7,200 or 10,000 rpm HDD for gaming

[Guest]

I am currently reading a book that was written in 2010 on how to build a computer. I am planning to build a gaming PC for around $2,000 dollars early next year and had a question regarding the rpm. I am planning to dedicate one of the three or four hard drives to storing and playing my games. The book says that a 7,200 rpm hard drive is sufficient for gaming and a better choice than a 10,000 rpm hard drive partly because it is quieter and cooler. Is 7,200 rpm still the best choice or should I go with a 10,000 rpm hard drive for my games? What difference performance-wise would I notice between the two?

 

[americanbrian]

uhhhmmmm, you should get an SSD.... duh?

 

[J_E_D_70]

The difference only comes into play in loading the games and levels. Frames per second is not affected (unless your game loads on the fly and you get some stutter as you transition areas - not likely). If you want fast loads, skip the HDD for games entirely and get an SSD (180GB or bigger) for your operating system and the games that you want to load faster. I'll never go back...

You should be able to get plenty of SSD in a $2K budget system.

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

Won't make any difference.

 

[tury345]

It's generally hard to find any sort of 10,000 rpm HDD, even if you did manage to find one it would be at a premium. I'm new to PC building but it would seem that dual drive systems are becoming much more common. A SSD will greatly outperform any HDD, even a 10,000 rpm, reaching triple the speed in many cases. Its problem is that it is really expensive in terms of price/gb so the solution is to buy a combination of both. A 128gb SSD will hold your operating system, games and everything you access on a daily basis where as your run of the mill 7200 rpm 2-4 tb HDD will hold your less used programs, music etc. Many guides can be found online on how to install both of them together.

 

[Guest]

I am planning to dedicate the operating system to the SSD and everything else on the HDDs.

 

[inzone]

For the last 8 to 10 years I have used the Western Digital Raptor drives and the current models the Veloceraptor come in 600 gb and 1 TB versions and I have used them for the OS drive and since SSDs have come out used them as the second drive or storage drive. They are sata3 and have a 64 mb cache. I use them all the time and because of that I don't realize the difference anymore because it's been so long since I have used a regular hard drive,

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822236243

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136803

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822236244

 

[tury345]

I am planning to dedicate the operating system to the SSD and everything else on the HDDs.

With $2000 I would highly recommend a 256gb SSD for all of your games, an os is a surprisingly small file. Only about 4gb, unless you have more than 250gb of games you can fit all of your games on the SSD.
However I am not answering the OP.
As for 7200 vs 10,000 I can tell you this:
As for straight up speed, as this link will show you:
http://www.dacris.com/blog/2010/07/27/10000-vs-7200-rpm-which-is-faster/
There is a less then 20% speed increase and that alone is offset by a number of faults with them
the 10,000 will be much louder then your 7,200
possibly require more cooling
and not to mention: the $/gb ratio of a 10,000 drive is nearly 10gb:7$, compared to about 10gb/1$ for your 7,200.

Without mentioning SSD's, there is virtually no viability to 10,000 rpm HDD instead of 7,200rpm

A Comparison between 10,000 and SSD:
10,000 rpm:
~.7$/gb
noisy
hot
available in sizes up to 1tb (for a few hundred dollars)
and what i really think you care about: 64mb/s read/write speed

SSD:
~.7$/gb
Silent
No moving parts=no heat
Availible in sizes up to 258gb (for all intents and purposes)
And the kicker, 300mb/s read/write.

 

[Guest]

Thanks for the advice.

 

[inzone]

Since I have used the Western Digital Veloceraptor for a number of years I can tell you first hand that there were no heat issues and there were no noise issues at all. My computer is water cooled and because of that is reletivly quiet so I wouldhave noticed any hard drive noise and there was none. Maybe other 10,000 rpm hard drives have those issues but the Western Digital Veloceraptor does not.

 

[americanbrian]

^^ I think it is still valid to say SSD's are truly silent and no matter how quiet you feel the HDDs are the SSD will ALWAYS be quieter...

 

[inzone]

Of course a SSD is quiet and it's because there are no moving parts and I was not comparing a SSD to a hard drive but rather the WD Veloceraptor to other 10,000 rpm hard drives. Since it was said that the 10,000 rpm hard drives are noisy and hot in general I diagreed and posted as such.