Advice on components for new PC

[mainman]

Would welcome some advice about deciding which components to get
for a new PC I am building.

Will probably use an ASUS "A7NX8X-E Deluxe" motherboard with
three or four IDE PATA drives.

Some time ago it was said in this forum that 80-way ribbon
cables were better than the newer round cables. Does this still
hold true? I would prefer a round cable for better airflow.

I have also heard some time ago that SATA does not really offer
very much performance advantage over 100 MHz PATA for a regular
user. Is this also generally still true? I don't need top end
storage performance but if SATA brings a noticeable improvement
to a home user (who is not a gamer or power user nor a video-
editor) then I would like to know.





Asus mobo spec at http://snipurl.com/4j68

 

[Bob Willard]

Would welcome some advice about deciding which components to get
for a new PC I am building.

Will probably use an ASUS "A7NX8X-E Deluxe" motherboard with
three or four IDE PATA drives.

Some time ago it was said in this forum that 80-way ribbon
cables were better than the newer round cables. Does this still
hold true? I would prefer a round cable for better airflow.

I have also heard some time ago that SATA does not really offer
very much performance advantage over 100 MHz PATA for a regular
user. Is this also generally still true? I don't need top end
storage performance but if SATA brings a noticeable improvement
to a home user (who is not a gamer or power user nor a video-
editor) then I would like to know.





Asus mobo spec at http://snipurl.com/4j68

SATA HDs are faster, only in the sense that 10K RPM SATA HDs are
shipping, while 7200 RPM HDs are the fastest currently on PATA.
But you will pay extra to get 10K RPM HDs, and it doesn't sound
like you would make that cost-performance trade-off, so the
real advantage -- for you -- of SATA is that the cables are
longer and skinnier than the standards-conforming flat ribbon
PATA cables.

 

[Rod Speed]

Would welcome some advice about deciding which
components to get for a new PC I am building.

Will probably use an ASUS "A7NX8X-E Deluxe"
motherboard with three or four IDE PATA drives.

Some time ago it was said in this forum that
80-way ribbon cables were better than the
newer round cables. Does this still hold true?

Yes, nothing has changed on that, the
round cables flout the ATA standard.

I would prefer a round cable for better airflow.

Then it would be better to go the SATA route
and get cables that dont flout the standard.

I have also heard some time ago that SATA does not really
offer very much performance advantage over 100 MHz
PATA for a regular user. Is this also generally still true?
Yes.

I don't need top end storage performance but if SATA brings
a noticeable improvement to a home user (who is not a gamer
or power user nor a video-editor) then I would like to know.

The main improvement in your case would be that it would
allow you to use thin round cables without flouting the standard.

SATA is still more hassle currently tho with quite
a few drives being basically just PATA drives
with SATA compat added and some hassles
with motherboards and software still currently.

 

[Shailesh Humbad]

I have the same motherboard (without GigE). I'm running dual RAID-0
with SATA 10k WD360GD hard drives. It's very fast; the drives bench
press Sisoft Sandra at 63 MB/sec and XP loads in < 12 sec. I had no
compatibility issues with these SATA drives (WinXP Pro SP1a). I use a
PATA 120GB WD drive for backups, and it's on a rounded cable, and I
never had any problems due to the cabling, even if it does flout the
ATA standard. SATA doesn't confer a performance advantage unless you
go with a high end 10k rpm drive. I first had 7200rpm SATA drives, and
they had exactly the same performance as 7200rpm PATA drives on this mobo.

I have two more WD360GD hard drives for sale for $120 each shipped. If
you're interested, contact me at:

http://www.somacon.com/contact.php

S.

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

I have the same motherboard (without GigE). I'm running dual RAID-0
with SATA 10k WD360GD hard drives. It's very fast; the drives bench

press Sisoft Sandra at 63 MB/sec

Wow, a whopping 20% increase over a single drive's rate. Impressive!

and XP loads in < 12 sec. I had no compatibility issues with these
SATA drives (WinXP Pro SP1a). I use a PATA 120GB WD drive
for backups, and it's on a rounded cable, and I never had any pro-
blems due to the cabling, even if it does flout the ATA standard.

SATA doesn't confer a performance advantage unless you go with a
high end 10k rpm drive.

Only the second generation where STR is concerned.
The first generation 10k only has better access times over 7k2.

 

[Shailesh Humbad]

Wow, a whopping 20% increase over a single drive's rate. Impressive!The full stats are:

A7N8X Deluxe, Athlon 3200+, SilImage 3112 RAID-0 2xWD360GD
Sisoft Sandra 2004:

Drive Index : 68,713 kB/s
Buffered Read : 107 MB/s
Sequential Read : 107 MB/s
Random Read : 11 MB/s
Buffered Write : 88 MB/s
Sequential Write : 91 MB/s
Random Write : 19 MB/s
Average Access Time : 5 ms (estimated)

HDTach 2.7:
9.5 ms random access time
109.4MB/s read burst speed
read speed max: 100.7MB/s
read speed minimum: 65.3MB/s
read speed average: 89.2MB/s