Importance of Hard Drive Rotational Speed (rpm)

Importance of Hard Drive Rotational Speed (rpm) - Page 2

thehitman

1105 Posts

February 18 2011 12:29 GMT

#21

I would go with this machine: Machine 2: $920
Intel Core i5-760 Processor - 4 cores - 2.80 GHz
1TB - 7,200rpm Serial ATA hard drive

Processor is better, unless you want to do video editing or professional image manipulation where the 6 core cpu have advantage over the i5-760 one.

As far as 5400 vs 7200rpm goes, usually 7200rpm is faster, though there are other things that determine performance as well. The difference between an average 5400 and 7200 drive would be 5-15 seconds slower write time and about 1-10 slower read time.

In essence there isn't a big difference.

miicah

Australia2470 Posts

February 18 2011 13:51 GMT

#22

You probably wont notice between 5400 and 7200.

Mechanical vs SSD however...

KOFgokuon

United States14899 Posts

February 18 2011 14:44 GMT

#23

On February 18 2011 20:18 vek wrote:

Show nested quote +

On February 18 2011 19:27 jacosajh wrote:
+ Show Spoiler +

On February 18 2011 14:31 vek wrote:
RPM by itself doesn't have a lot to do with speed. You need to take a lot of factors into account like cache size, seek time, interface and how many platters make up the disk.

For example a WD Caviar black at 7200 RPM is slower than a 5400 RPM Samsung Spinpoint.

Spinpoint F4:
[image loading]

Caviar Black:
[image loading]

The reason the F4 is faster is because it only has a single platter with a higher density (as far as I know, I'm not the biggest expert). The Caviar Black has 2 to 4 platters depending on the model. That's not to say the Spinpoint is the best at everything, in random access tests the Caviar Black does a lot better.

I guess my point is that you can't look at one statistic and decide which is better. You need to look at the overall picture and look at a lot of benchmarks to determine the best drive. Also keep in mind that 2 F3s in RAID 0 are as fast as cheap SSDs.

Read more here:
http://www.storagereview.com/samsung_spinpoint_f4_review_hd322gj
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/2tb-hdd-7200,2430-2.html

Edit:

Show nested quote +

Based on that info I would go for the i5-760 based machine. The i5-760 is a monster of a CPU and an excellent overclocker. I got mine to 4GHz on the stock cooler.

Think of it as an i7 with all the useless stuff (for games) like hyper threading cut out. I'm assuming gaming is what you have planned for this computer.

Stock cooler? No way... My brother has that same CPU and he had troubles getting it to 3.8 with a Hyper 212+. I read up on it to help him out and a lot of people are saying the same thing (most bottleneck at 3.6 depending on heatsink & mobo). What equipment and settings (VCore, etc.) are you using? If what you're saying is true, I'm thinking about building a new HTPC powered with a cheaper 1156 in a few months, so that would be great.

I've actually dropped it down to 3.6 GHz because it's summer here at the moment and it was getting around to around 85-90 degrees under load at 4 GHz. No stability issues or anything I was just getting worried about it

Motherboard is Gigabyte P55-USB3. Only increased the V-Core by .05 volts because LLC (I think that's what it was called..) seems to do a pretty good job. I mostly messed with the bus speed, multiplier and DRAM ratios to get it stable.

If I did buy a decent cooler I'd run it at 4 GHz all year round but I never get performance issues anyway so I don't care enough to bother. It was more of a novelty for the first few months after I got it.

rofl i had to jack up my voltage way more than that to hit 3.6 ghz ><

Tsenister

United Kingdom112 Posts

February 18 2011 15:03 GMT

#24

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/173804

The F3's are 7200rpm quick and quiet and use 2 platters.

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/storage/2009/10/06/samsung-spinpoint-f3-1tb-review/1

Here's a review too.

Kahuna.

Canada196 Posts

February 18 2011 16:43 GMT

#25

Thanks for all the help guys. Appreciate it. Will use one of the suggested builds to buy one (I might tweak them a little)... but those were helpful. And wow, some of you guys know a lot about computers. LoL!

a176

Canada6688 Posts

February 18 2011 20:16 GMT

#26

I would wait a littke while for Intel's Sandy Bridge CPUs to return to store shelves. You could get a much better computer by that time.

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