I'm curious if it's possible to add a 10K RPM HD to a regular gaming PC? If so, would the 10K drive perform better? For loading huge scenes/levels and stuff like that?

I have a P5LD2 Rev. 2 motherboard.

I'm looking at a U320 80Pin SCSI Hard drive. I'm assuming I'd need a host adapter or some sort? Would the software work on XP?

Any suggestions/info much appreciated.

SCSI is way outdated and there is no point in spending Hundreds of dollars on a SCSI controller card. Just get to 500GB and go raid 0.

Now that i said that. ITS NOT YOUR HDD that is capping your gaming. It's probably your old CPU, GPU or RAM.

although it would help destroy them annoying loadtimes... just buy 4x them 250gb samsungs and raid0 them, your performance will destroy

I don't know what raid 0 is.

Do you mean 4 250GB satas? If so, how do I 'Raid 0' them?

You need a raid controller. I would not recommend Samsung hard drives they are the most likely to go bad and chances are you do not need almost a TB of data. Not to mention if you have 4 drives you should raid 5 not raid 0.

I would get One raptor 74 or 150 they have faster access time then a raid does with 7200rpm drives.

Yeah, a Raptor 150 does 10,000 RPM like the older SCSI drives and has a bigger buffer, etc. If you were talking about one of the 15,000 RPM drives, then there would be advantage to that, but those things are very expensinve. As for loading huge sceens and getting good play performance, you need a good graphics card for that, as well as a decently fast cpu. Older stuff just won't hack it with modern games.

Generally speaking... I don't think SCSI drives have a place in a gamer's rig. The cost of the drives and interface make it very cost-prohibitive for minimal gain. Just go with a Raptor and you'll be fine.

SCSI outdated? How so? In terms of tech SCSI U320 might be a bit dated but it still functions fine (has advantages and disadvantages like all things). Performance wise it's still competitive. SAS is newer and has some good advantages over U320.

SATA vs. SAS is a different topic but SAS seems superior spec wise but costs quite a bit more, they're aimed at different markets.

Sorry this was a bit off topic, but I dont think the SCSI interface is "way outdated."

Guess I agree that it rarely (if ever) has a place in a gaming rig... Might be useful in other more professional settings. But almost always not a gaming rig.

SCSI drives tend to be a hardier drive as they are spec'd as a workstation/server based drive. The MTBF is larger (usually) and that may be a reason to do this. You need to weigh the overhead (both system and money) for a SCSI controller. Many SCSI controllers offer better config options but they are also difficult for the normal builder to configure because there are so many options. Also you will almost ALWAYS have to do the add driver for installing Windows. You have to get windows to recognize the drive on the controller first then do the install. This can happen even today with the SATA but is less likely if using the built in adapter on the mobo (many have two controllers and the second typically has to load drivers on install too.

Performance wise you will likely see similar performance between the two setups. As stated before the 15K disks are phenomenal and offer some of the best server class storage/performance available.

Be advised though that many high end SATA drives are being designed with workstation/server loads in mind as well.

Hope this helps!!

PS.. If you have never done a SCSI config you will likely encounter issues the first time. Understand what LUN to use which ID to use ....

Setting up SCSI RAID will be tht much more difficult as many have focused on the setup of RAID on the onboard SATA controllers.

you may want a SAS / SATA pci-e raid card and SAS or SATA disks.