Rounded IDE cables improve air flow and are more flexible compared to the standard flat IDE cables. They also look a lot better and are much easier to install. That's why rounded cables have always been the choice for those serious about cooling and case modding. Today, we will take a look at the RD3XP Gladiator Super Shielded Round IDE Cable. Of course, you can tell that this is no ordinary round IDE cable. But what's so special about it? That's what we intend to find out in this review! Link : The RD3XP Gladiator Super Shielded Round IDE Cable Review!
Nice review. But that cable looks....over-priced, to say the least. If it could glow in the dark, as well as suck up all the dust that gets into my case at the same time, I mightconsider shelling out that much for rounded IDE cables (=
You probably need to do considerably more testing before forking out that sort of money on a rounded cable, the article was very short on testing (at the very least you should test the cables with a new hard drive and an ATA133 controller), and the small difference in performance is statistically negligible. Standard 80 wire cables use 40 wires for data and the remaining 40 for shielding, which effectively avoids crosstalk. While I am not an electronic engineer, I rather doubt that the extra shielding will improve performance, especially as the controller is already compensating for signal skew and the extra wires ensure that there is no crosstalk. Personally I would skip the cables until I moved entirely to SATA hard disks, but that is just me
Agreed. The results are statistically insignificant. Unfortunately, Max_87 does not have a newer hard disk. However, the cable is designed differently from regular IDE cables so the effects of the 40 ground wires will differ from what we would see in a regular IDE cable. As you can see from the structure diagram, crosstalk CAN occur diagonally between different data wires. That's why VICS Tech put in those aluminium shields. Therefore, those aluminium shields could have a real effect on data integrity. Therefore, if we have the opportunity, we would retest the RD3XP Gladiator with an ATA-133 hard disk against a regular IDE cable as well as another rounded cable.
