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775 vs 1366 - Help me pick?

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Shad0w99

n00b
Joined
Aug 21, 2009
Messages
36
Hi there,

I have spotted two systems on craigslist. I'm not sure which one to pick. It's for my brother - used for everyday stuff - running everyday apps together - music/firefox with 60 tabs/flash games/youtube/odd programs! Gaming - games like Mount & Blade/MW3/

OS is going to be Windows XP SP3 Pro. :D - so no need for more RAM!
Resolution for games - 1024x768 ( Important - this means games will be CPU dependent than GPU dependent )

Two systems are

775 =

Q6600
Gigabyte P35-DQ6
4GB RAM
8800GTS 640MB
CM 212+
WD Green 750GB
Corsair HX 620W PSU
Audigy 2 Soundcard
Silverstone TJ07


1366 =

920
MSI X58M.
Corsair H70
8GB DDR3
Intel 320 80 SSD
650W PSU
No Graphics CARD
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio PCI Express Sound Card
Antec P182

1366 system will about $70 - $100 more! and I would need to buy a graphics card - making it probably $100 more in the future. In their current state - both systems stays below $450. Which one should I go for? Any opinions?

Thank you
 
The 775 system is able to run current games at the suggested resolution, but the WD green will make it feel very sluggish and you will hit a dead end the second you need more performance from any of the other parts.

The 1366 system lacks storage capacity, the owner probably had a HDD or two that he/she has moved to a new system. You probably have to add a HDD to the expenses for that system.

I would not recommend either of the systems, I don't have any alternatives, but both systems seem a bit odd to invest in.
 
runs2far said:
The 775 system is able to run current games at the suggested resolution, but the WD green will make it feel very sluggish and you will hit a dead end the second you need more performance from any of the other parts.

The 1366 system lacks storage capacity, the owner probably had a HDD or two that he/she has moved to a new system. You probably have to add a HDD to the expenses for that system.

I would not recommend either of the systems, I don't have any alternatives, but both systems seem a bit odd to invest in.
Click to expand...


Thanks for the reply. I know it's odd. I was just trying to find a decent system under $400. 775 is $375 and 1366 is $450 but trying to get it for $400. Storage is not a problem. After experiencing some hard drive failure - he uses external hard drives for storage. So you are saying 775 would need a Hard drive upgrade and 1366 would need a graphics card upgrade. If both systems are not worth getting, I would keep looking.

Thank you
 
Note that 1366 has NO support for integrated graphics any LGA1366 system NEEDS a seperate graphics implementation. I've never seen an x58 desktop* board with onboard graphics.

*Server boards have onboard graphics but said onboard graphics is not integrated in the CPU or chipset, it's part of the out of band management stuff and it's a clone of an old matrox.
 
X58 does not use onboard graphics.

I believe, some of the i7 800 or 600 had IGP but not sure.

As far as a direct to use, well, I know you said what resolution he "will be" using, but that may change in the future if he decides on gaming or watching movies or something.

For my $ I would go with the i7 920 system, it may be $100 more, but the cpu alone is easily worth the cost, you may need to get a gpu, but you can get some very decent ones for very cheap that can help in processing things such as movies and such(offloading no matter the resolution) then you have to factor in the SSD which is also worth more then the caviar green.

Though you would be better off having the i7 in triple channel I dont think that will matter for the intended usage.

The i7 920 setup is worth more of its cost then the Q6600 both are good, but one is much longer in the tooth sort of speak. no that he plans on overclocking or anything, but if he does, that CM Hyper 212+ is a good cheap much better then stock cooler for the i7 920, thats my vote :)
 
I definitely wouldn't spend any money on a 775 system. That socket is long gone. 1366 is still viable for that cheap. And as far as XP SP3, you're not going to be able to use even 4GB, much less 8GB. You're going to need a 64-bit version to use that RAM, and then you might as well just go with Windows 7 instead of the x64 XP. You can still virtualize XP inside of 7 if you get a decent not-cheap version. And lastly, the i7 is going to be more power efficient than the Core2Quad.
 
dragonstongue said:
For my $ I would go with the i7 920 system, it may be $100 more, but the cpu alone is easily worth the cost, you may need to get a gpu, but you can get some very decent ones for very cheap that can help in processing things such as movies and such(offloading no matter the resolution) then you have to factor in the SSD which is also worth more then the caviar green.

Though you would be better off having the i7 in triple channel I dont think that will matter for the intended usage.

The i7 920 setup is worth more of its cost then the Q6600 both are good, but one is much longer in the tooth sort of speak. no that he plans on overclocking or anything, but if he does, that CM Hyper 212+ is a good cheap much better then stock cooler for the i7 920, thats my vote :)
Click to expand...

Thanks for the replies guys! He uses FW900 CRT monitor. Even with so much real estate he likes to game on 1024x768. I could get a decent used graphics card from HF members right here. The 1366 one has H70 instead of the stock cooler. So you guys all agree that the 1366 at $450 is a good buy? :) + $$ for a graphics card. Is this an overall good deal or should I keep looking??

Thank you
 
The seller has watercooling, a 1366 quad and 8GB RAM...but games at 1024x768? I am confused...
 
Shad0w99 said:
Thanks for the reply. I know it's odd. I was just trying to find a decent system under $400. 775 is $375 and 1366 is $450 but trying to get it for $400. Storage is not a problem. After experiencing some hard drive failure - he uses external hard drives for storage. So you are saying 775 would need a Hard drive upgrade and 1366 would need a graphics card upgrade. If both systems are not worth getting, I would keep looking.

Thank you
Click to expand...

If he has external drives for storage, go with the 1366, as that eliminates the need to spend money on an extra HDD. The 80 GB Intel SSD is good enough for XP + the typical programs, but Mount and blade with expansions + MW3 is probably not going to fit. If the external drives are USB, you could open one and mount the HDD directly inside the case for storage + acceptable transfer speed for games.

The 1366 is not a bad system if you already have the HDD space it is lacking. Just remember to get a cheap GPU from the forum and that computer should perform well for some time.

For the IGP ppl:
1366 does not support IGP, and even if it did, the motherboard does not have any video out ports making any IGP worthless.
 
1366 Not a hard decision, but 1366 & 8GB? :confused:

Get proper memory in triple channel 6 or 12GB & OC that 920 like it's supposed to be! :cool:
 
1366, was this suppose to be a trick question?

You can find GTX260 video cards on HardForum's FS/FT section for $50. Those are great budget cards. However, that's overkill for gaming on a 1024x768.

Also, the 1366 platform will allow you to utilize DDR3 ram which is cheaper anyway for upgrading in the future. DDR2 ram is just going up in price at this point.
 
And the answer is 42. Well maybe not to this question but at least with 1366 you are getting performance close to that of today's processors.
 
Yakk said:
1366 Not a hard decision, but 1366 & 8GB? :confused:

Get proper memory in triple channel 6 or 12GB & OC that 920 like it's supposed to be! :cool:
Click to expand...

You don't need more than 2 memory channels on 1366, unless you want to run an overclocked 6-core.
 
defaultluser said:
You don't need more than 2 memory channels on 1366, unless you want to run an overclocked 6-core.
Click to expand...

Actually, even with a 6-core, the memory controller bandwidth on LGA 1366 is so low (relative to the theoretical maximum for triple-channel RAM at any given speed) that it might as well be single- or dual-channel anyway. Run a memory benchmarking program such as Aida64 or Sandra and you'll see that triple-channel memory bandwidth on LGA 1366, even with an overclocked 6-core, is still lower than the dual-channel memory bandwidth on LGA 1155 Sandy Bridge at every given memory speed class.
 
Shad0w99 said:
Thanks for the replies guys! He uses FW900 CRT monitor. Even with so much real estate he likes to game on 1024x768. I could get a decent used graphics card from HF members right here. The 1366 one has H70 instead of the stock cooler. So you guys all agree that the 1366 at $450 is a good buy? :) + $$ for a graphics card. Is this an overall good deal or should I keep looking??

Thank you
Click to expand...
4:3 resolution on the best 16:10 CRT ever produced? Not to mention something so abysmally low? Why even bother with a modern system?
 
ummm, but bandwidth in comparison to Sandy thats funny, Intel themselves said they optimized Sandy to get roughly the same bandwidth as previous gen i7 using dual channel instead of triple.

Thing is though for a Single card, even at higher resolution, i7 920 using dual channel still provides AMPLE bandwidth, it has nothing to do with it maximizing its usage of the bandwidth it could have, its up to the user to give the extra channel a use.

If you were into high usage encoding and such, where the cpu is actually being tapped, or say have a game running, admining, temp monitoring, ripping a movie, then the extra channel would come into play, I believe it was 28.6 GB/s with triple channel or somewhere there abouts I think just under 20gb/s in dual channel mode(if being tapped) which is tons of memory/cpu and system bandwidth.

You technically should be running out of capacity and speed on the cpu then run out of available bandwidth on the memory side of things(part of the reason AMD said a general user doesnt need anything more then dual channel, unless workstation usage scenerio where the user has "need" of not only capacity but transaction time, this also has shown with Sandy Bridge, where the general user doesnt tap out of available bandwidth but rather capacuty and the cpu running out of steam which is very rare)

I know there are ways of tricking OS to use more, such as LAA application, but generally, if you have that much memory, and using a newer system, you would be far better to go with windows 7 64, XP is fine, nothing wrong with it, but Windows 7 is just so much better(though it takes getting used to)

I also would try to get him to up the monitor to a better reso 1440x1024 and higher, this way here the system can stretch its legs, and the cpu/gpu can do what they are best at. 1680x1050 is the best for its performance/size monitors from 19-22 inch usually use this, and work pretty good, my old Acer P223W is an example, not the best, not by a long shot, but it looks pretty decent and was quite cheap.

Also an H70 will provide a fair amount of headroom even if he is wanting/needing to overclock some, if you/he want it to perform a bit better, ziptie a second 120mm fan on it, increases its performance quite a bit.

If you compare the price of the parts, the i7 system is worth ALOT more part for part, so therefore is a much better deal, that and it will be able to pretty much do anything you can ask of it. Generally speaking, for gaming Dual channel is more then enough especially 8gb. If he was into doing more "work" while gaming, then more memory and imn triple channel would be "needed" but considering he wants to pop it on a monitor as mentioned, it doesnt sound like he does alot of "work" or gaming.

A gtx260 will be "wasted" the Radoen might be a better choice, for $20 to add the gpu in, well, it will at least "allow" gaming, movie watching and such, but the performance, and use of the system as a whole would be alot better used with a higher reso, thats my .02c
 
dragonstongue said:
If you were into high usage encoding and such, where the cpu is actually being tapped, or say have a game running, admining, temp monitoring, ripping a movie, then the extra channel would come into play, I believe it was 28.6 GB/s with triple channel or somewhere there abouts I think just under 20gb/s in dual channel mode(if being tapped) which is tons of memory/cpu and system bandwidth.
Click to expand...

Actually, the LGA 1366 IMC is nowhere near that robust even in triple-channel mode. I have actually run those benchmarks, and found that even in triple-channel mode with normal "DDR3-1333" RAM speeds, the maximum memory throughput of the LGA 1366 IMC is only about 14 to 15 GB/s. That's far below the theoretical 32 GB/s maximum for this memory speed in triple-channel.

As a matter of fact, one would need to run memory faster than DDR3-2133 speed just to even surpass 20 GB/s from the LGA 1366 IMC in triple-channel mode.
 
E4g1e said:
Actually, even with a 6-core, the memory controller bandwidth on LGA 1366 is so low (relative to the theoretical maximum for triple-channel RAM at any given speed) that it might as well be single- or dual-channel anyway.
Click to expand...



Really?

I think I read some S1366 memory bandwidth test before and recall that dual channel was pretty close to triple but you say that single channel also is that close?
 
runs2far said:
The 775 system is able to run current games at the suggested resolution, but the WD green will make it feel very sluggish and you will hit a dead end the second you need more performance from any of the other parts.

The 1366 system lacks storage capacity, the owner probably had a HDD or two that he/she has moved to a new system. You probably have to add a HDD to the expenses for that system.

I would not recommend either of the systems, I don't have any alternatives, but both systems seem a bit odd to invest in.
Click to expand...

WD Green is sluggish? What do you get then? Are you talking faster HD or SSD?
 
Blue Fox said:
4:3 resolution on the best 16:10 CRT ever produced? Not to mention something so abysmally low? Why even bother with a modern system?
Click to expand...

Well..that's what he likes!! Obviously he has gone through every other resolution and he feels most comfortable playing on 1024x768. Nobody was trying to buy a "modern" system. I was just looking to see what I can get for around $400. Something cheap. Besides, you need a relatively good CPU to have good frame rates on that resolution. Everyone here seems to think I should get the 1366 one. I kinda agree even though I would have to get a graphics card!

I also would try to get him to up the monitor to a better reso 1440x1024 and higher, this way here the system can stretch its legs, and the cpu/gpu can do what they are best at. 1680x1050 is the best for its performance/size monitors from 19-22 inch usually use this, and work pretty good, my old Acer P223W is an example, not the best, not by a long shot, but it looks pretty decent and was quite cheap
Click to expand...

I have tried. I will try again. He is also adamant about running everything at 100hz.

If you compare the price of the parts, the i7 system is worth ALOT more part for part, so therefore is a much better deal, that and it will be able to pretty much do anything you can ask of it. Generally speaking, for gaming Dual channel is more then enough especially 8gb. If he was into doing more "work" while gaming, then more memory and imn triple channel would be "needed" but considering he wants to pop it on a monitor as mentioned, it doesnt sound like he does alot of "work" or gaming.
Click to expand...

You are right. He isn't a hardcore gamer by any means. Most of what he does involves doing strange stuff with old games and apps. Things that have no support for Windows 7. He needs 3D support making virtual XP not a solution most of the time.

I know there are ways of tricking OS to use more, such as LAA application,
Click to expand...

I have never heard about this before. I will look into it! I appreciate your help!

Thank you
 
E4g1e said:
Actually, the LGA 1366 IMC is nowhere near that robust even in triple-channel mode. I have actually run those benchmarks, and found that even in triple-channel mode with normal "DDR3-1333" RAM speeds, the maximum memory throughput of the LGA 1366 IMC is only about 14 to 15 GB/s. That's far below the theoretical 32 GB/s maximum for this memory speed in triple-channel.

As a matter of fact, one would need to run memory faster than DDR3-2133 speed just to even surpass 20 GB/s from the LGA 1366 IMC in triple-channel mode.
Click to expand...

Really... it depends on what benchmark you are using.

With Sisoft Sandra, my old 6GB DDR3-2000 kit could get 34GB/s if I tightened the timing up a bit.

My current 12GB set runs slightly looser timings and can get right about 32GB/s in Sisoft Sandra if I set the timings a bit tighter then they are now.

I've used other benchmarks as well, and they are usually very weird and inconsistent in what readings they give when compared to Sandra. Sandra will show smaller speed increases a lot easier and is way more consistent in the readings it gives.
 
Shad0w99 said:
I have tried. I will try again. He is also adamant about running everything at 100hz.
Click to expand...
That monitor is capable of running every resolution but its maximum at 100hz (which is 2304x1440). I don't buy being comfortable at a certain resolution. Higher ones display more detail and provide an advantage. This isn't the 90s where certain resolutions and framerates were needed to do things that were otherwise not possible.
 
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coolpurplefan said:
WD Green is sluggish? What do you get then? Are you talking faster HD or SSD?
Click to expand...

WD Green and other 5400-5900 drives are great for general storage, but they should not be used as the OS drive unless you know what you are doing.

Any modern 3.5" 7200 RPM drive provides "good enough" performance and the difference between them is small but can be noticeable.

If you want something faster than a a regular 7200 RPM drive, go for one of the new hybrid XT, a velociraptor or a SSD depending on lack of brain cells, budget, space requirements etc. etc.etc.

I know the machine in my sig is running of an 2.5" 5400 RPM drive, but that was my choise and I bought it to get silence and HDD space at a low price. The performance is horrible and load times high, but that is my choice.
This is a system Shad0w99 is buying for a friend, and I believe the friend will get disappointed if the system is bogged down by a slow HDD.
 
runs2far said:
The 775 system is able to run current games at the suggested resolution, but the WD green will make it feel very sluggish and you will hit a dead end the second you need more performance from any of the other parts.

The 1366 system lacks storage capacity, the owner probably had a HDD or two that he/she has moved to a new system. You probably have to add a HDD to the expenses for that system.

I would not recommend either of the systems, I don't have any alternatives, but both systems seem a bit odd to invest in.
Click to expand...

WD Greens *themselves* aren't bad - however, if you are going to buy one, make sure it's at least 500 GB (these seem to be the better performers - I have one that, surprisingly, I've been using as the primary drive in Mighty Mouse for a year now).

The *old* performance sweet spot for WD SATA drives as a whole (whether Green, Blue, or Black) is still 1 TB (which has also been the case for the past year) - even post-flood, bang for the buck remains the Caviar Black 1 TB (especially if you can find the 64MB onboard-cache version).
 
runs2far said:
WD Green and other 5400-5900 drives are great for general storage, but they should not be used as the OS drive unless you know what you are doing.

Any modern 3.5" 7200 RPM drive provides "good enough" performance and the difference between them is small but can be noticeable.

If you want something faster than a a regular 7200 RPM drive, go for one of the new hybrid XT, a velociraptor or a SSD depending on lack of brain cells, budget, space requirements etc. etc.etc.

I know the machine in my sig is running of an 2.5" 5400 RPM drive, but that was my choise and I bought it to get silence and HDD space at a low price. The performance is horrible and load times high, but that is my choice.
This is a system Shad0w99 is buying for a friend, and I believe the friend will get disappointed if the system is bogged down by a slow HDD.
Click to expand...

Not all Greens are in that low-speed category - the larger (500GB and above) GP/AV subseries are 7200 rpm drives that are capable of spindown (but can be told not to in the Power settings of Vista or 7). It thoroughly waxes the old mainstream Maxtor 6LS200 SATA that used to be my boot drive (which is why the Maxtor got demoted to secondary from primary, and, when price sanity, or a relative bargain, comes along, will get ejected out of BridgeWalker altogether).
 
PGHammer said:
Not all Greens are in that low-speed category - the larger (500GB and above) GP/AV subseries are 7200 rpm drives that are capable of spindown (but can be told not to in the Power settings of Vista or 7). It thoroughly waxes the old mainstream Maxtor 6LS200 SATA that used to be my boot drive (which is why the Maxtor got demoted to secondary from primary, and, when price sanity, or a relative bargain, comes along, will get ejected out of BridgeWalker altogether).
Click to expand...

All harddrives can spin down, they do this after some time without read/write operations, and yes it can be disabled in the power management.

From http://www.storagereview.com/1000.sr

The manufacturer is careful in not directly citing spindle speed, instead nominally positioning the Caviar GP as a "7200 RPM-class" drive. Under its "IntelliPower" moniker, WD claims a "A fine-tuned balance of spin speed, transfer rate and cache size designed to deliver both significant power savings and solid performance." Some folks have misinterpreted some admittedly vague specs on WD's website. Under "Rotational Speed," the manufacturer cites "IntelliPower (5400 to 7200 RPM)." This does not mean the drive dynamically changes its spindle speed during operation... indeed, such a feature would entail considerable mechanical engineering and would in many ways defeat the point -- rapidly accelerating and decelerating the spindle's speed would increase rather than decrease net power draw. Rather, the IntelliPower term indicates that the GP family as a whole does not have a set spindle speed (nor a set buffer size, for that matter). Different capacity points may feature differing spin speeds and buffer sizes. For those that must know, WD admits "sub-6000 RPM operation" for the 1-TB Caviar GP (more on this on the following page).
Click to expand...

Changing the rotational speed while active would be insanely difficult and would defeat the purpose of the drive, as increasing the RPM cost a lot of energy. A lot of people have been confuced by WD press releases on the Green drives, this includes hardware reviewers.
 
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So it seems to me, the benchmarks chose have a significant role in actually telling the true speed of it in single-dual-triple configs. I still boil it down though, unless you are truly tapping it, to have it in triple channel config is probably a waste, i.e, running low res might need it or running high res with lots going on might.

My caviar black 640 are faster then many other HDD out there, and they were faster then any of the intitial Cavar black family. Now my caviar blue 1tb is as fast as my older caviar blacks but do not compare at all in a speed test as caviar black 1.5 or 2tb newer ones.FAEX I beleive are newest series, older was AELX if I recall. This and they are alot faster then any caviar green, sure it uses more power, and yes more noise, but unless you are looking for pure silence, well, that is different. The sweet spot for performance rnage is actually 500-640-750 depending on manufacturer, most of the 1tb are at least as good as thier 2tb brothers, but there are exceptions. Caviar Black the 640 and 1 and 2tb(new sata 6 ones) are actually the fastest beyond the V raptors, I believe Sammy was the F4 or F5 series, not sure with Segate but they do have momentous XT which are fast but pricey.

I think when I was looking at getting a drive to use external, the Caviar Blue 1tb sata 6, Caviar black 640 and Caviar Black 1tb sata 6 were around the same speed, Caviar black are better for OS use and as a game drive, but for "junk" no real need for them, Caviar black do have the nice benefit of having extra cache and extra chips optimized for read/write and are usually better at sequential read/write and constant usage, for example defragging and pulling random data from it while it is doing something else, then the blue counterparts. Caviar blue 1tb was a very good price/performance ratio, I believe around $50 when I got it compared to $68 for the same caviar black 640 and $100 for the black 1tb. Sammy F4 and some seagate are all around the same performance level, but the best pure mechanical are of course the Vraptor and the caviar black 2tb, hybrid to my knowledge is momentous XT, and SSD well around 550 read and 515write or something like that currently.

Now for further recomendations.

If I remember right, the best cards for DX9 were and still are the 8800 series Nvidia, the 8800 GTX Ultra of course being the best. The newer cards are alot fast for DX10 and DX11 XP using neither.

I think for me, try to find a 8800 series such as 8800GTX 768mb, 8800 Ultra or 8800GT, all will be perfectly capable in XP and at least will have thier best use.

If you wanted to go cheaper, Radeon 5750 or GTX460 768mb would the abslolute highest I would get, seeing as you simply do not need nor will use them to thier best anyways.
 
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PGHammer said:
Not all Greens are in that low-speed category - the larger (500GB and above) GP/AV subseries are 7200 rpm drives that are capable of spindown (but can be told not to in the Power settings of Vista or 7). It thoroughly waxes the old mainstream Maxtor 6LS200 SATA that used to be my boot drive (which is why the Maxtor got demoted to secondary from primary, and, when price sanity, or a relative bargain, comes along, will get ejected out of BridgeWalker altogether).
Click to expand...

Actually, this has not been the case since the Green line went to 500GB platters. The first-gen 7200 rpm "Green"/GP series drives used wimpy 250GB platters (the GPs with 320GB platters spin at 5900 rpm), resulting in relatively slow sequential transfer speeds that max out at well below 100 MB/s. Since the advent of 500GB platters, the WD Green/AV drives have used 5400 rpm spindles.
 
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E4g1e said:
Actually, this has not been the case since the Green line went to 500GB platters. The first-gen 7200 rpm "Green"/GP series drives used wimpy 250GB platters (the GPs with 320GB platters spin at 5900 rpm), resulting in relatively slow sequential transfer speeds that max out at well below 100 MB/s. Since the advent of 500GB platters, the WD Green/AV drives have used 5400 rpm spindles.
Click to expand...

In other words, the smaller platters have faster spindle speeds.

Sounds (to me) like the platter size has far less impact on performance than thought, given that larger platter size was pretty much completely offset performance-wise by the slower (in fact one quarter to one-third slower) spindle speed reduction.

Lastly, I did point out that I'm using the drive far afield from what it's target is (the GP/AV subseries is not even aimed at computers, let alone usage as a boot drive - the "genius" that repacked a few tons of these drives as retail and shipped them off to Best Buy should him-or-herself be sentenced to the RMA Return Deaprtment).
 
umm, thats not completely true.

From my understanding, platter size, platter density, number of platers, drive head, cache amount, firmware optimzations, all of these can have an impact, sometimes a noticeable one. For example, even though my caviar black 640 is using better parts etc then the caviar blue 1tb that I also have they have very similar speed, to my knowledge, both use dual platters, both have the same cache amount, the difference in firmware etc helps.

At least in the drives I have, they achieve almost parity in just about every task, though the caviar blacks are optimized for OS and general usage, whereas the blue are optimized for storage purposes, not sure how they achive this, but it does use a controller afterall, just like a cpu can get its tasks lined up for efficency purposes, I am quite sure HDD can do this as well.

Platter density and number of platters tends to have the single largest performance impact, rotational speed matter as well of course, but this can be best seen with some of the spinpoint vs caviar blacks, even though the spinpoints were lower rotational speed, they got near same performance when spooled up because the platter were by far more dense, but, and there is a but, if the drive is doing random reading of the disk, say OS stuff, and looking for a game, shifting workloads, this is where they caviar at higher rotational speed would catch up and surpass it, not to mention because of the higher rotational speed, the controller can line up its task ahead of time a little faster, it would be really hard to see it doing so though.

I guess, may not be the right descritption but, on a full loaded highway at a constant speed, it doesnt matter what car you are using, but if for some reason you need to shift lanes and pass someone, or slow down real fast, the better vehicles tend to do this well, better, same can be said about the HDD, in this case, the firmware can help alot.

the Caviar Green/GP, are ok, blue are better, blacks are best, Vraptor are by far better then the blacks with the caviar black 2tb getting real close performance, then the Caviar RE edtition best for doing raid, and finally the the AV type ones, they tend to run a little slower but as a result use less power and remain cooler.

They all have thier target market and as such are optimized a little diffferently for these uses, not that one cannot use them as they see fit, but, they do have thier purpose. After all it would be silly to hold back a blistering fast system with a green drive, or for that matter, a really underpowered one with a Vraptor or SSD which it may never truly see the best benefit from :)
 
If the op is still looking for a cheap 775 system. I have q6600, p35 mobo, and 4gb bare bones for $100 plus shipping.
 
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