(11-29-2009, 05:54 AM)Bacon Wrote: Ditch SATA and buy a decent sized SSD, keep the PATA and use it to store all your media, and use the SSD for the o/s, dolphin, and other games, i guaruntee youll be satisfied 10 fold compared to using a SATA. You don't need to worry about defrag with a SSD either.
Currently. "decent-sized" SSD's (40GB - 64GB minimum for a boot drive) cost well over $100 USD. Seeing as how the OP is upgrading to SATA after 6 years, it doesn't sound very financially viable. Sure they're damn fast, but it's not for everyone (yet) because of the prices.
The hard drive is the slowest component in a computer. Like maikarro said, you will notice quicker boot times in your OS and applications, but after that, it's all on your CPU, RAM, GPU, etc.