New gaming build, need a few pointers !

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Ragnor

8222 posts

Uber Geek

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#618665 3-May-2012 03:13

Lykho:

my 2.0 can get speeds up to 30MB/s, my 3.0 can get consistent 50-67MB/s (not sure if my 5400rpm drive onboard is a bottleneck). ...what would Ivy Bridge do for me? I mean, it looks like I'm not stuck on 2.0...

p.s.
sorry @ OP for having this tangent in your thread.

I think you're confusing USB and PCI-E Lykho.

PCI-E slots are on the motherboard for add in cards, eg: what your video card plugs into.

USB ports are generally for connecting external devices (keyboard, mouse, flash disk, portable hard disk etc)

Also yes your 5400rpm drive will likely be holding back your transfer speed.

Lykho

253 posts

Ultimate Geek

#618845 3-May-2012 13:11

lucky015:
I believe you are referring to USB 2.0 and 3.0 which is different to PCI-E standards.

USB 2.0 has a maximum throughput of approx 480Mbps, USB 3.0 has a maximum throughput of 5,000Mbps, There should be ample throughput to allow it to max out the speed of the drive.

This could mean you are using a substandard drive enclosure however as you mentioned a 5400rpm it is more likely the drive is the problem.

my motherboard didn't come with USB3.0, I only got it through using the PCI-e expansion slot, so I wasn't sure if you guys were saying I can't get any benefit plugging USB3.0 cards into PCI 2 slots (no amount of googling the mobo serial told me what generation of PCI slots I have, just how many of each type)

lucky015:
This could mean you are using a substandard drive enclosure however as you mentioned a 5400rpm it is more likely the drive is the problem.

5400rpm sounds to me like it is either a 2.5 Inch or Western Digital Green drive.

it's the internal drive (I have no SSD for my O/S, just one local green drive with data and O/S ... not the smartest decision in the world), I'm sure the external 3.0-speed drive is 7200.

guess I should test this on a PC with SSD or a 7200rpm drive to see if I can get better speeds by replacing my HDD, eh?

Ragnor

8222 posts

Uber Geek

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#618856 3-May-2012 13:25

Lykho:

my motherboard didn't come with USB3.0, I only got it through using the PCI-e expansion slot, so I wasn't sure if you guys were saying I can't get any benefit plugging USB3.0 cards into PCI 2 slots (no amount of googling the mobo serial told me what generation of PCI slots I have, just how many of each type)

Even old school PCI (not PCI Express) has max bandwidth of 133 MB/s so it's most likely your hard drive if you're only getting 50 MB/s.

Try benchmarking it with CrystalMark
http://crystalmark.info/

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