Round ide cables

Does anybody know if round ide cables are better than flat ones?

depends on what you mean by "better"

-they have smaller profile, which promotes better airflow

-they do look cool, in many colors and look great w/ lights

-they do have possible crosstalk interference that flat ones do not.

that last one is debatable, but biggest testament to it is that Voodoo PC and other specialty pc builders only use flat ones for that reason. They do wicked oragami folding to keep a cool look and airflow though, and I dont know why THAT doesn't produce the same problems. Everyday users will prb never see tangible performance diff with any added interference from round.

I have used both and see no diff other than cooler look w/ round. Especially now that hardrives are going to sata, only use is for opticals and the little traffic they have should see no diff.

I haven't had any problems with mine. But then again they have only been in my system for 3 years.

ground wont make a diff. the crosstalk is the interference from one of the wires with a signal being right next to another, where the flat ones are that way to seperate the ones that have a signal at any given time. Nothing you can do about it with round one. but perf diff is minimal.

oh, I am not saying to worry about it at all. The issue is minimal at best and unless you have some sort of measuring device on it you should notice no diff. I have round in two of my systems and have no issues. (one for the last 3 years also)

scsi is serial i believe and like sata, a serial connection is asynchronos which eliminates the xtalk issue. (no clock to sych to and so no parallelization of any given sig) pata is not, and that is the problem. The shielding is more for outside interference, and only does minimal on stopping internal interf. (as far as I know anyway) That is just the fundamental issue of synch parallel signal transfer that the original layout of the flat cabling dealt with. Each wire was only adjacent to at most 2 instead of the multiples in a round wire. That is why the cable is flat, otherwise it would have been round from the start. That is why scsi is round.

I actually think that round is cheaper in most cases that flat to make (at least in all other wire configs it is...) they charge more for round just because they have been the fad the last few years and we will pay it.

Modders were making them "round" back in the day (fancy razor work) knowing that the minimal xtalk there was could be handled with the faster systems comming out and so did it anyway. (any corrupted sig must be re-tranfered) Again, this issue is so minimal with the modern cables and equip that you should get any cabling you want and enjoy how it looks.

I prefer round cables in my systems for the better airflow hence cooling, and also because it makes adding another drive or two later so much easier. They don't block so much of your view of the mobo connectors, and as pointed out earlier, they route more easily.

SCSI is parallel. serial SCSI is serial newly ratified standard.