benefit to rounded cables?

[Cartoon Corpse]

notice an option on some professional builders configurators for this. better protection/shielding? any benefit?

 

[poopypoo]

better airflow . i've always been a little skeptical on this one, but hey, now that they're almost as cheap as regular IDE cables, why not? O/C websites ran a bunch of benchmarks a few years ago indicating that simple stuff like cold air in from a bottom fan, and rounded cables and wrapping and attaching your cables to the frame, so as to leave an unfettered pathway for the air towards the top-mounted warm air-exit fan, gave a considerable enough improvement in cooling that nowadays everybody pretty much does it. although i build my own boxes, if i didn't, i'd certainly be sure to hire someone who follows good airflow practices to build a box for me. grrr, i'm rambling!!! but, if they're charging a significant amount of cash, keep in mind that it probably only matters if you're overclocking, htpc-ing in a tight space, or planning on running an insanely hot graphhics card without an exhaust port.

 

[NANOTEC]

It helps a littlle with better airflow but it is also thick than ribbon cables. This can be good or bad depending your specific setup. Ribbon cables can be folded and are thin, rounded cables are the opposite.

 

[_xxx_]

The only benefit is saving some space and they're easier to twist and band.

 

[Guden Oden]

I believe the cooling benefit is mostly bunk. Perhaps if one has a small case that is stuffed chock full of ribbon cables it might make a difference, but probably not much if the cables are properly managed and routed.

Some rounded cables can apparantly cause data transfer interference as well (from crosstalk I assume). Might be a bit of a bummer, for most people anyway that don't use RAID5 arrays for all their data...

 

[Cartoon Corpse]

over at ibuypower.com they offer "professional installation" and "rounded cables" (each $19).

professional installation is extra? suppose if you get a bottom rung rig you don't need to concern yourself with that.


thanks for the input!

 

[Guden Oden]

They better be uber rounded cables to be worth $19, because I can get 'em over here with our killer taxes for less than a third of that price, and they worked just fine for many months (no read/write errors that I could detect).

 

[AlNom]

I find rounded cables easier to work with since I don't have to grab onto as much surface area when working with them inside a messy case.

 

[BRiT]

The main benefit to rounded cables is they're easier to work with and look nicer since they take up less space. I don't know if they're worth $19 extra.

 

[MasterBaiter]

They're not worth the extra money IMO. Just pull out some zip-ties, electricians tape, and put some elbow grease to it.