Hard drive for gaming ?

[slick2010]

will a game play SIGNIFICANTLY better with a 15000 rpm hard drive as opposed to a 7200 rpm drive? on a system with 4 gb's of ram


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Anandtech PC Gaming Moderator
KeithTalent

 

[Lonyo]

HDD usually only has an impact on loading times, and pretty much never affects the actual game once you are in.

 

[TecHNooB]

yes ofc

 

[CurseTheSky]

As Lonyo said, it'll help with load times, but not much else. If you have a game that takes a long time to load levels, a faster HDD would help.

 

[fatpat268]

Well first off, if you're planning on getting faster storage, don't bother with the higher RPM drives. They're ok, but some of the older ones are actually slower than say a 7200RPM 2TB drive. They'll offer faster seek times, but that's about it.

If you do want faster storage, consider SSD. It's not very practical just yet for games because of the high cost per GB. But give it some time, and it'll almost certainly fall in price.

But honestly, faster storage helps load the game faster, and that's about it. Is that really worth upgrading right now for? Not really. Spend the money to upgrade your CPU or Graphics instead.

 

[sandorski]

Space>>>Speed

 

[dguy6789]

In two years maybe SSDs will be worth the money, but right now it's just ridiculous how much you pay for how little you get. The only benefit they give the casual user is computer startup time and game loading time(only for the first game load once the system has been turned on, every following load mostly comes from RAM), they don't even improve general usage performance. Once your PC has booted up and been on for a few minutes, Windows Vista and Windows 7 will have cached everything you commonly use into ram so your system runs as well as it would if it was on a ram drive whether you have a SSD or a HDD.

 

[Schadenfroh]

Just get a fast 7200RPM HDD with perpendicular recording for now. In a few years, the SSD might be worth the cash and offer a significant performance boost. Sure, you can get a 15,000K RPM SCSI drive, but keep in mind you also have to buy a SCSI controller card.

As mentioned above, load times will improve, but once the game is in memory, it should not be a factor.

Avoid "green" drives like the plague, it is marketing for a slow HDD. Checkout the Samsung Spinpoint Fx series and the latest Seagate 7200.x series, they are the best bang for your buck and the price you pay for decreased load times will be several fold more if you look beyond highend 7200RPM HDD.

 

[shortylickens]

Faster seek time is much better for general file browsing as opposed to loading up big game files.

BUT, those new super fast Flash hard drives are out now, and I understand they are great for gaming cuz they load up so darn fast.

 

[Skott]

I'm a WD Raptor fan but I have to admit that the newer 7200RPM drives now are almost on par with the 10K/15k rpm drives in everything other than load times. They are cheaper than them too. I have to agree with Sandorski here. Unless you have lots of available cash go for the fast, cheaper, and larger 7200RPM drives.

 

[RoloMather]

I would go SSD : OS + Apps + selected games

2TB drive: the rest

 

[MStele]

Western Digital Black Series....they are the best overall when you compare reliability/performance/costs. They aren't the fastest drives, but they are the only drives on the market that I would buy without flinching.

 

[garkon8]

Western Digital Black Series....they are the best overall when you compare reliability/performance/costs. They aren't the fastest drives, but they are the only drives on the market that I would buy without flinching.

I agree...and so does:

http://www.maximumpc.com/best-of-the-best?page=1

 

[bob4432]

Just get a fast 7200RPM HDD with perpendicular recording for now. In a few years, the SSD might be worth the cash and offer a significant performance boost. Sure, you can get a 15,000K RPM SCSI drive, but keep in mind you also have to buy a SCSI controller card.

As mentioned above, load times will improve, but once the game is in memory, it should not be a factor.

Avoid "green" drives like the plague, it is marketing for a slow HDD. Checkout the Samsung Spinpoint Fx series and the latest Seagate 7200.x series, they are the best bang for your buck and the price you pay for decreased load times will be several fold more if you look beyond highend 7200RPM HDD.

wow, don't let that stop you as they will run you $20 or so....

op - i have used ssds, 15kscsi, 7.2k, 10kscsi, 10kraptor, etc and while the ssds are the fastest, like people say, they premium is rather high. the next would be the 15k because of seek times, but again, it only benefits you when first load the game and during map changes - not much anything else.

after using all i have, i would not recommend going to 10-15k or ssd just for gaming

 

[aka1nas]

HDD usually only has an impact on loading times, and pretty much never affects the actual game once you are in.

That's not strictly true for all game genres. Many open-world type games constantly stream in and out level data and geometry as you move around.

 

[bob4432]

That's not strictly true for all game genres. Many open-world type games constantly stream in and out level data and geometry as you move around.

one would assume that the developers would make the games w/the one of the slower drives in mind - 5400 since that is what most "pre-built" rigs ship w/. i have never seen a game need the random access times of a ssd or 10-15kscsi

 

[Udgnim]

one would assume that the developers would make the games w/the one of the slower drives in mind - 5400 since that is what most "pre-built" rigs ship w/. i have never seen a game need the random access times of a ssd or 10-15kscsi

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/intel/showdoc.aspx?i=3403&p=14

SSDs improve min FPS in Crysis benchmark

 

[vshah]

space really isn't an issue on my 80gb intel ssd. I only keep 2 or 3 games installed. If i want to play a different one, it installs from my server in a couple of minutes.

 

[bamacre]

5400 since that is what most "pre-built" rigs ship w/.

LOL, no. Most "pre-builts" ship with 7200rpm drives.

As for 15K rpm SCSI and SAS drives, these drives are very loud.

 

[Elcs]

Avoid "green" drives like the plague, it is marketing for a slow HDD.

A good "Green" drive is not exactly that slow.

I have used them for over a year now and compared to the 7200rpm drives they replaced, I cannot tell the difference.

I cannot really comment on my use of an SSD under Windows 7 as the SSD was returned as faulty to the supplier, tested by Intel and I was refunded.

 

[zerocool84]

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/intel/showdoc.aspx?i=3403&p=14

SSDs improve min FPS in Crysis benchmark

Only when it needs to access textures and such and most games don't need to do that once the game is loaded up and how many times does a game need to access new stuff from the hd? Obviously if someone is looking to improve every facet of their system then yes an SSD is part of it but it's not worth it to buy one if you're gaming. There's better and cheaper ways to spend your money that will have a bigger impact on your games.

 

[bob4432]

LOL, no. Most "pre-builts" ship with 7200rpm drives.

As for 15K rpm SCSI and SAS drives, these drives are very loud.

oh, my bad on the 5.4k comment - guess i was looking at the extra cheap setups, but 15kscsi/sas drives are maybe slightly louder than current 7.2k hdds, they are really not that much louder, not enough to make you think - not like the old 10k that sound like a circular saw

 

[sandorski]

oh, my bad on the 5.4k comment - guess i was looking at the extra cheap setups, but 15kscsi/sas drives are maybe slightly louder than current 7.2k hdds, they are really not that much louder, not enough to make you think - not like the old 10k that sound like a circular saw

I always liked the beeps many SCSI drives make.

 

[gramboh]

I've had Raptor drives in the past, they were faster, but I believe the 7200rpm 2TB drives are very very close (and way more value). I wouldn't bother with SCSI/SAS and RAID arrays for a gaming rig. Either pony up for SSD or just grab a 1/2TB 7200rpm consumer drive.

Personally, I'm waiting for SSD to come down in price a bit more, hopefully in a year, then I will get a ~160gb for OS/apps/select games and build a 6TB RAID5 NAS for storage needs. Hoping to spend $1k on the NAS with drives and $300 on the SSD (160GB X25-M is $530 Canadian right now).

 

[bamacre]

Yeah, thank God for SSD's. Storage technology just hasn't been on the same pace as other consumer hardware. Sure, capacity has leaped, but speed hasn't nearly as much.