Dude, the difference is night and day with HID. The bulbs are going to last longer, and make your bike look newer / better. If you're going for visibility as well, HIDs blow up the road. Definitely my favorite mod that I've done!

 

don't waste your time with the bulbs, you will put them in see they are not what they were advertised and order you a hid kit. believe me its worth it,when you ride with guys that have standard and zeon bulbs you will outshine the by 200% ,not only that the hid is under 15w compared to the 35 of the standards

 

HIDs are 35W, standard bulbs are 55W.

To the original poster, those bulbs on Ebay are junk. Avoid them. If you want a good halogen bulb, look for a pair of Osram Silverstar, Philips VisionPlus or Narva RangePower 55W +50% Ultra high efficiency bulbs. They are not very common, and cost more than average halogens, but will have the BEST output of a halogen bulb. Anything coated with blue or other colors kills the light output and is there only for color.

Here is an example of the bulbs mentioned (Osram Silverstar version)

That said, HIDs are worth the money in my opinion. Just keep the temperature rating within reason. 8,000K is a typical limit. 10,000K is still brighter than halogens (but not by a ton), but it has a lot of color output which will suck when it comes to dark-colored and/or wet roads.

 

i though 4500k was the ideal limit for best performance? I think i'm going to go with the HIDs, hopefully it'll clear up some of the crazy wires I have going on.

 

Couple things to note:

Caveat; HID's are illegal to simply add in to your stock housing. Bottom line.

Regular Quartz Halogen reflector housings are designed specifically for Quartz Halogen/Xenon bulbs, HID bulbs are specifically designed for Projector lens/housings.

4500K is the most efficient temp/spectrum for visible light from what I've read, yes. I believe all OEM projector HID's are pretty much all 4500K

Having said all that, all the people who retrofit HID's into their bikes/cars unmodified QH housings, including me, ignore the illegality and do it anyway.

The difference is, some are blatant about it, not caring or realizing that they dazzle or possibly annoy other motorists, by having their headlights aimed improperly, and choosing Cop Magnet bulbs like blue and purple, etc.

For me, I picked 6000K as the best compromise between colour (it looks very white, without being too noticeably blue) and actual visible brightness (the reason I didn't pick the 4500-5500K range) thinking in theory, it might help reduce the glare a tiny bit.

In addition, my headlight housings are the Line Beam design, which have a pronounced overhang above the bulb, making for a very crisp cut off line and not relying solely on lens fluting and/or reflector faceting.

I also chose to aim my headlight down further, and note where the cut off line was best for opposing traffic to not be bothered. This was ok for me because I don't travel on the highway at night, and my 125 only goes so fast, so I don't exactly have to sweat over-riding my headlight beam, LOL


This, right or wrong, was my rationale and justification for doing the HID convert. The main reason I did it in the first place, was to free up some watts from the alternator, so I could add other accessories without over taxing the the electical system/battery, but that's another story...

 

4500k is the best range if you want the highest possible light output from your HIDs. However anything up to 8,000k will still be brighter than a standard halogen. It's up to you if the extra blue/purple color is worth a slightly dimmer bulb.