7200rpm versus 5400rpm

How much of an improvement does a faster 7200rpm hard drive make in gaming performance and also the 3Dmark06 score over a 5400rpm model ??? There is approx. a 25% increase in speed, does that also translate in performance and the 3Dmark06 score ??? Thanks for any info. God Bless

 

The only thing you benefit from a faster hard drive in gaming is better load times.

 

There are thousands of topics on the same idea, 7200 RPM hdds ONLY HELP LOAD TIMES.
3dmark06 tests only the CPU and the GPU.

 

Don't quote me on this but your computer is as fast are your slowest part and the slowest part of the computer is usually your Hard Drive so any increase in speed you can get is a good move.

 

Overall you will experience an improvement in performance on your computer, but for gaming, only the load times will benefit.

 

That's exactly why we have random access memory. Your quote holds true if the computer tries processing all the information directly from the hard drive, but when all the information is loaded into the RAM, it doesn't become a bottleneck for the processor or video card.

 

Well, the speed of the hard drive really is only applicable for load times. Granted, if you play a game where you have constant read/write, then yes, you would have increased performance.

Keep in mind, the density of data on the drive is also important. This 250gb 5400 rpm drive I have in my MBP is faster than the 100gb 7200 rpm drive I had.

 

I guess that a faster hard drive will also help with the virtual memory that Window uses, the faster the hard drive the faster it can access the virtual memory. God Bless

 

The faster the hdd, the smaller battery life

 

I have a question, IM also trying to decide between a 5400 rpm and a 7200.

THe topic of data density has come up very often in my research, but i still dont really understand the issue of data denstiy vs. hard drive speed (RPM).

Can someone explain to me, in a technical explanation, why more storage space gives off same effects as faster hard drive speed?

 

In laymens terms... Data Density is more data over an area. A 500 gb hard drive with the same number of platters (the discs in the drives that actually store the data) as a 250gb drive will have 2x the density. So... logically, the more dense the data is... the faster the drive can get to it.
With rotational speeds, where you really see the difference is with random reads. The further the distance the head has to travel to the spot on the disc to retrieve or write the data, the bigger effect the RPM has.

If a 500 gb disc has the same amount of data on it as a 250gb disc (lets say 50gb) the 500gb disc can reach that data faster as it has a smaller area for the head to travel over to get to its destination. This allows slower speed drives to be faster than smaller drives with higher spindle speeds. This is not always a true thing... but a rule of thumb.

If you go look at the speeds of the 5400 rpm 1TB hard drives, they are faster than pretty much anything else out there. Even the 10k rpm Raptor drives. But if you had a 7200 rpm 1TB drive, it would be much faster.

 

Yup, like what hollownail said. In essence, higher density means that there is less distance to travel to access files, and a faster rpm means that it can travel at a faster speed to access files.

 

thanks for the info guys, really helped my understanding.

so how much difference in GB's do you usually need to see the same amount of performance? Rules of thumb or generalizations are fine for answers.

(FOr instance, 200GB 7200 RPM > 250GB 5400 RPM?)

 

Usually for a 5400 rpm drive to outperform a 7200 rpm drive... it has to be roughly twice the size. Or something like that.