IDE controller cards better than onboard?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Vic
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Vic

I saw a thread in another NG where people were writing about IDE controller cards. They said a good addon card improves system
performance when disk access is required. One commenter said the difference was 'remarkable' compared to using the standard MOBO
controller. Wow!

I'd like to hear from others, does a separate controller card for IDE hard drives improve performance (access times, program startup
times, lessen demand on CPU, etc)?

Nobody has shown with timing tests there is a difference so I wonder, are these people who think performance is better suffering
from placebo effect? I've seen myself after spending money (or time) on the computer, wanting to make it better, THINK I did, but in
fact was only thinking my desires!

Also read a bunch of reviews on the Promise Ultra133 TX2 card (Newegg) and one reviewer said they did tests and there was *NO*
difference in CPU usage OR start times! Hmmm, who's right? Is adding a controller going to improve performance, or just waste time?
(I have no need for a controller due to insufficient ports)

Vic
 
A correctly designed "on board" controller with the proper drivers is going
to be just as fast as an add-in controller card. You use the card for adding
extra drives, not for increased performance - unless your on-board
controller is defective. In that case, it can bring an older computer back
from the dead for another years service.

--
Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User

Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!
 
Fas as I can understand from this page/pic, the on-board IDE should be
faster, as its's connected directly to the southbridge with a faster
connection than the PCI connectors 33MHz.....

If what you read on the other NG was about RAID??? Then a good add-on RAID
controller might indeed give a benefit


--
Tumppi
=================================
Most learned on these newsgroups
Helsinki, FINLAND
(translations from/to FI not always accurate
=================================
 
Vic said:
I saw a thread in another NG where people were writing about IDE
controller cards. They said a good addon card improves system
performance when disk access is required. One commenter said the
difference was 'remarkable' compared to using the standard MOBO
controller. Wow!

I'd like to hear from others, does a separate controller card for IDE
hard drives improve performance (access times, program startup times,
lessen demand on CPU, etc)?

Nobody has shown with timing tests there is a difference so I wonder,
are these people who think performance is better suffering from
placebo effect? I've seen myself after spending money (or time) on
the computer, wanting to make it better, THINK I did, but in fact was
only thinking my desires!

Also read a bunch of reviews on the Promise Ultra133 TX2 card
(Newegg) and one reviewer said they did tests and there was *NO*
difference in CPU usage OR start times! Hmmm, who's right? Is adding
a controller going to improve performance, or just waste time? (I
have no need for a controller due to insufficient ports)

Vic
Click to expand...

If you spend the money you will get faster performance from an addon card.
The cheap ones like the Promise you mention won't be any faster than an
onboard controller. The more expensive ones have their own CPU and act like
a SCSI card. Your motherboard will need a PCI-X slot and you will need to
use SATA-II drives to take full advantage. In other words, unless you have a
very high end system you probably wouldn't notice much difference over an
onboard controller. A faster CPU or more RAM or even a faster drive with
your onboard controller would probably make more of a difference. Witout
knowing more about your system it's all a guess.
 
I saw a thread in another NG where people were writing about IDE controller cards. They said a good addon card improves system
performance when disk access is required. One commenter said the difference was 'remarkable' compared to using the standard MOBO
controller. Wow!

I'd like to hear from others, does a separate controller card for IDE hard drives improve performance (access times, program startup
times, lessen demand on CPU, etc)?

Nobody has shown with timing tests there is a difference so I wonder, are these people who think performance is better suffering
from placebo effect? I've seen myself after spending money (or time) on the computer, wanting to make it better, THINK I did, but in
fact was only thinking my desires!

Also read a bunch of reviews on the Promise Ultra133 TX2 card (Newegg) and one reviewer said they did tests and there was *NO*
difference in CPU usage OR start times! Hmmm, who's right? Is adding a controller going to improve performance, or just waste time?
(I have no need for a controller due to insufficient ports)

Vic
Click to expand...
 
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