I was sent a set of Akasa UV-reactive rounded IDE cables for testing along with the Silver Mountain 2 heatsink. GillianChung was sent a set of Coolermaster rounded cables by the lovely people at Case-mod.com. rayz00 bought a set of cables from nexfan and sent me a review he'd written of them. Since they are essentially the same product I bundled our 3 accounts together for this makeshift threes-up.
GC sent me his account of the Coolermaster cables a long time ago. His account didn't have any benchmarks but being the in-depth reviewer I am I had run tests on my cables. I would assume the Coolermaster cables would have a similar if not almost identical performance, but then you know what they say about assumption..
rayz00 didn't seem overly impressed with his and seemed to give up on trying to find any redeeming features, lol.
Anyway, on with the show.

Firstly, I have to say that these cables look the nuts. I know appearance probably isn't top priority for most people's choice of IDE cable, something that generally comes bundled along with the motherboard anyway, but in a windowed system these really will improve aesthetics. What's more, the packaging claims the coating on these particular cables is UV reactive - under UV light these babies will supposedly glow nice and bright. Pointless of course, but funky nonetheless. Here, have a look:

A major selling point of round IDE cables is that they improve the airlow inside a case. This is undoubtedly true - ribbon cables will have quite a detrimental effect on airflow since they occupy so much area. It's very difficult to tuck standard ribbon IDE cables out of the way, simply due to their design. The tech-savvy among you will know that the new SATA cables are much more compact than standard [P]ATA cables. But until you can afford new drives, these rounded jobbies will have to do.
The round cables are much easier to work with, and are much less of an obstacle to airflow. Whether or not this will have a noticeable effect on system temperatures I'm not so sure. In a very high airflow system I suppose it would make more difference. I have the two front fans in my PC60 set to low all the time, just to offer some small amount of cooling to the hard disks behind them. I don't think the airflow issue will make much difference to me, nor will it to the majority. But since these cables aren't really targetted at Joe Public, you hardcore overclockers might be able to squeeze an extra few MHz with a bit more air flowing around.

To me the more important issue with these cables is whether they perform as well (or even better) than the product they aim to replace. If they're slower than standard ribbon cables their benefits may well be overshadowed. To check the performance of the cables, I ran the SiSoft Sandra file system benchmark with both flat and the rounded cables, testing at ATA66 and ATA100. The results were somewhat surprising:

Flat cable, ATA66

Akasa cable, ATA66

Flat cable, ATA100

Akasa cable, ATA100

As you can see, the round Akasa cables actually performed better than my standard flat ribbon cables! I had heard a lot of talk about round cables lowering performance, but these results blow that argument away (for these Akasa cables at least). There's no huge increase, as you can clearly see, but seeing as we were testing for a slight decrease in performance the evident increase is a nice surprise.

I'm well impressed, and the Akasa cables are now permanently installed in my system. What's more, they look great through the window I have in my case. With a UV light they do glow up pretty brightly. I'm not sure if I'm a fan of the glowing look or not, but there's no denying they stand out.

My camera unfortunately doesn't pick up the effect of the UV cathode on the cable wrapping too well. It's slightly (although not hugely) more noticeable in real life. The glow does look pretty good, but with other case lighting (my blue and red neons and cathode for example) the glow gets overpowered. However, having look at alternative products, I'd have to say the coating on these cables is more "glow in the dark" than it is "UV reactive". After powering down the cables retain glow much like the hands on a watch. The UV reactive cables I have seen marketed by other companies have a much more obvious glow under UV. Maybe I'll get my hands on some to highlight the difference.

My Springer-esque final thought? A great product, with a surprising (if only very small) performance hike over the standard cables. A worthy purchase.

Techangel.co.uk would again like to thank Sarfaraz Rydhan from Case-mod.com for sending the rounded cables for review. Be sure to check out his site as they have a good variety of computer modification items for sale there.

Rounded cables have been around for a while now in the computer enthusiast market but many people does not know the benefits of these cables. Most novices think that these cables are only bought for looks with no practical purposes. Therefore, today I’ll be review both case-mod.com's silver and blue rounded ATA 133 cables and show you the difference it really makes.

The 24" silver cable.
The blue version	The floppy drive cable

Both the rounded cables available at case-mod.com are quality made and there are differences between the blue and silver rounded cables. The blue are the typical rounded cables but the problem with most of these are they aren’t that flexible. However, the silver cable was quite flexible because it seems to have a thinner plastic coating than the blue. As well, both these cables have the capability of ATA 133, which would satisfy many newer Maxtor hard drive owners, since most their drives are ATA 133 instead of ATA100.

In my computer, the system dropped 3°c when idle and dropped a mere 1°c when I was looping through 3dmark 2001SE after an hour and maintaining the same room temperature throughout. This shows that rounded cables do help cool your system a little bit more because it will allow better air flow throughout your case. There are still some people that don’t believe round cables can cool the case. Again, try this experiment yourself, and test the rounded cables. Simply use a spraying perfume bottle and spray a very little amount in a flat IDE cable installed case. You will notice that the small scent would not travel that well throughout the case because the flat IDE cables are blocking the airflow. The scent is heavily concentrated in parts of the case because of this. After you have done that, let your case rest for another day to let the scent die. Then install your rounded cables and perform the same thing. The round IDE cables do not obstruct the perfume scent and it will spread evenly throughout the case. You will notice the difference!

Overall, these cables are worth the high price that it costs. They are definitely much better than flat IDE cables and are made with quality. I recommend everyone to get it because they not only cool the computer, but they look very nice and make the computer interior tidy as well. I personally prefer the silver rounded cable because it looks wonderful and is flexible. It looks great inside the computer, especially if you have a modded window in your case. Case-mod.com now has “glow in the dark” rounded cables so go to their site and take a look. I’m hoping I can get the chance to review that rounded cable as well.

No need GC, looks like I've got that covered! - mrplow

Today, we are going to check out some rounded cables, but not just any rounded cables, they are silver braided ones. By now, you have been bombarded with a review of rounded cables, but here are some more. The ones I got were from nexfan.com, pretty decent place; it is located in Pennsylvania, United States.

I bought 3 cables, an 18 inch ata 133 double device cable, this is a standard cable, for two ide peripherals for $6.99 usd, 1 10 inch, single device ata 133 for $4.99 usd, and a 10 inch single device floppy cable for $3.99. Standard shipping cost $6.06 usd.

My first impressions of these cables are, "they're big". These were bigger then my generic rounded cables, they were pretty bulky compared to them. My second impression was, "pretty". You have to realize that the bulky came before the pretty.

Another thing I noticed was they did not have a tab to pull on, when you plug it in, you have to pull on the cable, but if you had a tab, it would make it easier. Another negative I saw was that the booties kept coming off. It kept exposing the wire, I felt like I was going to rip the damn thing apart. Not only that, it felt kind of greasy overall.

I really can't recommend these cables, yeah they do look nice, and sure, they have ata 133 capabilities, but how many of us upgrade every single time something new comes out. A plus side is that they are cheap, but you know the saying, you get what you paid for. If you are on a tight budget, and you can only get the cheapest, my advice is... save up, there are better ones out there and they will surely make your life easier, and not only that, I am pretty sure that they look just as good. I would give these cables a 6/10, that's a 60%, which is a failing grade in my school.

Here at uni we strive for 60%... lol - mrplow

If you have any questions on a review I have done, I am a real person, not some drone or corporate tool, and you can contact me, I am frequently browsing the forums, my user name is rayz00 and all you have to do is post if you would like to know more on an item I have reviewed, I will give you the best information I can. The main thing I do on the computer is game and read online websites, so you can see why I review the way I review.
Thanks, rayz00.

The Akasa and Coolermaster cables have come out well. The nexfan cables however seem to have taken a bit of a beating from rayz00. It seems they are not up to the standards set by the big boys. Stick with the Akasa or Coolermaster products and we're confident you'll be happy with your purchase.

Related:
Akasa homepage.
Coolermaster homepage.
Case-mod.com.
Nexfan homepage

Our DIY guide to rounding cables. Ghetto style forever!