Why a Raptor

[Avg]

What kind of performance do I get from getting a raptor, I'll be building a new ps soon and I have too drives which I'm looking at, one is a 36g raptor or a 80gb 7200rpm 8mb cache drive, I don't use that much space so if I get the raptor it should be enough for me, but the 80gb drive is cheaper and I'll always have that extra storage if needed.

TIA

 

[musawi]

Its fast...

8mb Cache.... 10, 000 RPM.... SATA.....

Full Stroke Seek 10.2 ms (average)

I get 10.1 and some are getting a bit below 10 but still its fast, worth the money

 

[Avg]

But what kind of performance increase do I get, just stuff loading faster or does it improve overall performance.

 

[David]

I have been told that Raptors are noticably faster when opening files, due to the lower seek times. They are noticably faster to use.

 

[Tmod]

Why a Raptor? Because it is the fastest non scsi drive out there. While it will not speed up your processor or memory it will have faster access then other hard drives.

If money is a issue and you are going to consider RAID then you may give the Hitachi SATA drives a try. If you are not going to consider Raid then the Western Digital SATA drives work well on a single channel.

 

[trueplaya4ever8]

You guys should make a raptor sticky, seeing as questions about raptors are always asked and repeatly answered. i would love some raptors but i am too poor... lol .

 

[ZenTrickz]

Yea I was asking the same question just 3 days ago in a thread I started.
7,200 vs 10,000rpm: Increased gaming performance?

I've been doing research since, and looked over a bunch of reviews. Here's the most informative one that I found comparing several of the most well renowned SATA drives that enthusiats use. It compares:
Hitachi Deskstar 7K250 250GB
Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9 120GB
Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 120GB
Western Digital Raptor WD740GD 74GB
Western Digital Raptor WD360GD 37GB

Check it out man, great review
http://techreport.com/reviews/2004q1/deskstar-7k250/index.x?pg=1

If it's too much for you to read, it pretty much concludes that Raptors are a bit pricey, but are the clear leader in performance. Desktar, DiamondMax, and Barracude are all relatively similar to one another but get beaten in almost all benchmarks by the raptors. But you will get more than double the storrage for the same price going with one of the 7,200 rpm drives. What I have learned from my thread is that faster RPM's does result in quite noticable differences in loadings times, for say opening applications or loading a map in a game. But it generaly does not imporve performance in your actual gameplay and running of applications, things like your frame rates. So if you think it's worth it to get half the drive space, but a bit faster in loading times, go with the raptors. If you want immense capacity for the same price, go with one of the 7,200 brands above. And note that all 3 of the brands listed above are the most recognized to be the best performers for 7,200 drives. It's not like their slow. I myself have came into the same delima of choosing between the Raptor, or a quality 7,200. I chose to go with the Hitachi 160GB 7200RPM SATA. $95, for 160gigs, and better read speeds of both the Maxtor and Seagate. Can't go wrong with it man. Sure I'll experience two or three seconds (if that) of loading time difference than the raptors. But it's not exactly slow, and I'll have a hell of a lot more space. Biggest bang for the buck bro!

Hope that helped.

 

[Avg]

Yea I was asking the same question just 3 days ago in a thread I started.
7,200 vs 10,000rpm: Increased gaming performance?

I've been doing research since, and looked over a bunch of reviews. Here's the most informative one that I found comparing several of the most well renowned SATA drives that enthusiats use. It compares:
Hitachi Deskstar 7K250 250GB
Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9 120GB
Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 120GB
Western Digital Raptor WD740GD 74GB
Western Digital Raptor WD360GD 37GB

Check it out man, great review
http://techreport.com/reviews/2004q1/deskstar-7k250/index.x?pg=1

If it's too much for you to read, it pretty much concludes that Raptors are a bit pricey, but are the clear leader in performance. Desktar, DiamondMax, and Barracude are all relatively similar to one another but get beaten in almost all benchmarks by the raptors. But you will get more than double the storrage for the same price going with one of the 7,200 rpm drives. What I have learned from my thread is that faster RPM's does result in quite noticable differences in loadings times, for say opening applications or loading a map in a game. But it generaly does not imporve performance in your actual gameplay and running of applications, things like your frame rates. So if you think it's worth it to get half the drive space, but a bit faster in loading times, go with the raptors. If you want immense capacity for the same price, go with one of the 7,200 brands above. And note that all 3 of the brands listed above are the most recognized to be the best performers for 7,200 drives. It's not like their slow. I myself have came into the same delima of choosing between the Raptor, or a quality 7,200. I chose to go with the Hitachi 160GB 7200RPM SATA. $95, for 160gigs, and better read speeds of both the Maxtor and Seagate. Can't go wrong with it man. Sure I'll experience two or three seconds (if that) of loading time difference than the raptors. But it's not exactly slow, and I'll have a hell of a lot more space. Biggest bang for the buck bro!

Hope that helped.

From what i have seen there it seems that I'ts not worth it for me to get the raptor since loading times don't bother me much and besides I'm the first one iin most maps anyway.

 

[austinbmxnig]

yea i second the raptor sticky, not this thread though

 

[Avg]

I did look for a sticky on this though, it is a good idea to make one.

 

[Mr.Guvernment]

i went from various IDE 7,200 RPM drivers to a 76G raptor and i would say it was WELL worth the $170 i paid for it on newegg

i want fast load times and it helps alot - just makes things so fast - 4.2ms seek times vs 8-9ms on most other serialATA drives.

 

[mattyhayden]

Get the Raptors..

 

[gvblake22]

I too went from the 120GB seagate in my sig to the Raptor in my sig (74Gb) and I do notice a difference, large folders open faster, programs open faster, file searching is WAAAAY faster, saving stuff is faster, and there is no lag when browsing through the start menu.
HOWEVER, I don't think that it is QUITE worth the extra $$. If you can get a good price on it then it narrows this gap down to something pretty minimal, but overall, in my opinion, I think this is a great drive but may not be worth the extra $$.

Don't get me wrong, this is DEFINATELY the fastest drive I've ever used and I love having it, but I just think that the performance/speed improvement you get over a good 7200rpm drive is not quite (but very close) worth the extra $$...