Gaming performance and 5400 rpm hdrive

I nabbed a great deal on an Dell Outlet XPS tonight. But as a gamer I'm worried about the harddrive which spins at 5400rpm. I know this will effect load times and copying files, but will it slow down my gameplay on FPS and RTS games? If not I think I can live with the longer load times. But if it will reduce my FPS rates then I'll have to do something about it.

The system index describes it as an "EIDE" drive, is this the same as SATA?

Thanks!

 

Which computer did you buy? Most of the new laptops usea SATA interface. To answer your original question, it should not affect gameplay, only loading times. The only time I think this might come into play would be during multi player games where respawn time might conflict with hard disk load times..causing you to spawn and the be killed while you are still loading. I don't think you would have to worry about that though-laptop 5400 RPM drives are faster than desktop 5400 RPM hard disks.

 

Here are the basic specs for the xps I purchased (previously ordered new):

XPS M1710 Notebook: Intel Core 2 Duo Processor T7200 (2GHz/667MHz/4MB)
256MB NVIDIA GeForce Go 7900 GS
9 Cell Primary Battery
Genuine Windows XP Media Center 2005
Microsoft Works 8.5
120 GB EIDE Hard Drive (5400 RPM)
Intel Pro Wireless 3945
8X DVD +/- RW w/dbl layer write capability
17 inch (Metallic Black Chassis) UltraSharp Wide Screen UXGA Display with TrueLife
1 GB DDR2 SDRAM 677MHz (2 DIMMs)
Free Shipping

Price before taxes: $1870

Thanks for any insight concerning this "EIDE" descriptor. I can't believe that a M1710 would come with old tech. funny the website doesn't offer additional info on the manufacturer of the hard drive.

Good to know that the 5400 rpm won't hang up my games noticeably. I can save my money for a memory upgrade down the road!

 

You can limit hard drive access by installing enough RAM. Do you have at least 1 GB RAM? If yes, then you should be fine.

 

Great! Thanks Fred and Vespoli. I feel much better about the purchase knowing I won't have to tool with the laptop for a while. Mostly I want to be able to run MTW2 without hiccups I can't imagine I'll be playing much else for the rest of Winter and Spring.

 

The 1GB memory will slow down your games ( Fear, Oblivion.. etc ) more than anything else if you want to play them on highest settings, you would have to lower some settings because of the 1GB memory. When I recieved my E1705 it had a 1GB memory (667MHz) and a 120GB HDD. I upgraded the memory to 2GB and the difference was noticable. Then, I replaced the 120GB with a 100GB 7200RPM and while gaming, I don't notice any difference, except in loading time for maps is alot faster now. The main reason I upgraded the HDD is becuase of the slow down when multitasking, that 5400RPM HDD I had was just terrible when doing intensive tasks in windows.

 

I think you're right that my 1 gig memory will probably be the first upgrade. I can deal with longer load times, and I'm multitasking with a 1 gig desktop without much furstration, to I imagine it will be tolerabel on my laptop for a while. I'm not sure I'll be upgrading to Vista right out of the gate. Kinda wan to see what happens on everyone else's system first

Thanks,

mt

 

The hard drive will have very little effect on your gameplay. At least you have a 5400 and not a 4200 RPM drive My old machine had that... glacial loading times.

 

5400 is certainly a big step up from 4200. I have played a few games on my 5400 and certainly hard times isn't a problem, I'm sure your gaming will be fin with that machine.

 

Do not worry about the 5400 rpm, the 1 GB is a greater concern if you ask me. You will notice a greater boost when upgrading your RAM instead. So if you are a gamer who likes to play the latest games (FEAR, Oblivion etc.) I really advice you to upgrade to 2 GB instead of getting a 7200 rpm.

Charlie

 

On the question of 1 GB vs. 1 GB of RAM I recommend this article from X-bits labs: 2GB of RAM: Do We Really Need That Much? According to their tests, the speed increase from an upgrade from 1 GB to 2 GB RAM is marginal.

 

Subconsciously biased here are we...

Anyhow, yeah, gamers---even casual FPS ones---need 2GB, but everyone else is just fine with 1GB. But if you're planning on enabling all that eye candy for Vista, go with 2GB.

 

Thanks for the advice. I'm sure the discussion of Hdisks and Memory in the context of gaming will also be very useful to others viewing the string. Also enjoyed the article Fred linked on 1G v 2G memory, it was very informative.