are now made faster by a faster cpu, because the loading is really, uncompressing the map which the cpu does!

 

[Ronin]

Originally posted by: SickBeast

Originally posted by: alimoalem
why not the western digital 16mb?

It performs about the same as the Maxtor.

I have one and it's nice; it's faster than my 36GB Raptor.

OP: You should definately sell the 74GB Raptor if you can. It's only 10% faster than your new drive. Invest the money in a system bottleneck.

I call shens and would love to see those benchmarks showing that it performs better. Even though the 36GB was first gen (of which I have several, in addition to the 74GB, the 80GB, and soon to be the 150GB), there was no performance competition, single drive or otherwise.

 

[BFG10K]

The Raptor will be faster.

 

[t3h l337 n3wb]

You can't really call a hard drive a gaming bottleneck, because once everything loads, the game is going to be as smooth as butter if your CPU and GPU are capable enough.

 

[SickBeast]

Originally posted by: Ronin

Originally posted by: SickBeast

Originally posted by: alimoalem
why not the western digital 16mb?

It performs about the same as the Maxtor.

I have one and it's nice; it's faster than my 36GB Raptor.

OP: You should definately sell the 74GB Raptor if you can. It's only 10% faster than your new drive. Invest the money in a system bottleneck.

I call shens and would love to see those benchmarks showing that it performs better. Even though the 36GB was first gen (of which I have several, in addition to the 74GB, the 80GB, and soon to be the 150GB), there was no performance competition, single drive or otherwise.

Visit the storagereview.com link in one of the posts above, and compare the 36GB Raptor to the 250GB Western Digital drive w/ 16MB cache (or the Maxtor one if you want). The raptor loses every real world benchmark.

 

[Ronin]

I have the drives (I have have several T7K250's). I'll take MY real world benchmarks over theirs anyday (especially with the recent crap they've been putting in their reviews). Please, don't use a benchmark site as a replacement for your experiences. Because the site says so, doesn't make it fact. Run your own real world tests and see what you come up with.

 

[GTaudiophile]

I have been struggling with this too. The 74GB Raptor has too little capacity for my needs. The 150GB would fit the bill, but I am having a hard time justifying the price.

My debate comes down to the 150GB Raptor for $299 or the 250GB WD2500KS (16MB Cache, SATA 3.0Gb/s, 7200RPM) for $110.

I mean, just what kind of real-world performance gains would there be for $190?

Faster Windows load times? But my machine stays on 24/7.
Faster game load times? Are we talking 3 seconds faster? 10? 30? (Keep in mind I will have 2GB of RAM.)
Faster file transfers? I don't download but one torrent at a time. In fact, aside from TOP GEAR, I hardly download torrents at all. But I suppose I could one day.

The WD2500KS has the advantage of cooler and quieter operation. The Raptor has a 5-year warranty.

 

[Shlong]

How would putting two WD2500KS in Raid-0 compare performance-wise against a single 150GB Raptor?

 

[Ronin]

Originally posted by: GTaudiophile
The WD2500KS has the advantage of cooler and quieter operation. The Raptor has a 5-year warranty.

I have to ask why consider the WD 250 (I love WD, mind you) over a Spinpoint or a T7K250/500?

 

[Ronin]

Originally posted by: Shlong
How would putting two WD2500KS in Raid-0 compare performance-wise against a single 150GB Raptor?

Raid vs single drive isn't valid comparison when comparing 2 drives. The raid will provide better synthetic results, but you won't see much in the way of real world difference, anyway.

 

[rstrohkirch]

Originally posted by: Ronin
I have the drives (I have have several T7K250's). I'll take MY real world benchmarks over theirs anyday (especially with the recent crap they've been putting in their reviews). Please, don't use a benchmark site as a replacement for your experiences. Because the site says so, doesn't make it fact. Run your own real world tests and see what you come up with.

You specificially ask him " I would love to see those benchmarks showing that it performs better". He then points you to a site with benchmarks that you asked for and you respond with " Please, don't use a benchmark site as a replacement for your experiences."

umm HELLO

 

[SickBeast]

Originally posted by: rstrohkirch

Originally posted by: Ronin
I have the drives (I have have several T7K250's). I'll take MY real world benchmarks over theirs anyday (especially with the recent crap they've been putting in their reviews). Please, don't use a benchmark site as a replacement for your experiences. Because the site says so, doesn't make it fact. Run your own real world tests and see what you come up with.

You specificially ask him " I would love to see those benchmarks showing that it performs better". He then points you to a site with benchmarks that you asked for and you respond with " Please, don't use a benchmark site as a replacement for your experiences."

umm HELLO

Well yeah, he's being pretty stubborn and should just admit that he is wrong IMO.

On top of that, I can vouch for the fact that Far Cry loads noticeably faster on my WD drive. Just for fun later I'm gonna benchmark the two. He'll probably still call "shens" on me though, just to spite me. :thumbsdown:

 

[Ronin]

How can I be wrong when my PERSONAL, REAL LIFE, NON WEBSITE results say different?

Like I said, stop relying on websites, and use your real world results as your test bed.

Meanwhile, rstro, perhaps I should have been more clear. I expected him to actually run tests with his drives, rather than using some website as a reference.

I'm also interested in your definition of "noticeably", SickBeast. Make sure when you run your tests that the state of the drives is the same. At least 20% disk free on both, defragmented on both, etc. It's not a fair comparison if you don't at least attempt to level the playing field with similar conditions.