BF2 Performance with 2GB, 10k RPM Upgrades

[FourScience]

UPDATE: Thu, Oct. 6th
Read full details below on the effects of BF2-motivated upgrades.

UPDATE: Sat, Oct. 1st
Best WD Raptor 74GB deal is $157.98 after $20 MIR at NewEgg:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?...N82E16822144160

Awesome 2GB PC3200 OCZ CL 2-3-2-5 RAM for $220 after $25 MIR at Monarch:
http://www.monarchcomputer.com/Merchant2/m...6&AFFIL=TH&NR=1

Original message below:

Hey,
There's 3 retailers I check prices for religiously: NewEgg, ZipZoomFly.com, and Monarch. Monarch is lesser known and not as lightning fast as NewEgg, but they are no slouch at shipping and they have some best buys now and then. They are also as reliable as NewEgg for getting it right with customer service. You can find them at MonarchComputer.com.

Well, I mention this because they have some more best buys. They are:

Western Digital 36 GB 8MB 360GD Raptor SATA 10K RPM (WD360GD)
$105.00 ($110 regular)

Western Digital 74 GB SATA 10K Raptor (WD740GD)
$166.00 ($180 regular at Monarch and $172.90 at ZipZoomFly.com)

I really posted this for the Raptors, which I almost splurged on but managed to control myself. More deals as follows:

Western Digital Caviar SD 400 GB SATA 16MB Cache 7200 RPM (WD4000KD)
$186.00

Western Digital 320GB SATA 8MB Cache 7200RPM (WD3200JD)
$125.00

Western Digital 200GB SATA 8MB Cache 7200RPM (WD2000JD)
$80.00

Western Digital Caviar RE2 400 GB SATA 16MB Cache 7200 RPM (WD4000YR)
$199.00

Maxtor (6B250S0) DiamondMax Plus 10 250GB SATA 7200 RPM 16MB Cache
$94.00

I highly recommend subscribing to their newsletter, they send it once a week and it often includes rebate deals and memory bargains. From Monarch, my fiancee bought me the LianLi V1000A Plus case for my birthday, $176 at Monarch shipped by 2-day air, while the next cheapest price was $200+.

[MuffDiver]

if you are building or upgrading, raptors rock.  The 36 gig are better than the 74's, but if you get either you will never never regret it.  Read about them on WD's site.  5yr warrenty, ultra reliable.  with 2 striped I get 228MB/s read and 160MB/s write speeds.  They rival even SCSI 320 striped arrays.  and much much cheaper than scsi drives and controllers.

[FourScience]

if you are building or upgrading, raptors rock.  The 36 gig are better than the 74's, but if you get either you will never never regret it.  Read about them on WD's site.  5yr warrenty, ultra reliable.  with 2 striped I get 228MB/s read and 160MB/s write speeds.  They rival even SCSI 320 striped arrays.  and much much cheaper than scsi drives and controllers.

How are the 36's better than the 74's? The 74's are basically two platters vs the 36's one; two 74's should outperform the 36's in all cases. The only case where 36's have shown themselves to edge the 74's is if you get three as opposed to two 74's with both striped.

Even Western Digital spec's indicate slightly better performance by the 74's; between everyone else, it's common knowledge that the 74's are preferrable. Just by having two platters, there is twice the storage at the ends of the disk that read/write fastest. So if the last 8GB of the 36GB platter has the fastest access time, then there's 16GB boasting the same speeds in a pair of those 36GB platters. There's no magic 8GB section that's fastest, of course; as you move in from the end of the disk, the speeds slow down gradually.

I certainly wish the 36's were preferrable, I'd rather pay their price. I know it's best to get a pair of either size and RAID 0 them to gain the best performance. The 74's advantage is not huge but it might be reason enough to spend the extra $120 to get twice the storage. Obviously you don't want these drives for size, you really just need them for System/Swap, games, and any other disk or performance intensive applications.

[FourScience]

Ugh...I drool for more BF2 RAM: http://www.monarchcomputer.com/Merchant2/m...6&AFFIL=TH&NR=1

I would seriously have ordered those Raptors and that RAM if I didn't add up my income and expenses this week and found I'll be in the red come January. Grrr. So I emailed my 2nd boss today and I think I'll be resuming my second job. FourReal.

[FourScience]

I gave in (or caved, rather)! I bought a 74GB Raptor off NewEgg for $177.98 with a $20 MIR coming back. This way I can buy another 74 when my pockets are healthier, but I'll have a new drive to play with in the meantime. I am also going to get the OCZ 2GB CL 2-3-2-5 RAM at Monarch for $245 with a $25 MIR coming back. Links in my first post above.

The OCZ memory is really fantastic, I checked a few good reviews and OCZ builds not only good memory, but their customer service is awesome. Their stuff is in the same class as the Corsair XMS series if you ask me. It might not be as proven for overclocking but they support it even in their warranty (up to 2.8V is allowed).

I don't mind rebates, I always do them in confidence by photocopying all of the materials I submit and checking the listed websites regularly to make sure everything is being processed. Western Digital is slower than most, but they process eventually and I have them in about 10 weeks. I have done others with Maxtor, Best Buy, Circuit City, and CompUSA, and I have some pending right now with ATI, Creative, and soon with OCZ and WD again. For some "deals" it's just not worth it, but when it means getting something for $20+ cheaper, it can really add up. Also, retailers often low-ball their prices even further to bait customers on the double savings.

I can't wait to dethrone my 3 minute loading times for BF2! I still need a better CPU/mobo though (Athlon XP 2500+ Barton/Asus A7N8X Deluxe). I'm glad PC3200 is still king for AMD boards.

[FourScience]

Well, how bout an update. 2GB of RAM hasn't made much of a difference in BF2! 1GB has an extreme advantage over 512MB (I tested this also, play was choppy with same settings), but the 2GB has only increased loading times by about 10 seconds (65 to 55 seconds). This does mean I'm one of the first people to spawn, which helps for getting covetted vehicles, but the difference hasn't been dramatic.

It might be that my dated CPU is limiting the load times, as it is already limiting my video performance. I have fast Maxtor 160GB ATA/133's right now (unraided), and they are good hd's. I will try my 74GB Raptor sometime this weekend and see if that pushes my numbers anywhere. If anyone's curious, it ALWAYS takes longer to load the first map, after that, map switches/server reconnects are quicker. For me, that means about 85 seconds for first load, and 50 seconds to do loads thereafter. Also, I split up load times into the typical Load stage (progress bar) and the Verify stage. My Load stage is about 25 seconds as is my Verify stage. It's the Verify stage that quickened by about 10 seconds, which is right where I'd expect to see the improvement. I suspect the new Raptor may have a similar impact on the Load stage, so I'll test that when I set it up.

I did manage to get my 2500+ Barton overclocked slightly. With my Asus A7N8X Deluxe mobo, I haven't been able to simply increase the FSB/CPU frequency from 166 to 200, it doesn't post thereafter. So I tried decreasing the multiplier from 11.5 to 10.0, and only then moving the FSB/CPU freq. to 200. This was successful, and now I have a mild overclock from 1833MHz to 2000MHz, but the real point of this is to successfully increase my FSB to 200 so I can run my memory at PC3200 speeds, rather than the underclocked PC2700 speeds my old GeILs (2x256MB + 512MB) have been limited to. Though I haven't maxed out my video settings, once I get a Athlon 64 (probably 3200, 3500 Venice, or 3700 San Diego), I'm sure I'll be there. Still, BF2 is beautiful and I realize that I should be happy with the smooth, crisp gameplay I have already. I also need to test my performance out in the CPU heavy Source engine sometime soon as well. DoD:Source anyone?

Oh, and if anyone is really curious about the OCZ RAM, it's beautiful. With the platinum coated heatsinks (that's the color anyway) they are kind of heavy, in a good way, though I wonder if they will fit on mobo's with tightly packed RAM DIMMs (which would be the mobo's fault). I dropped them right in and my BIOS picked up the 2-3-2-5 timings with Optimal inclinations (non-Aggressive), and they made it through one complete pass of Memtest86 3.2 (all 10 or so tests), which I tried for the first time today. I'm going to leave it on overnight to do some more passes. Is there anything else I should do? It cycles through all the tests by default.

[MuffDiver]

Running the Dual Core 3800+ with striped Raptor Drives and 2 GB ram, Load times are not to bad about 30-60 seconds.  I can't tell the fps, the command I am using seems to have no effect.  I know that I amd steadily over 70fps on every map in RVS all the time with all settings all the way up and AA and Iso thing turned all the way up to 8x and 16x respectivly.  Also while getting 40 FPS I can frap full screen at 25FPS with sound and not notice any lag.  it is a great setup.  

Pair some extra Ram and these raptor drives up with a good video card and CPU combo and you are in for some smooth ass gaming.