ATA 100 vs ATA 133

[cb]

I have two Maxtor drives, one is an ATA133 and the other is ATA100. To get the ATA133 speeds I have to use Maxtor's UltaIDE 133 PCI card. My motherboard supports ATA100. So, my question is this: Is it worth giving up a PCI slot for the ATA133 capability or will I likely get all the performance I need running both drives off my motherboard IDE controller at ATA100? Thanks in advance for any responses.

 

[Nocturnal]

Just use your motherboard's controllers. You'll never see that ATA133 even use ATA100 speeds.

 

[GnomeCop]

not worth the clutter, just use your motherboard

 

[JustAnAverageGuy]

Just use the motherboard.

 

[MDE]

Use the onboard.

 

[RaiderJ]

Gotta use the ATA133! You'll see at least a 15% improvement in data transfer speeds!

(Just kidding, ATA100 is fine )

 

[gherald]

onboard

 

[BFG10K]

Don't bother with the hassle of the PCI card.

 

[MithShrike]

Seems you people got this covered.

 

[AIWGuru]

Originally posted by: Mith
Seems you people got this covered.

Don't be a dirty liar.
They should have told him to use the onboard controller.

 

[EeyoreX]

Use the onboard controller. Unless, for whatever reason, the onboard controller does not support 48-bit LBA and you have a drive over 137GB. If all you think you need is the performance, don't waste your time with ATA133.

\Dan

 

[computer]

In doing some extensive HD benchmarks which I will post soon, the ATA133 80gb Maxtor DiamondMax 9 beat up pretty bad the other ATA100 drives (all 7200rpm & 8mb buffer, Seagate, WD800JB, etc). It even beat the Raptor in some tests. This was done using the P4C800-E Deluxe's integrated Native controllers and integrated Promise controllers. BTW, a Si3112a SATA PCI was also tested for the Raptor on a few tests, and it was the slowest of ALL DRIVES. So, the best thing for you to do is to get a mobo with integrated ATA133 controllers. The mobo mentioned above is ATA133 on the Promise side, but only ATA100 on the Native.

 

[cb]

Well, with the exception of Computer, the consenus is to stay with the onboard controller. So, I direct my followup question to Computer. The two drives are as follows:

1. D740X, 80GB, ATA 133, 7200 rpm, 8 ms seek
2. D540X-4K, 80GB, ATA 100, 5400 rpm, 12 ms seek

Do you think, based on these models, there is enough of a performance difference to warrant going with that ATA 133 card? The only heavy duty work I do are some gaming - mostly combat sims, picture editing, and video capture work. Thanks for everyone's responses.

cb

 

[computer]

No, I said to use the integrated controller. Read again. Integrated = Native = Promise in this case, they are all on board/integrated on that mobo. All I said is you'd see a difference in performance using ATA133 for that Maxtor drive I mentioned but, I don't know if a PCI ATA133 card would give you the performance boost. I DO know that on my other mobo I'm using right now (Asus P4B533) I have a Promise ATA100UltraTX2 PCI card on that I hook my HD's up to, and it's performance is better than the integrated controller for some reason and note that card is only ATA100 and the Maxtor I had on it was ATA133. However, that's only on Sandra, I didn't do any extensive tests on it using ALL HD benchmark programs.

In my last post I wasn't comparing integrated to an ATAxxx PCI controller card....although that would be an interesting test comparing an ATA133 drive on an ATA133 PCI controller card to an ATA100 drive on a Native controller, but I can't do it. For one, like I said the Native IDE controller is ATA100 (on my mobo) and the ATA133 controller is the integrated Promise chip. Even if the Promise was ATA100 it would still be faster due to its extreme caching. What I said was your best bet is to get a mobo with an integrated on board ATA133 controller. I think that would have to be Promise, Si3112, or HPT since I don't think an Intel Native controller is out that is ATA133, I could be wrong though. What's strange is these 3rd party controllers are on the PCI bus, so there should be the same limitations as a PCI controller card, but there is not, at least not with the Promise controller on the P4C800-E Deluxe.

Unless #2 is one platter giving you a really high areal density, there's no comparison. Just the 7200rpm alone will make the drive faster than the 5400rpm. Plus #2 I think is only a 2mb buffer which really puts #1 ahead in performance (if the 7200rpm drive is 8mb buffer that is). Drive #1 on an ATA100 controller is still going to be a good bit faster than the other. You really should get a Raptor since you're into video capture and editing. That's why you really need the 7200rpm drive you mentioned over the 5400rpm, and even more so if the 7200rpm drive has an 8mb buffer. But, if your mobo doesn't have integrated SATA, then that's a problem since like I mentioned the Si3112a SATA PCI card was REALLY slow.

 

[computer]

I just edited my last post.

 

[cb]

Thanks for the clarification, computer. I didn't quite get it the first time. Got it now. Thanks.

cb

 

[computer]

 

[SilentZero]

As everyone else already said...definately use your motherboard. The price and inconvience of a PCI card is far from worth it.

 

[sd]

mobo