Before you jump in and tell me one is twice the rate of the other, I realize that, but I don't know if the spec is even achievable with SATA.

 

With the new Asus Z77 motherboards - V, Pro, Sabertooth - and comparing the same supplier - say Western Digital

 

Western Digital Caviar Black WD1001FAES 1TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

Western Digital Caviar Black WD1002FAEX 1TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

 

It looks like a $20 difference in price. How about the difference in performance using a new fast PC and FSX?

 

A question for you guys and girls - will a new gaming pc know the difference in these two drives? As Primary drive? as backup or secondary storage drive?

 

Thanks.

 

Ray

For HDD, difference between SATA II and SATA III is significantly less important, in opposition to case of SSD, due to much bigger adverse influence of long access time of HDD. Using SSD I noticed perceptible difference under FSX but with HDD I didn't. It may be noticeble but only while copying a big buch of data from one drive to another, for FSX scenery loading it doesn't bring real benefits.

When I bought my HD, there was no price difference between 3GB and 6GB Drives so I went for the 6GB Black WD 1 TB drive and I also went for the 6Gb SSDs (Samsung). I see people say that PCI-e Video card doesn't add to FSX. But I went for the 670GTX Video card with IB processor. I've even heard here that SSD's does not matter for FSX over HD. I went for the SSDs

 

And guess what I do not have blurries when I zoom at 250-300Kts on a fast aircraft.

 

I'd really like to compare or a feedback from someone who has a 2700K Processor, using the 580GTX Video card and using 3GB HD for sceneries fly over low level at photosceneries and PNW (Orbx) and tell us they have no blurries.

 

My advice to folks is this

 

1. Between Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge...go for the Ivy Bridge

 

2. Between 3GB and 6GB speed HD/SSDs, go the 6GB speed HD/SSD..the price difference is not much relative to your overall PC Build cost

 

3. Between PCI-E 3 vs PCI-E 2.,..go for the PCI-E 3 Video card...again the price difference is not much.

 

The only hard decision here is... Whether SSDs add so much more benefit over HD to justify the cost since the price difference/storage is quite high at this stage. IF you can afford it, I say go for the SSD..but if you can't then go with the HD...bt get the 6GB HD for now and replace it with the SSD couple of years from now when the price of SSDs come down further or when you have enough saved up.

 

Don't be penny wise and pound foolish!

My advice to folks is this

1. Between Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge...go for the Ivy Bridge

2. Between 3GB and 6GB speed HD/SSDs, go the 6GB speed HD/SSD..the price difference is not much relative to your overall PC Build cost

3. Between PCI-E 3 vs PCI-E 2.,..go for the PCI-E 3 Video card...again the price difference is not much.

 

Ad. 1. I'm not sure it is good suggestion

It is known and well documented in many tests published at hardware related sites that Ivy Bridge processors have smaller potencial of OC due to problem with transfering heat from smaller die area to IHS, 160 square mm for i7 3770K (Ivy Bridge) comparing to 216 sq. mm for i7 2600K (Sandy Bridge). Thermal conductance is area dependant.

In real world that means i7 2600K with HT disabled is able stabile working with 5.0 GHz on air cooling, while for i7 3770K it seems to be impossible.

 

Ad. 2. I agree, especially in case of SSD.

 

Ad. 3. I agree but with one remark:

It is better to buy graphics card with PCI-e 3 interface, as it nearly doubles maximal transfer rate comparing to PCI-e 2.

But it is good to remember, that regardless fact that given Mobo is PCI-e 3 compliant, it will be working only with Ivy Bridge processors, due fact that PCI-e controller is integrated with CPU on the same die and PCI-e 3 handling is feature of Ivy Bridge CPU family.

it doesn't matter for a mechanical HDD. It isn't able to saturate a SATA II bus anyway. But if there's no price difference I'd go for the 'newer' tech. But I wouldn't pay extra for it. It's only data that is already residing in the HDDs cache that can make any kind of use of SATA III. Reading it off the platters is too slow to fully use SATA II still.

 

When it comes to SSDs there's a different story. There the improvement will be a shorter time to load a flight. The reduction will be more notable the faster CPU you have.

True, for a HDD SATA II or III is a non factor. There are other things like platter density on which to base one's decision.