Vantec are well known for their cooling products. Lately, they've been branching into other areas, such as power supplies, but their bread and butter is still cooling. Previously in our Thermoflow review, I mentioned one problem with thermo controlled fans was that in order to reach the peak air flow, your case temperatures would have to be really high. Now, if your case temperatures are that high (in excess of 50C), believe me, a fancy case fan isn't going to do anything because a case should never get that hot anyways.
What contributes to high case temperatures? Your CPU is probably a big part of it, but the video card, optical drive(s) and hard drive(s) do add to it. The general rule for case cooling is one intake fan (located at the bottom/front of the case) and one exhaust (usually a fan behind the CPU). Of course, you can have more intake and exhaust fans, but the idea is to maintain a consistent jet-flow of air through the case. What if you have all this, but your case temperatures are still high? It can be one of several things. Either your fans just plain suck, a fan is busted, or you have something blocking the air flow.
Enter round cables, specifically the Vantec Copper Sheathed cables which are the subject of review. In most ATX cases, the hard drives are situated in the lower portion of the case. Dangling IDE cables can cause problems with air flow, especially if they're literally making a wall in front of the fan. Round cables "can" alleviate the problem, but contrary to popular belief, round cables should not be left dangling in front of fans either. In any case, round cables do tend to occupy less space than flat cables, so even if you let it "hang", it shouldn't block as much air flow.
The Cables
There isn't anything exotic about the Vantec IDE cables. It doesn't glow in the dark, nor are they shielded (which is reported to perform better &I'll believe that claim when I see it).
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One nice feature about these cables, though a common practice more recently among all manufacturers, is the labeling of the connections. It's pretty much foolproof installation, as you shouldn't make any mistakes plugging in the IDE connections where they're supposed to go.
The labels also function as pull tabs, which can be a cable saver in the long run. Rather than grabbing the individual wiring beneath the boot of the cable, just tug on the label instead. Because the "boot" is not attached to the IDE connection, the actual wires are exposed. The tabs will save you the headache of either tearing the cable, or dislodging them, which may cause errors in the future.
Click for a larger image.
The cables are wrapped in a nice copper, braided sheath. I've always preferred the "sheathed" look, as opposed to the flat plastic look on most round cables, as it looks much nicer. The sheath doesn't really do anything for shielding, and is merely aesthetic. There's a clear coat rubber casing around the sheath to protect it. Despite the multiple layers, the cable is still very flexible, making it easy to tuck away and hide in the case.
We received a two device IDE cable, a single device IDE cable and a floppy cable. The two device cable is a typical round IDE cable where you can hook up two IDE devices in a Master/Slave setup. The single device cable is only for one hard drive or optical drive, and will appeal to those who prefer the one device per channel setup. All 3 cables share the same design elements, so we'll only be focusing on the single device cable for the rest of the review.
Testing
Testing was done with our Shuttle XPC SS51, with a Maxtor 60GB 7200RPM hard drive. Due to the design of the case, short or round cables (included with the bare bone product) are a must. The first test was done with the included flat ribbon, one device IDE cable, followed by the Vantec one device round IDE cable.
Generic Flat Cable
Vantec
As you can see, there is pretty much no difference in performance. The generic cable is about0.9kps faster, but the Vantec uses 0.4% less CPU. There is a bit of activity at the 28GB - 35GB marker, but nothing note worthy.
I half expected to see some serious data spikes as demonstrated in our Cooler Master Cable review, but there wasn't anything out of the ordinary.
As for case temperatures, there was no change as the cabling job was neat to begin with.
Final Words
Let's get a couple of myths out of the way about rounded cables. To begin with, they do not improve access speeds to your hard drive, or do anything for performance, in fact, poorly designed rounded cables can be detrimental. Secondly, they do not do much for case cooling if you're neat about cable management. Well, I guess I kind of contradicted myself there, as they will help if your cables are dangling all over the place, blocking airflow, but all it'd take is some tie wraps and some creative routing and you'll be fine. Then again, I've seen craptacular cable work done using round cables as well.
That being said, there is a market for round cables, and that audience would be those who like the look of round cables. I'll admit that if you're not neat, flat ribbon cables aren't the most attractive element in your case. Round cables do look better in my opinion, and if you route them properly, they can do a lot for case aesthetics.
IDE RAID junkies will be particularly pleased with Vantec's 1 device IDE cable. It's shorter than the standard ATA cable, and for RAID enthusiasts, they can all tell you that the best thing to do is to have one device per RAID channel. Even those with a solitary drive will benefit from a 1 device cable, as shorter cables means a more direct route to the IDE controller.
Pros: Quality construction, pull tabs are useful, and they look good.
Cons: Not necessary really.
Bottom Line: A nice product if you're looking for a change from the generic IDE cables. With Serial ATA coming though, which will address the performance limitations of current IDE drives, as well as using thinner cables, I personally wouldn't run out and buy a box of these.
If you have any comments, be sure to hit us up in our forums.
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