It is my understanding that SATA is a lot faster for drive speeds and disc access.

You've listened to the advertising.

The fastest disk drive on the planet doesn't have sustained transfer speeds much over 70 MB/s. Parallel ATA tops out at nearly twice that. So the fact that SATA offers even more is deeply pointless.

The advantages are that most of the newest drives are coming out only in SATA versions, and they have features that don't appear on PATA drives. That's all. Back when SATA came out there were a lot of benchmarks of drives that only differed by interface and they were identical in performance.

Oh, and a final note -- if you get a SATA boot drive you will have to boot off floppy to install XP (or anything other than Linux), because XP won't have the SATA drivers on the CD. You can build your own CD to get around this, but I don't know what's involved in doing that.

IDE is the same thing as Parallel ATA. I won't get into the technical nomenclature about IDE vs ATA

Maybe I am missing something. It is my understanding that SATA is a lot faster for drive speeds and disc access.
ie: Game load times would see and increase, and my data access for file transfers and other (video, pictures, etc) would show improved speeds.?????

Batman... Batman... Can somebody tell me what kind of a world we live in, where a man dressed up as a BAT gets all of my press?

I would be moving from IDE to SATA

IDE is the same thing as Parallel ATA. I won't get into the technical nomenclature about IDE vs ATA

Enahs: HL2 is already smooth on my Radeon 9800 Pro so that's smooth enough. DOOM 3 isn't. Look at http://graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20050705/images/image017.gif as an example. I see big difference there.

I wished there were benchmarks of newest games that compare ATI Radeon 9800 Pro AIW and all of GeForce 6600 and 6800s.

I can tell you FEAR gives me about 20 FPS in its benchmarks. heh.


This comment was edited on Oct 22, 16:49.

Zathrus: Good link. I still think 6800 still looks good for me. Note that these games are old to me. I will be playing current and upcoming games. I still think 6800 is still better than 6600 GT from those benchmarks.

I finally tried FEAR last night. Average FPS at 1024x768 with most graphic options enabled (FSAA and anistropic off) = 20 from the test benchmark. DOH. My poor ATI Radeon 9800 Pro!


This comment was edited on Oct 22, 16:39.

Well sure... but my point is that the improvements wll come from the newer parts, not some magic in PCI Express or SATA. Sure, they both boast higher I/O rats than AGP/Parallel ATA, but that's not what's making the difference. A video card on both AGP and PCI-Express performs virtually identically. Ditto for a HD that's identical between SATA and PATA.

I would be moving from IDE to SATA.

Batman... Batman... Can somebody tell me what kind of a world we live in, where a man dressed up as a BAT gets all of my press?

Benchmarks looked signficant between 6600 and 6800 models to me from these two links:

Depends on the game... there was significant difference in Chronicles of Riddick and Pacific Fighters, but not much in HL2. Some difference in D3. Guess it all depends on which games you're going to play. Wish they included the 6600GT on the 2004 benchmarks -- they had a much better selection of games.

Ahha -- here we go: http://graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20041119/index.html

That has both the 6600GT and 6800. Take a look at that too. Ultimately it's up to you -- just remember that the 6800 is about 30% more than the 6600GT... of course, that's only ~$40, but hey -- that's some nice dinners out or a new game!


Edit: Batman:

Speed and performance?!

Well sure... but my point is that the improvements wll come from the newer parts, not some magic in PCI Express or SATA. Sure, they both boast higher I/O rats than AGP/Parallel ATA, but that's not what's making the difference. A video card on both AGP and PCI-Express performs virtually identically. Ditto for a HD that's identical between SATA and PATA.
This comment was edited on Oct 22, 12:09.

Benchmarks looked signficant between 6600 and 6800 models to me from these two links:

No they do not!
Make sure you are comparing the 6600GT to the plain vanilla 6800.


Hell, in the first link the 6600GT beats the 6800 plain in some HL2 benchmarks!


http://www.risingconcepts.com/frapper/bluesnewsmembers
Show me where you live! I promise it will only hurt the first time.

The difference will be in the parts, not the interface.

Speed and performance?!

Batman... Batman... Can somebody tell me what kind of a world we live in, where a man dressed up as a BAT gets all of my press?

Zathrus:

I couldn't wait a month that time. Heh. Even if I knew, the motherboards would be expensive. I usually get older one that have been out for a few months.

Benchmarks looked signficant between 6600 and 6800 models to me from these two links:

http://graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20050705/ (AGP VGA Charts; Summer 2005)

http://graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20041004/ (AGP Video Cards)


This comment was edited on Oct 22, 08:17.

Now I want to build a rig with SATA/SATAII and PCI Express. Just go all out and see how much of a diff it makes.

The difference will be in the parts, not the interface. PCI Express has some big advantages over AGP, but not to "normal" gamers. If you're using the video card for rendering and putting the rendered image back to disk (machinima or SFX) then it makes a huge difference. It can also support multiple video cards which AGP couldn't (thus all the dual video solutions coming back).

SATA really makes no difference... but a lot of the new SATA drives have NCQ (Native Command Queueing), which can be a big help, plus higher bit density leading to higher transfer rates, etc.

Oh, and the narrow cable for SATA is a bonus to case cooling.

When I got this motherboard last summer (2004), it was not popular!

That's because it had just come out. If you'd waited two months it would've been a different story.

I think there are some MBs with both PCI-Express and AGP, but they're extremely few and far between and I certainly wouldn't want to be restricted in that manner -- not to mention that they'll have a significant price premium because it's a specialty item.

And yes, PCI Express has completely taken over now. You can get AGP/PCI boards still, but within a couple years they'll be available in limited quantities (mainly for replacement of boards in corporate environs), and after that it'll be like trying to find a VESA board now. PCI will take a good bit longer to phase out, but since it plays nicely with PCI Express (unlike ISA really) it's a non-issue.

Honestly, if you're not going to go for the 6800GT, just get the 6600GT -- the performance difference between the 6800 and the 6600GT is very small and not worth the additional money.

OK, after doing a research. I think I am going to get a GeForce 6800 (128 MB; AGP) for $165 - $175 (newegg) since it will only last about a year in my current gaming box. Then, get a new motherboard with PCI Express and a new video card. I will just toss the 6800 into my Linux box since it uses GeForce 4200.

I cannot believe PCI Express got popular fast. When I got this motherboard last summer (2004), it was not popular! Ugh!

Zathrus: Damn, new motherboards don't have AGP slots? Argh! But then, I don't buy the latest motherboards. I usually buy the ones that have been out like six months so I know they are stable, can use under Linux, etc.

Well now I don't feel completly out of the loop.
About 2 months ago I helped my brother (8 years my elder) pick parts for his rig and put it together for him.

I was at the local parts store just dumbfounded. Cuoldn't figure out why I couldn't find a MB to have my old Nvidia AGP card fit in there for him. He didn't need anything special since he isn't going to be playing the latest....took me the longest time to get the courage to ask (2 years out of the break fix world) and found out PCI Express. doh!

Now I want to build a rig with SATA/SATAII and PCI Express. Just go all out and see how much of a diff it makes. I am set for a new rig anyway. Only changes in 2 years has been vid card upgrade and some RAM.

Batman... Batman... Can somebody tell me what kind of a world we live in, where a man dressed up as a BAT gets all of my press?

Zathrus: Damn, new motherboards don't have AGP slots? Argh! But then, I don't buy the latest motherboards. I usually buy the ones that have been out like six months so I know they are stable, can use under Linux, etc.

This movie is awsome took the wife and kids and everyone loved it. FPS part in the movie was great, but the music took the suspense out of some of the movie for me. Nothing like rock music to take me out of the scarier parts.

Anyone needs some new pants?

That was posted in an OotB a while back, was it not?

Damn, sorry about repost.
Didn't catch it last week.

Batman... Batman... Can somebody tell me what kind of a world we live in, where a man dressed up as a BAT gets all of my press?

Again, you need to learn to read. That's not what I said at all.

Whatever you need to believe to make you feel better.

Batman... Batman... Can somebody tell me what kind of a world we live in, where a man dressed up as a BAT gets all of my press?

Well I thought the flick was a lot of fun , The 2 minutes of 1st person view & the Pinky Demon were the highlights...very slick & polished in a REZ Evil way....THE Rock held his own acting wise until the later 1/2 where there seemed to be some continuity gliches , the Trent Reznor stuff fit so well ( wish there was more ! ) loved the monsters and the zombies and there was plenty of gore and gib splatter to go around


"I've taken a vow of celibacy....but it was called a WEDDING vow at THE TIME !"
This comment was edited on Oct 21, 21:45.

That was posted in an OotB a while back, was it not?

Yup. Last week I think. Still funny though!