1 VRaptor - Best Solution For Gamers?

flegg

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Jun 1, 2008
Messages
1,268
Based on what I've read on these forums, I want to see if I've reached the right conclusion.

conditions:
primary system performance concern is gaming (loading game, loading maps)
rarely perform video editing and such
high end of 'bang for buck' (nice system, but no throwing away money)

premises:
RAID 0 offers little benefits to gaming and can even detract (higher cpu usage, higher failure)
300gb is plenty for vista64 home premium and 1 modern MMO and 2 modern FPS
Vraptors have low (best?) access times and low cpu utilization (not including SSDs), which are important because the CPU decompressing the game files is the bottleneck (after access happens)
Vraptors have great performance (look at reviews or other posts)
Spending an extra $500-1000 on an SSD would cause less of a reduction in game and map loading than would spending that money in improving the CPU and/or RAM.

Conclusion: A single VRaptor is the best choice given the above conditions.

Other possibilities that seem attractive to me:
Even the $100-150 you save by just using a good 7200rpm drive could be put to much better use in reducing load times (though remember this is given you have a high-end comp already - maybe q9450 or 6600 and 8800gtx or 9800gtx)
Use 2 Vraptors but on a hardware RAID controller
SCSI drives
Wait for SSDs to come down in price (because they will soon?)

If you think any of my premises or my conclusion is wrong please tell; that's why I posted.

Additional question for when/if SSDs come down in price: One downside to SSDs is their write speed - how would this affect gamers? Just game installation times?
 
Based on what I've read on these forums, I want to see if I've reached the right conclusion.

conditions:
primary system performance concern is gaming (loading game, loading maps)
rarely perform video editing and such
high end of 'bang for buck' (nice system, but no throwing away money)

premises:
RAID 0 offers little benefits to gaming and can even detract (higher cpu usage, higher failure)
300gb is plenty for vista64 home premium and 1 modern MMO and 2 modern FPS
Vraptors have low (best?) access times and low cpu utilization (not including SSDs), which are important because the CPU decompressing the game files is the bottleneck
Vraptors have great performance (look at reviews or other posts)
Spending an extra $500-1000 on an SSD would cause less of a reduction in game and map loading than would spending that money in improving the CPU and/or RAM.

Conclusion: A single VRaptor is the best choice given the above conditions.

Other possibilities that seem attractive to me:
Even the $100-150 you save by just using a good 7200rpm drive could be put to much better use in reducing load times (though remember this is given you have a high-end comp already - maybe q9450 or 6600 and 8800gtx or 9800gtx)
Use 2 Vraptors but on a hardware RAID controller
Wait for SSDs to come down in price (because they will soon?)

If you think any of my premises or my conclusion is wrong please tell; that's why I posted.

Additional question for when/if SSDs come down in price: One downside to SSDs is their write write speed - how would this affect gamers? Just game installation times?

Agreed with the RAM. If you want game to load fast, a minimum of 4 GB of RAM is required. I'm not sure how big the differences are on most games going from 4 GB to 6 GB or 4 GB to 8 GB, but that may also be a worthwhile investment.
 
2gb of RAM + Single Raptor X = First into almost every game on BF2, 2142, and Half Life 2:DM (the main games I play/played on this rig).
 
My old p4 rig had two original 74gb raptors in RAID 0 for gaming, with my q6600; I kept the raptors but made one for Vista and the other strictly for games, nothing else installed on it. Love it now as I can alt+tab without worrying the gaming and OS fighting over the one hard drive.
Though currently am thinking of replacing both with two WD 320 single platters, but I dunno yet.
 
Agreed with the RAM. If you want game to load fast, a minimum of 4 GB of RAM is required. I'm not sure how big the differences are on most games going from 4 GB to 6 GB or 4 GB to 8 GB, but that may also be a worthwhile investment.

I don't think thats actually true? Atleast for me, with my measly 2 GB of ram, I never get 100% memory usage... I've tried with 3 GB as well, and I didn't see a change at all...

also, don't forget that all 4 GB of that ram won't be available to the OS/Applications without a 64 bit os

I would say going with some of the larger capacity 7,200 RPM drives are better for gamers because they provide similar performance with significantly higher capacity.

I personally use the WD640AKS (is it 6400?) which is great and is over double the capacity of the VRaptor. You can also get the Samsung F1 750 GB and such, however the WD640AKS has only 2 platters, so it can be faster in some tests
 
I don't think thats actually true? Atleast for me, with my measly 2 GB of ram, I never get 100% memory usage... I've tried with 3 GB as well, and I didn't see a change at all...

also, don't forget that all 4 GB of that ram won't be available to the OS/Applications without a 64 bit os

I would say going with some of the larger capacity 7,200 RPM drives are better for gamers because they provide similar performance with significantly higher capacity.

I personally use the WD640AKS (is it 6400?) which is great and is over double the capacity of the VRaptor. You can also get the Samsung F1 750 GB and such, however the WD640AKS has only 2 platters, so it can be faster in some tests

Not from the reviews I've seen comparing game load times with varying amount of RAM. I've simply extrapolated those reviews to the 4 GB case as well. Yes, you do need an operating system that can handle 4 GB of RAM, but is that really an issue?

But, for the sake of anecdotal evidence, I will at least give you Hellgate: London as proof. Without 4 GB of RAM on Vista x64, the game will make your hard drive grind like crazy. Levels will load slowly. You will get stutter as you're moving around. With 4 GB of RAM, everything is far more smooth and load times are faster.

Another thing is that with any machine you build today that's oriented for gaming, you want to buy 4 GB of RAM! The money is not significant at all, unless you're making a DDR3 build, and you get a whole lot out of the investment. Don't skimp! If you get only 2 GB of RAM to save money, you're being penny-wise, pound-foolish.
 
2GB is enough for games, IMO. I don't feel that much of a diff going higher. That's not to say upcoming games may need it.
 
2GB is enough for games, IMO. I don't feel that much of a diff going higher. That's not to say upcoming games may need it.

I'm don't want to say that you're lying, but when you make a general statement like "is enough for games" with no qualifiers, I can't help but comment on it, since that is simply not true. As I said, 4 GB of RAM is dirt cheap. About as cheap as a 500 GB hard drive. You DON'T want to not have it.

As for me, since I'm using DDR, it's about twice as expensive (or a bit more), and I'm also upgrading my computer within a year and half, so I'm not putting in that expense for a reason.
 
So for a gaming build would you choose a Velociraptor or a RAID0 with 2x320GB AAKSs from WD or 2x640GB AAKSs or a 320GB for the OS and a 640GB for the games?
I am currently building and have everything besides the hard drives and graphics board.
And the main question is:
should i spend the cash on a Velociraptor+6400AAKS or 3200AAKS+6400AAKS or combinations using "normal" 7200rpm sata2 drives?
Other hw that i bought already: DFI X48 UT,2x2GB Mushkin Redline,1000Hx.
 
I would just say buy a 320 single platter and a 640 double platter hard drives, 320 for OS and 640 for games or just two 320s would probably work.
 
Are the Single 320gb platter drives faster than the 640? and Isn't 320gb a bit too much for an OS? or putting 2 320gb in a raid 0, and partition 60gb for the OS and leave the rest for normal storage, is that a good idea?
 
I think the base idea for a 320GB just for the OS is that you have a head that is reading/writing just for the OS and not for the other applications.
 
I'd say just get Samsung F1 320 gb or other single platter disk.
Few seonds aren't worth triple the price.
 
Back
Top