Do I really need ATA 100 controller card?

[zulu]

Hi, here is aquestion for you, experts: I have MOBO with built in UDMA /33 controller. I'm going to buy IBM 40 GB 7200 RPM ATA100 60GXP. I understand , that in order to fully use it's speed I need also ATA 100 controller, and actually I found Promice ATA 100 PCI controller card for 30$.
But the question is: Is it really so much increase over UDMA/33, on my particular system (spec. below)? ALSO, now my system is on 112 FSB, and I suupect my harddrive in failure to go fo 133FSB. Will a contoller card overclock easily?
Thanks for reply.

[Allan Nielsen]

As far as I know, the Promise cards overclock a bit better than the Highpoint cards, so the card you have in mind should be able to handle at least 112 MHz FSB (Surely more!)

But why not try to see if it will work at 133MHz fsb? It'll give you 933MHz if it works. Why do you have your v-core set to 1.85 if you aren't overclocking much? Default is 1.65 for that chip. Be careful with it, most 700 cB0 will do 933+. Temps seem ok, but have you tried lapping your orb? It should take a few degrees off.

You are right that you need a new controller card to fully use the UDMA100. I would say that its a nice increase, but you are still able to use the new hard drive even with udma33. I would suggest you at least get UDMA66, but when you'r at it, might as well get udma100.

Good luck with it - let me know.

[klosters64a]

My Promise ATA-100 PCI Controller card works fine at 133 Mhz FSB and 124 Mhz FSB. As 66, 100, 124 and 133
mhz FSB's are "cardinal" settings, where the PCI Bus frequency is either at spec, or a bit slower than spec, at least on an Asus 440BX mainboard, there are no problems with PCI cards(or IDE HDD's) at these FSB settings.

HDTach 2.61 informs me that the performance of an old Maxtor UDMA/33 HDD on the mobo's UDMA/33 IDE Controller is genuinely pitiful. OTOH, HDTach 2.61 reports that a 75GXP ATA-100 HDD on the Promise ATA-100 card hauls butt!

[Pinky]

I personally run everything at UDMA66... never had any problems with numerous overclocks and Abit mobos. The newer boards feature the ATA100 controllers, but I doubt, unless being used in a server, that the extra bandwidth is going to do much more than benchmark well.

[wildone]

Yes you do need the card , I am just useing this pic to show you the difference , my system is ata 100 ,but this benchmark was not done on a clean boot so I usually do score better
wildone