RAID in a Gaming rig

[Mekong]

I thought it would be best if I got two western digital 36.7GB SATA 10,000RPM raptor HardDrives use them in raid 0, but now I heard this might not of been the best thing to get.

Is that true?

I use the comp for mostly gaming but more and more for digital design software and image editing, sound and some minor video.

I was planning on useing a ATA133 80gb harddrive I already have as the storage drive having all my saved files on it and having the SATA raid drives for programs and os.

Did I just waste my money on two drives when I should of just got one big one?

 

[vegasgmc]

Someone did a test, I cant remember if it was HardOCP or Tomshardware and they discovered that raid had almost no benefits in gaming. Even Maximum PC admitted it in last months issue.

 

[Justin]

99% of the benefit of RAID in gaming is going to be in these three areas:

1) Starting the game
2) Saving/Loading the game
3) Loading new textures/models/etc when you enter a new area / new map / whatever


Unless you are experiencing very long load times in your games, you're not going to see that much of a benefit.

HOWEVER, if you are an extreme multitasker, that, for instance, games while downloading 50 mp3s while burning a DVD while... ... ... so on and so forth, it's a different story.