If you want your case to look its nicest and look very professional, rounded cables are the way to go. You can round your IDE and floppy cables however they will not look as good or as professional as professionally rounded ones. I will not be testing whether there will be a drop in temperature while using rounded cables because in previous testing I have seen no difference in temperatures, if there was it was only about a degree which could be attributed to many things.
I got 2 different cables from Case-Mod the first is a 10″ blue floppy cable. I really like this cable a lot for a few reasons. Its very short, only 10″ long which is great because there is no reason for it to be any longer. It only has 1 plug, I really like this because I have never used more than 1 floppy and the 2nd plug always got in the way. They also have pull-tabs so that you cab easily remove them.
The rounded IDE cable has braided silver mesh underneath a clear insulation. This rounded cable will support ATA133 and also has pull-tabs which are very nice. This cable is 24″ which is a good size for a mid tower or even a full tower.
Both of the cables use high quality wires inside of them for the best data transfer speeds and quality. They also look cool.
Test Bed
- AOpen AK77 Pro(A)-133
- 1.2Ghz Thunderbird
- SVC Glacial Cooler 68
- 256MB Crucial PC2100
- Abit Siluro Geforce 4 MX440
- Gigafast 10/100 NIC
- Enermax CS-003-A106 case w/ 300w PSU
I took a picture of my test bed setup before I had the rounded cables and after I had them installed as you can see my case looks A LOT better and less cluttered. The ugly gray flat cables are gone and now have colorful professional looking rounded ones installed.
Conclusion
As you can see from the before and after pictures of my case the rounded cables really look a lot better. When rounded cables first came out they were very expensive and not a lot of people were willing to pay the price which was being asked. Now that some time has passed and more are available on the market the price has really gone down. The blue 10″ floppy cable is only $4.99 and the 24″ braided silver ATA133 cable is only $10.48. There are many different sizes, colors, and types of rounded cables which are available at Case-Mod so head on over and check out what they have.
Pros:
- Great low price
- Makes your case look a lot neater
- Floppy cable has 1 connection and is short
- IDE cable supports ATA133
