Memory advice please?

[G]

I am looking for memory for my new Asus P5B Mobo.

It can take DDR II SDRAM either PC2-4300, 6400 or 5300

Can someone tell me what is the fastest of these, I assume the higher number
PC2-6400, am I correct?

Thanks

Graham

 

[Dean G.]

I am looking for memory for my new Asus P5B Mobo.

It can take DDR II SDRAM either PC2-4300, 6400 or 5300

Can someone tell me what is the fastest of these, I assume the higher number
PC2-6400, am I correct?

Yes, you are correct. The PC2-6400 is 800MHz, the PC2-4300 is 533MHz,
and the PC2-5300 is 667MHz (roughly). The P5B supports the 800MHz, so
there is no reason to go with a lower speed.

Dean G.

 

[G]

Yes, you are correct. The PC2-6400 is 800MHz, the PC2-4300 is 533MHz,
and the PC2-5300 is 667MHz (roughly). The P5B supports the 800MHz, so
there is no reason to go with a lower speed.

Dean G.

Brilliant, thanks Dean!

 

[G]

Brilliant, thanks Dean!

One more question please?

My Mobo (Asus P5B) says for storage controller ATA-133 Serial ATA-300 (RAID)
eSATA port.

Can someone tell me please what is the best hard drive I can buy for this
mobo, I have no idea what the above specs mean and what specs I can chose in
my new HD.

SATA II 300?
SATA II 16MB Cache or do I need a lower Cache? Sorry for being so thick!


Thanks guys!

Graham

 

[G]

One more question please?

My Mobo (Asus P5B) says for storage controller ATA-133 Serial ATA-300
(RAID) eSATA port.

Can someone tell me please what is the best hard drive I can buy for this
mobo, I have no idea what the above specs mean and what specs I can chose
in my new HD.

SATA II 300?
SATA II 16MB Cache or do I need a lower Cache? Sorry for being so thick!


Thanks guys!

Graham

Also, just noticed it says

Storage Ports Configuration 1 x ATA, 7 x SATA 1 x eSATA

Which is fastest?

 

[G]

Also, just noticed it says

Storage Ports Configuration 1 x ATA, 7 x SATA 1 x eSATA

Which is fastest?

Any one more......

I just read a review for this HD would it work ok in my Asus P5B mobo?

Seagate 7200.10 320GB SATAII/300 8.5ms 7200RPM 16MB Cache

 

[Paul]

Any one more......

I just read a review for this HD would it work ok in my Asus P5B mobo?

Seagate 7200.10 320GB SATAII/300 8.5ms 7200RPM 16MB Cache

The Seagate drive should work fine. SATA is backward compatible, so a
300MB/sec interface should also work at 150MB/sec. Some drives come with a
jumper position, that allows manually forcing 150MB/sec, if needed.

The cache on the hard drive controller, seems to be for the most part,
irrelevant. At least, if I look at a big chart of benchmark numbers,
the 8MB and 16MB drives are kinda mixed on the chart. So there isn't a
strong trend there that I can see.

ESATA is the external version of SATA, and is still SATA at heart.

All three standards (ATA133, SATA, ESATA) are faster than the sustained
media rate on the drive. The drive might manage 60-70MB/sec at the
beginning of the disk. The only advantage the higher speed gives you,
is the ability to fill the cache on the controller faster. And the
benchmarks don't seem to show much practical advantage to that.

What does help disks, is faster RPMs. The average desktop disk is
7200RPM. One of the Raptors is 10000 RPM. The higher RPM rate allows
the seek time to be reduced (since, on average, you wait a half
revolution for the data to be underneath the head). There are faster
disks yet, at 15000 RPM, but those have SCSI interfaces on them, and
SCSI controllers tend to be an expensive way to improve on the seek
time. There is seldom practical justification on a desktop, for
such an expensive disk and controller board. SCSI is a multidrop bus,
and it allows multiple drives to share the same 320MB/sec bandwidth.
SATA is just so much cheaper to use, that SCSI is only a dream.

As for the ports on your motherboard, the ATA133 is handy for some
cheap non-SATA CDRW or DVD writer you happen to buy. SATA is for the
hard drives and is plenty good enough.

Paul

 

[G]

The Seagate drive should work fine. SATA is backward compatible, so a
300MB/sec interface should also work at 150MB/sec. Some drives come with a
jumper position, that allows manually forcing 150MB/sec, if needed.

The cache on the hard drive controller, seems to be for the most part,
irrelevant. At least, if I look at a big chart of benchmark numbers,
the 8MB and 16MB drives are kinda mixed on the chart. So there isn't a
strong trend there that I can see.

ESATA is the external version of SATA, and is still SATA at heart.

All three standards (ATA133, SATA, ESATA) are faster than the sustained
media rate on the drive. The drive might manage 60-70MB/sec at the
beginning of the disk. The only advantage the higher speed gives you,
is the ability to fill the cache on the controller faster. And the
benchmarks don't seem to show much practical advantage to that.

What does help disks, is faster RPMs. The average desktop disk is
7200RPM. One of the Raptors is 10000 RPM. The higher RPM rate allows
the seek time to be reduced (since, on average, you wait a half
revolution for the data to be underneath the head). There are faster
disks yet, at 15000 RPM, but those have SCSI interfaces on them, and
SCSI controllers tend to be an expensive way to improve on the seek
time. There is seldom practical justification on a desktop, for
such an expensive disk and controller board. SCSI is a multidrop bus,
and it allows multiple drives to share the same 320MB/sec bandwidth.
SATA is just so much cheaper to use, that SCSI is only a dream.

As for the ports on your motherboard, the ATA133 is handy for some
cheap non-SATA CDRW or DVD writer you happen to buy. SATA is for the
hard drives and is plenty good enough.

Paul

Thanks Paul for that great reply, appreciate it!

Graham