Overclocking Buyer's Guide - August 2004
by Wesley Fink on July 27, 2004 11:24 AM EST- Posted in
- Guides
IDE Hard Drive
IDE Recommendation: Seagate ST3200822A (200GB) Baracuda 7200RPM (8MB cache)Price: $119 shipped
While IDE drives, including our alternate Seagate Barracuda 200GB, are not as fast as the Western Digital Raptor 10,000RPM SATA drives, they are still preferred by many overclockers because they generally have fewer problems when overclocking with IDE drives. IDE drives are also much cheaper than WD Raptors, so there is less to cry about if you destroy a hard drive in overclocking.
The Seagate 200GB is a particularly good buy, offering the same 8MB cache as the Raptor drives and very large 200GB storage capacity for a small $120 price. While the well-known Seagate drives offer impressive specifications, the most important feature of the Seagate 200GB is not something you can see. With hard drive manufacturers reducing warranties to one year, the Seagate 200GB now carries a 5-year manufacturer's warranty. That is not a typo, as a check at Seagate's website shows that Seagate just increased the warranty for ALL internal hard drives to 5 years. With this Seagate delivering hard drive capacities at 60 cents per Gigabyte, this drive also delivers excellent value.
If you prefer a SATA solution, there are excellent choices with a SATA interface instead of IDE. However, we see no real reason to recommend a SATA drive over IDE for an overclocking system unless there are features like the Raptor Speed, NCQ or warranty that make the SATA a better performer. There is also no reason not to choose SATA if you prefer the narrow cables, but please keep in mind that SATA drives can sometimes be roadblocks to great overclocking. Overclockers also connect and disconnect drives frequently, and SATA connectors are still very fragile and more easily breakable than the admittedly bulky, but durable, IDE connector.
Listed below is part of our RealTime pricing engine, which lists the lowest prices available on IDE storage from many different reputable vendors:
If you cannot find the lowest prices on the products that we've recommended on this page, it's because we don't list some of them in our RealTime pricing engine. Until we do, we suggest that you do an independent search online at the various vendors' web sites. Just pick and choose where you want to buy your products by looking for a vendor located under the "Vendor" heading.
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danidentity - Wednesday, July 28, 2004 - link
...for sale either online or in stores, I meant.danidentity - Wednesday, July 28, 2004 - link
Wes, do we have ANY idea when we'll start seeing PCIe X800's?Pollock - Tuesday, July 27, 2004 - link
I would have expected to see the 3000+ in there with the recent price drops... And I'll second #6, even if you did mention CAS 2.5 ram on the summary.I also think that you shouldn't focus on clear cut categories, but perhaps design one for each of the sockets that appeals at the time. Basically what I'm saying there is that you've got to get socket 754 in there but you don't have to cut anything else out.
Pumpkinierre - Tuesday, July 27, 2004 - link
Agree with #15 Wesley, you've added passion to the buying guides.Wesley Fink - Tuesday, July 27, 2004 - link
#15 - The price in the Guide has always been $389, which is certainly close to $390. New Egg shows the eVGA 6800 GT expected tomorrow 7/28 at a price of $410. Pricewatch shows this link for $389 with an ETA of 7/30 - 3 days away - at http://www.buyxtremegear.com/vc129114.html. The PHY brand is also shown at $389 with an ETA of 8/10 at http://www.futurepowerpc.com/scripts/details.asp?P...kherman - Tuesday, July 27, 2004 - link
Awesome article! Love the concept even though I'll never do an OC rig. It's interesting to read about though.RobJ - Tuesday, July 27, 2004 - link
But the 6800GT is not listed in the real-time pricewatch list because eVGA's website says that the GT won't be available until September 2nd and that it will cost $390, not $380. I have been able to find it on some websites for markups as high as $460. I'll wait until the price comes down to $380. Other companies are even selling the GT for $500 and above. That's crazy.Wesley Fink - Tuesday, July 27, 2004 - link
#12 -The only reason I did not list this in the guide is because we will be making some HSF recommendations in the next OC Guide. The HSF I had in mind for $12 was a "SPEEZE 80mm LED CPU Cooler for Socket A, Model "5F353B1L3GL" -OEM" which has an 80mm fan. A quick check shows you can now buy this Speeze for $9.99 from a reputable on-line retailer. I have found the 80mm fan HSF move more air and do a better job of cooling than the more common 60mm fan models - even the expensive ones. The 80mm are also normally lower noise.
trexpesto - Tuesday, July 27, 2004 - link
Wonder what 12$ HSF is used for the DFI Infinity?"Overclockers will also be happy to find the 4 mounting holes around the CPU socket for heavy-duty cooling; although, we do find the CPU area has too many components around the socket that could interfere with some of the larger cooling solutions." - http://anandtech.com/guides/showdoc.aspx?i=2138&am...
Zebo - Tuesday, July 27, 2004 - link
#9 Thanks....While only a couple mobos seem to have found a work around I appologise for my ignorance Wes. Still have issue with the presshot not because of heat, the northwood/canterwood is so much more mature and even a bit faster clock for clock,. The price factor of course.