Does Ultra DMA/100 Make a Difference?
Some of the latest PCs we’ve seen–including Dell’s Dimension 8100–incorporate the new Intel 850 chip set, which provides support for the latest hard drive interface, Ultra DMA/100. This new interface supports a 50 percent faster top transfer rate than its Ultra DMA/66 predecessor. However, only small chunks of data can take full advantage of Ultra DMA/100’s faster data path, so you may not see a substantial increase in performance. Widening the data highway doesn’t necessarily improve the flow of overall traffic dramatically. Imagine you were to broaden a freeway that became overloaded with traffic only during rush hours. That would improve traffic flow just at those peak congested periods–the rest of the time, traffic would motor along as usual.
