IDE vs SATA, worth getting a new hdd ?

[Zerp]

I'm building a new gaming pc soon (X3 720 and a 4870) and was wondering if I should buy a new SATA drive with 16/32 mb of cache. Would there be a worthwhile preformance increase over my 8mb cache IDE drive ? Trying to save as much money as possible but I don't want my system limited by my HDD.

 

[cheepstuff]

you WILL bottleneck with IDE. SATA is muck better. i don't think IDE has a capacity greater than 500GB max anyway. every aspect of IDE drives are becoming outdated because all the new models are made SATA compatable. IDE is dead.

 

[r-sky]

I have a 160gig ide and a 320 sata drive.

The sata is faster. Not because it's sata but because it is new and it stores more data on it in the same amount of space. (higher density)

160 - max transfer ~ 68mb/sec
320 - mas transfer ~ 107mb/sec

remember that new motherboards only have 1 ide connector...

 

[jitpublisher]

Definetly worth the price of the drive, time to put the old IDE out to pasture.

 

[Zerp]

The old drive I would be replacing is a seagate 7200.7 160 gig. Space isn't an issue. I just want to know if my gaming would be seriously bottlenecked by the old drive. One of these would probably be the replacement drives.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136073
or
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136218&nm_mc=EMC-IGNEFL031709&cm_mmc=EMC-IGNEFL031709-_-HardDrives-_-LH1A-_-22136218

 

[maximiza]

Sata for above reasons and also thinner cables for better airflow and case space.

 

[cheepstuff]

140GB more for $10 is a deal, go with the second one.

 

[Zorg]

A lot of this was covered already.

There is no difference between SATA and IDE, except burst rate, which is directly related to the relatively small cache size, and some (becoming more everyday) SSD drives. It's not the the SATA bandwidth but the fact that your drive is old and slow.

Your 7200.7 has an average read of ~45MB/sec. the 640AAKS has an average read of ~90MB/sec. This is due primarily to PMR (Perpendicular Magnetic Recording).

So you will double your speed and that will most definitely be noticeable.

You would see no performance increase, except burst rate, if the 6400AAKS was a PATA drive, because it would not be outrunning the bandwidth PATA provides.

 

[2flow]

Your statement "saving as much money as possible" tells me that you should stick with your IDE. It will run fine for standard users and casual gamers. You didnt say what kind of user you are.