Originally posted by: EricMartello
The RaptorX still is the fastest SATA drive out there for all intents and purposes, and it is noticeably faster in games, boot-up and app-loading. Considering that the HD is the bottleneck in any system, you always want the FASTEST one you can get even if it is by a small margin. You can nitpick all you want but you fail to change my mind about it, and anyone else who bought one.
The hard drive is only the bottleneck on intensive hard drive activities like level loads and encoding. For those of us who don't care if our game loads in 1 min 2 sec rather than 1 min 7 seconds...the money is much better spent elsewhere. A hard drive nets no performance increase where it matters the most...i.e. in game, or photo editing, etc.
bob4432
Lifer
- Sep 6, 2003
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Originally posted by: EricMartello
Considering that the HD is the bottleneck in any system, you always want the FASTEST one you can get even if it is by a small margin. You can nitpick all you want but you fail to change my mind about it, and anyone else who bought one.
then i think you need to go w/ a fujitsu 15k max u320 drive.....or the new solid state drives, now those are quick and fast.
could you explain to me how a hdd is the bottleneck when i game after the level loads up? wouldnt the bottleneck then be the gpu? or when i am encoding...wouldnt the bottlneck then be the cpu?
eric - why are coming in here and making a post to justify something you bought a few years ago for a lot more than needed to be spent? do you need that much attention?
Well if I was building a server I would be using SCSI drives, probably of the SAS variety...and they would certainly make for a snappy desktop system as well if you are comfortable with the cost of the controller and drive. Sorry, I "cheaped out" and got the raptorx instead.
The hard drive is the bottleneck of a RESPONSIVE system, and if you're gonna sit there and make comments based solely on benchmarks then what you say holds little weight. Sure, 2 or 3 sec off load times might not seem like much but you seem to forget that the HD is currently being accessed as a system is used. It's not like boot-up and app/game loads are the only time you would really want the HD to be fast. With a RaptorX as your system HD you will notice that your system doesn't "lag" as much and runs much smoother. Do you think that the initial preload of a game level or app is the ONLY time a the system loads data off the drive, or writes to it? I suppose you are not familiar with swap memory...
I am not really trying to "justify" anything...last I check this is a discussion forum and I wanted to have this discussion. I don't know why you would think that...because I am just stating that my 2 year old system has thwarted obsolescence, and that paying more for better parts can lead to a substantially longer "service time". OBVIOUSLY, you are interested in it because you replied.
Originally posted by: EricMartello
Well if I was building a server I would be using SCSI drives, probably of the SAS variety...and they would certainly make for a snappy desktop system as well if you are comfortable with the cost of the controller and drive. Sorry, I "cheaped out" and got the raptorx instead.
The hard drive is the bottleneck of a RESPONSIVE system, and if you're gonna sit there and make comments based solely on benchmarks then what you say holds little weight. Sure, 2 or 3 sec off load times might not seem like much but you seem to forget that the HD is currently being accessed as a system is used. It's not like boot-up and app/game loads are the only time you would really want the HD to be fast. With a RaptorX as your system HD you will notice that your system doesn't "lag" as much and runs much smoother. Do you think that the initial preload of a game level or app is the ONLY time a the system loads data off the drive, or writes to it? I suppose you are not familiar with swap memory...
I am not really trying to "justify" anything...last I check this is a discussion forum and I wanted to have this discussion. I don't know why you would think that...because I am just stating that my 2 year old system has thwarted obsolescence, and that paying more for better parts can lead to a substantially longer "service time". OBVIOUSLY, you are interested in it because you replied.
A game rarely accesses the hard drive for anything major once a level is loaded. The core files are always loaded into memory. This has become increasingly the case as memory size requirements have grown astronomically. Sure there is random I/O writes going on in the background even when a game is running. However, they typically have nothing to do with the game and my performance in game will not be effected by them.
Also, if there is only a 3 or so second difference in some applications that take a minute to load up. How much of a difference do you think there will be once you are talking about a 2 second write operation or less? These are the typical read and writes. Loading a game which takes 1 or 2 minutes is far from typical. You don't suddenly get a 100% boost in hard drive performance because an operation is short. No, you get the same performance increase for the small writes as you do for the long writes(next to nothing).
I will admit that the raptors used to be a bigger deal when hard drive platters had nowhere near the density that they have today. However, with the great strides that have been made with platter density, there is little performance difference between a 10,000 RPM drive and a 500-1TB 7200 RPM hard drive.
Oh yes, you've helped us all see the light. The only time I notice that I have a raptor is when my game level loads 2 sec faster than...wait, how would I notice that without a stopwatch? What other nugget of wisdom do you throw my way. Media encoding is a hard drive intensive task? No, that would be system memory intensive...
What were you saying about it not making enough difference in performance to be worth it? Let's nitpick your system, since you seem to believe you are "onto something":
You suggested 8800 GTS 640MB as a viable upgrade for a 1900xtx.
Overall FPS Comparison
This list totals of the FPS benchmark results across multiple games, which creates a pretty solid index of actual performance, more so than something like 3D Mark.
My original upgrade in 2005:
Radeon X800 to 1900xtx = 68% improvement in speed ~ $600
Price/Performance index: 8.23
Possible upgrades today:
Radeon 1900xtx to 8800 GTS 640 MB = 19% overall improvement ~ $370
Price/Performance index: 19.47
Radeon 1900xtx to 8800 GTX 768 MB = 45% overall improvement ~ $570.
Price/Performance index: 12.67
The lower that p/p index, the better, and as you can see, when I upgrade it has to be well below 10. Your suggestions here not only result in wasting of money, but yield an effective system life of < 1 year.
Now lets examing your brilliant suggestion to a Q6600 quad core CPU...which is somewhat ironic coming from a guy who believes a RaptorX isn't worth the extra cost.
CPU Price/Performance Chart for 2007
Lower is better here.
Athlon X2 4800+ - 16.61
2005 P/P Index: 14.55
C2Q Q6600 - 46.68
So we can see that a Q6600, while dominating in most synthetic benches, sucks ass in real world performance for the price you pay. Could this be due to the fact that desktop software does not utilize or require > 2 cores? Yes, that is true...so buying a quad core now is just as pointless as getting an 8800 GTS. Even in 2005, the 4800+ had a far better p/p index than your Q6600 will ever have.
Also worth noting that the AMD X2 still dominates Intel in memory performance. You just can't beat an on-cpu memory controller which isn't dependent on FSB for bandwidth (faster memory performance - that helps in games, encoding, decoding, image editing...oh, just about anything).
Photoshop CS3 Filtering
Original Upgrade:
Pentium 4E 2.8 GHz (533 MHz FSB) - Render Time 4:00
Athlon X2 4800+ - Render Time 2:37
53% improvement
C2Q Q6600 - Render Time 2:02
Athlon X2 4800+ - Render Time 2:37
29% improvement
That's a pretty good illustration of why your suggestions, while not a "crappy" system, fail overall. You would be spending nearly $1000 per year for mediocre increments in performance, meanwhile I spend slightly more (on a per-year basis) and gain roughly 3 times the performance improvement per upgrade, and a system that lasts 2+ years without faltering in any CURRENT games or apps.
PurdueRy says:
- I think you will find that a 8800GTX is more than capable of driving a system for two years...and yes...even with DX10 games.
- Media encoding is hard drive intensive.
- As soon as you start putting in top of the line parts, you're money is being wasted on performance that is typically unnecessary at this point in time. Go buy a Q6600!
- 1900xtx to 8800 GTS is a worthwhile "cost-performance" upgrade.
- There is little performance difference between 10K RPM and 7.2K RPM hard drives, due to platter density.
Originally posted by: EricMartello
PurdueRy says:
- I think you will find that a 8800GTX is more than capable of driving a system for two years...and yes...even with DX10 games.
- Media encoding is hard drive intensive.
- As soon as you start putting in top of the line parts, you're money is being wasted on performance that is typically unnecessary at this point in time. Go buy a Q6600!
- 1900xtx to 8800 GTS is a worthwhile "cost-performance" upgrade.
- There is little performance difference between 10K RPM and 7.2K RPM hard drives, due to platter density.
Dude you sure are becoming quite the ass. Considering you wanted to debate these topics I love how you resort to twisting my words.
Lets start from the top. Prove to me that the 8800GTX can't drive a system for two years. Oh wait, that's right you can't see into the future. So you can't claim that it can't. It also depends on resolution. Sure if you are running at 1920 x 1080 then you might have to upgrade more often if you want to run at native resolution. However, for my native resolution 1280 x 1024 a 8800GTX will definitely last 2 years.
Onto the second. Media encoding can be very hard drive intensive depending on the program. Here is one such example where extra hard drive performance does make a difference in an encoding task:
Link
However this is the increase with RAID 0. The difference between a 7200RPM and a 10,000RPM drive would be far less.
Your third bullet....There is a difference between buying at the absolute highest price to performance index and buying at the "smartest" price/performance index. There is a certain point with CPUs where the cost will jump up quite a bit at a very low jump in performance. Right now anything higher than the 6600 and you will be experiencing this phenomenon big time. Just look at the cost between the next models and look at the performance increase. That's the point at which it is not worth it to go higher. That's why you don't buy top of the line.
You're fourth point I never said. You bought a top of the line part two years ago. My strategy suggested was completely different. Buy the best performance part that is the best value at the time. I bet the 1900XTX was not this part at the time. However, going from a 1900XTX to a 8800GTS 320MB is a very good upgrade. Lets look at a couple of specific benchmarks:
Battlefield 2 (1280 x 1024 4xAA 8xAF)
8800GTS 320MB(63.2 FPS)
1900XTX (47.5 FPS)
33% improvement ($270 cost)
Prey(Max quality @ 1280 x 1024)
8800GTS 320MB(70.8 FPS)
1900XTX (53.1 FPS)
33% performance increase ($270 cost)
Oblivion(Max quality @ 1280 x 1024)
8800GTS 320MB(31.2 FPS)
1900XTX (22.7 FPS)
37% performance difference ($270 cost)
Those are a few examples.
Usually if a person buys the 8800GTX you quoted they would be gaming at a high resolution where the extra power is needed. Lets take a look how well the 1900XTX holds up:
Oblivion (1920 x 1200 max quality)
8800GTX (30.5 FPS)
1900XTX(14.5 FPS)
110% performance improvement
Prey(1600x 1200 Max quality)
8800GTX(76 FPS)
1900XTX(41.8 FPS)
82% performance increase
Battlefield 2(1920x1200 Max quality)
8800GTX(62.3 FPS)
1900XTX(31.8 FPS)
96% performance increase.
The 8800GTX is a more worthwhile upgrade than your original one (x800 to 1900XTX) yet you provide one benchmark and claim that it is not.
As for your last bullet. I provided a link before which PROVES that there is a few percent increase in performance by going from a 7200RPM to a 10,000RPM hard drive. You have provided nothing other than your own opinion how it "feels". I can search the internet all day finding people spending hundreds of dollars on cables but rarely see anyone prove to me that there was a difference in a scientific manner. Your argument is all the same. It "feels" different. Great, if I spent $200 on a 150 gig hard drive I am sure I would "feel" that it is different too. Cost justification at its best.
Let me also point out to you that your method of judging performance increase is completely wrong. You are comparing a very old cards total FPS to a newer cards FPS. The newer cards are going to have a higher FPS total which makes the percent increase across the board appear less. However, as shown in the individual benchmarks, there is a huge increase in them. You can't just group all of them together and assume it is valid. Who is gaming at 1024 x 768 anymore anyway? You really think a person with a 8800GTX is going to be using that resolution?
You also did nothing to refute the point that your system is now majorly out of date. While upgrading after a year could have gotten you PCI-X and DDR2 you are now stuck with a system with DDR and AGP. If you wanted to upgrade your ram or graphics card you are going to be paying a big premium because of those standards.
I either copy-n-pasted exactly what you said, or paraphrased it. Nothing is being twisted, but I can understand that after seeing a summary of what you said, you begin to feel a bit frustrated in your general inability to spec a system, neither for high end performance nor cost-performance.
1280x1024 isn't even a 4:3 or 16:9 resolution dude, let's stick to something standard...and you do know that my statements regarding GPU performance require that you are running at MAXIMUM POSSIBLE resolution, that would be 1920x1200x32. Once we start scaling down res or FX, suddenly a Geforce 2 is a "viable" option, because your max native res is only 800x600. I bet you though there wasn't any "major benefit" in getting a real monitor that can swing a 1920x1200 native res huh? Cheapo to the end I see.
That is weak...you're citing a link to an image, out of context, to show a 2 second difference out of 185+ seconds? You do realize, my intelegent frend, that +/- 1% is typically an error threshold, in other words, not even worth mentioning unless you are desperate to support a failing point of view.
That aside, you are comparing the Raptor to the 7K1000, one of the very few 7200 RPM drives that can match the Raptor in terms of performance, sometimes. Now let's look at a more meaningful comparison, rather than your "I gotta prove my point" link.
Raptor X vs Hitachi 7K1000
As you can see, the 7K1000 puts up quite a fight, but is pwn3d in all categories except for power consumption, regardless of whether NCQ is enabled on the Raptor. Focus on the Random Read and Write times, because that is what you notice when using the Raptor...faster random reads and writes = more responsive system. Now go find a 7200 RPM hard drive that romps on the Raptor X...and please do come back with comparisons to 15K scsi drives. You've been making me laugh.
A fool is someone who continues to fight after being defeated. A wise warrior knows when a battle is over - and you are neither wise nor are u a warrior. You shoulda just let that one go but, you said it. A Q6600 is pretty much on top of the list as being the WORST price-performance CPU currently available. Server stuff aside, nothing really makes effective use of quad cores...and the current C2Q CPUs are still just two dual-cores "duck taped" together, a ghetto solution. Suggesting a Q6600 is an obvious contradiction to what you've been preaching this whole time.
Yes, I did buy it two years ago and you know what, you're not going to sell me on spending nearly $400 on a 8800 GTS. But let's examine these benches, but keep the resolution at 1920x1200. Remember, it's not the card's fault you cheaped out on the monitor. Also, what idiot would buy an 8800 GTS KNOWING that they will never need to play at resolutions above 1280x1024? You? Ahahaha!
Battlefield 2142 (1900x1200 4xAA 8xAF)
8800GTS 320MB(37.3 FPS) 17% faster
1900XTX (31.8 FPS)
Prey(Max quality @ 1600 x 1200)
8800GTS 320MB(53.6 FPS) 28% faster
1900XTX (41.8 FPS)
Oblivion(Max quality @ 1280 x 1024)
8800GTS 320MB(20.9 FPS) 28% faster
1900XTX (16.3 FPS)
both unplayable framerates Only the 8800GTX or Ultra were able to yield > 25 FPS at these settings in this game.
Notice that the only game unplayable on the 1900xtx at those settings is Oblivion...and that you are comparing a 2 year old card to Nvidia's current top of the line offering. We're having fun here!
I figured that you would do that for me, and looks like I was right - you did, saving me approximately 326 seconds. The 8800GTX is a great DX9 card, but guess what, DX10 performance is not so great....and in 1 year or so, you will need a solid DX10 card if you want to play the newest games. If you were planning to upgrade next year, the 8800GTX wouldn't be worth the $500+ it costs now. If it could last 2 years, it would be a great upgrade.
Actually no, I was just too lazy to post links but if you check the benchmark I linked to above you will see it's not just a "feeling" that the RaptorX is faster. Noticeably faster, i.e., I can tell without benchmarks that the RaptorX is faster than the 7200 RPM counterpart.
Originally posted by: EricMartello
I either copy-n-pasted exactly what you said, or paraphrased it. Nothing is being twisted, but I can understand that after seeing a summary of what you said, you begin to feel a bit frustrated in your general inability to spec a system, neither for high end performance nor cost-performance.
1280x1024 isn't even a 4:3 or 16:9 resolution dude, let's stick to something standard...and you do know that my statements regarding GPU performance require that you are running at MAXIMUM POSSIBLE resolution, that would be 1920x1200x32. Once we start scaling down res or FX, suddenly a Geforce 2 is a "viable" option, because your max native res is only 800x600. I bet you though there wasn't any "major benefit" in getting a real monitor that can swing a 1920x1200 native res huh? Cheapo to the end I see.
That is weak...you're citing a link to an image, out of context, to show a 2 second difference out of 185+ seconds? You do realize, my intelegent frend, that +/- 1% is typically an error threshold, in other words, not even worth mentioning unless you are desperate to support a failing point of view.
That aside, you are comparing the Raptor to the 7K1000, one of the very few 7200 RPM drives that can match the Raptor in terms of performance, sometimes. Now let's look at a more meaningful comparison, rather than your "I gotta prove my point" link.
Raptor X vs Hitachi 7K1000
As you can see, the 7K1000 puts up quite a fight, but is pwn3d in all categories except for power consumption, regardless of whether NCQ is enabled on the Raptor. Focus on the Random Read and Write times, because that is what you notice when using the Raptor...faster random reads and writes = more responsive system. Now go find a 7200 RPM hard drive that romps on the Raptor X...and please do come back with comparisons to 15K scsi drives. You've been making me laugh.
A fool is someone who continues to fight after being defeated. A wise warrior knows when a battle is over - and you are neither wise nor are u a warrior. You shoulda just let that one go but, you said it. A Q6600 is pretty much on top of the list as being the WORST price-performance CPU currently available. Server stuff aside, nothing really makes effective use of quad cores...and the current C2Q CPUs are still just two dual-cores "duck taped" together, a ghetto solution. Suggesting a Q6600 is an obvious contradiction to what you've been preaching this whole time.
Yes, I did buy it two years ago and you know what, you're not going to sell me on spending nearly $400 on a 8800 GTS. But let's examine these benches, but keep the resolution at 1920x1200. Remember, it's not the card's fault you cheaped out on the monitor. Also, what idiot would buy an 8800 GTS KNOWING that they will never need to play at resolutions above 1280x1024? You? Ahahaha!
Battlefield 2142 (1900x1200 4xAA 8xAF)
8800GTS 320MB(37.3 FPS) 17% faster
1900XTX (31.8 FPS)
Prey(Max quality @ 1600 x 1200)
8800GTS 320MB(53.6 FPS) 28% faster
1900XTX (41.8 FPS)
Oblivion(Max quality @ 1280 x 1024)
8800GTS 320MB(20.9 FPS) 28% faster
1900XTX (16.3 FPS)
both unplayable framerates Only the 8800GTX or Ultra were able to yield > 25 FPS at these settings in this game.
Notice that the only game unplayable on the 1900xtx at those settings is Oblivion...and that you are comparing a 2 year old card to Nvidia's current top of the line offering. We're having fun here!
I figured that you would do that for me, and looks like I was right - you did, saving me approximately 326 seconds. The 8800GTX is a great DX9 card, but guess what, DX10 performance is not so great....and in 1 year or so, you will need a solid DX10 card if you want to play the newest games. If you were planning to upgrade next year, the 8800GTX wouldn't be worth the $500+ it costs now. If it could last 2 years, it would be a great upgrade.
Actually no, I was just too lazy to post links but if you check the benchmark I linked to above you will see it's not just a "feeling" that the RaptorX is faster. Noticeably faster, i.e., I can tell without benchmarks that the RaptorX is faster than the 7200 RPM counterpart.
Enjoy wasting your money.
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