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Will the 4200 rpm hd in the acer ferrari 3200 slow down UT2004 a lot?

post #1 of 39
5/22/04 at 11:29am
Thread Starter 
Hey, I am also wondering if I install games to my external USB 2.0 7200 rpm hd, if this will be a lot faster or if it will be slower because of the interface.
Thanks guys
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post #2 of 39
5/22/04 at 11:32am
Do you have a 3200 now? I'd love a mini review.

I doubt the hard drive will cause you any trouble.
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post #3 of 39
5/22/04 at 12:04pm
It will most definitely slow down the game a fair bit. I myself have UT2004 and I had to upload about 5GB of information on my hard drive. Consider this: as you're playing, information is constantly accessed from you hard drive and if you're sifting through 5GB's of information, you're going to want at least a 5400rpm hdd. Now you can play UT2004, but just not as well. With the acer 3200 you're graphics should be amazing.
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post #4 of 39
5/22/04 at 12:41pm
I'm not sure that's entirely true. With 512 megs of system memory and 128 megs of video memory, I can't imagine you would need all that much more coming off the hard drive. Your loading times will increase quite a bit, but actual in-game performance shouldn't suffer much, if any.
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post #5 of 39
5/22/04 at 1:27pm
Hard to say exact performance difference in gaming.

Although investing in a 7200 rpm HD will certainly enhance the overall feel of the machine gaming or not..

Ive had a lot of laptops and there is no way i could go back to 5400rpm never mind 4200rpm.

Its noticeable performance increase.

Pay the extra $200.00 and get a 7200rpm......the laptop is awesome but that drive will just make it pure bliss.
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post #6 of 39
5/22/04 at 2:09pm
IS there a large differnece between the three? I know that you would see a difference between 4200rpm and 7200rpm,but what about the 5400rom?
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post #7 of 39
5/22/04 at 2:11pm
the jump from 4200rpm to 5400rpm is much greater than the jump from 5400rpm to 7200rpm Having said that, an 80gb 5400rpm hard drive will have great performance because it's much denser.
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post #8 of 39
5/22/04 at 2:18pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tourney2112
the jump from 4200rpm to 5400rpm is much greater than the jump from 5400rpm to 7200rpm Having said that, an 80gb 5400rpm hard drive will have great performance because it's much denser.
Thanks glad you saidthat,because the Sony A only has 4200 drives except for the 80gb 5400rpm.
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post #9 of 39
5/22/04 at 2:24pm
Mike - Here is an article that I always refer people to. It is pretty good, and I am sure it might help you.

http://www4.tomshardware.com/mobile/20031031/index.html
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post #10 of 39
5/22/04 at 4:08pm
Thread Starter 
i still would like to know if it would play faster if I loaded it off my USB 2.0 7200 rpm hd. any one know?
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post #11 of 39
5/22/04 at 4:35pm
nikonx you won't notice a difference.

Consider this. A hard-drive with an ATA/133 interface could transfer data upto 133mb/s. Not even the fastest SCSI 15K RPM drives for desktops can break 100mb/s. A laptop disk at 7200 probably wouldn't go any faster than 50mb/s if you are lucky.

Now, the ram on the other hand is uber-fast. DDR-266 (PC-2100) ram transfers at 2.1GB/s. Since games are always trying to get the most out of system performance, they will never ever under any circumstances resort to using the HD, it is just far too slow. Instead, they will load everything required into system memory and play from there.

A faster HD will speed up loading cutscenes and levels. It is most noticable when booting, or loading office and other applications.

Don't worry, a Ferrari 3200 will devour UT2k4, don't spend extra on an external HD for gaming...
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post #12 of 39
5/22/04 at 4:59pm
Thread Starter 
thanks guys, i will definately post a nice full review as soon as I have used it enouph
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post #13 of 39
5/22/04 at 5:38pm
Gaming performance will be ok as long as u have an ATI 9600 or higher, but load times will be excruiciating i'm telling you right now.

Why the heck is such a fast system shipping with such a slow hard drive?

You will want at least a 5400rpm drive for UT2004.
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post #14 of 39
5/22/04 at 6:44pm
nikon, when did you place your order for your Ferrari? And from where? Also, where did it ship from and how much did you pay?

I only ask all of this, because I am anxious to get my hands on one and cannot find anyone who has them in stock yet (I hear the 25th is the Acer release date.

Thanks
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post #15 of 39
5/22/04 at 7:00pm
do you guys have any idea what your talking about? you act like the comp is going to use the hd as spare ram. ut2k4 would be loading lots of information from where its installed on your harddrive, so if the hardrive is accessed slower, wallah, slower gaming. maybe on some games that dont need to access much info, it wont make a differencem but with newer games like far cry and ut2k4 its going to make a difference.

i think the usb 7200 would be a performance increase over the internal 4200, but using the usb would suck up some ram, i doubt it would be noticable thou. all these people who bought these acers are really going to regret it, they are going to perform lower than current amd/9600 pro laptops without a doubt even after upgraded hd and ram.
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post #16 of 39
5/22/04 at 7:59pm
Thread Starter 
for clarification, i havent received my notebook yet, sorry to mislead. I ordered it from PC Torque last week and I am hoping it will ship this week. Also, what do you mean Sad Mr. Woo, "but using the usb would suck up some ram"??
And why are people going to regret getting the Acer and how is it going to perform lower than the 9600 pro??
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post #17 of 39
5/22/04 at 8:37pm
He means that the overall performance of the AMD/9700 system (acer 3200) will not be as good as many of the AMD/9600 systems due to HDD. Most of the AMD/9600 systems have at least 5400rpm HDD's which really help performance.
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post #18 of 39
5/22/04 at 8:41pm
Thread Starter 
but he said "even after upgraded HD and ram"
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post #19 of 39
5/22/04 at 8:45pm
Then I must say I don't follow his reasoning. With a 7200rpm HDD, the Ferrari will be one of the sweetest systems available. I'm hoping that it was a typo on his part, because it's a very stupid statement which he made.
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post #20 of 39
5/22/04 at 9:03pm
Maybe he knows something about these new low voltage processors we don't. Hopefully not.
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