[Aristotle]

Here is a link to one that is somewhat in the sphere of gamers, 32gig at approx 300 USD :

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820147021


Here is a review of a 64gig Samsung card:

http://www.engadget.com/tag/ssd/


Interesting to note:

1) Start up speed was 30 seconds instead of 90 s with a 5200 rpm hd.

2) 32 gig is all you need for windows and one or two big programs.

3) Completely silent(obviously) and consumes less power - great for heat sensitive rigs and laptops.



Now for playing games, what would be the best setup? One 32 gig ssd for windows + one 10k rpm hd for the game? Maybe 2 times 32 gig ssd, one for windows and one for the main game? Maybe one ssd for both windows and the game, or maybe no ssd because it is still slower??


May the computer geniuses of this forum come forth and opinionate!

[evilsofa]

$414 when I clicked. Have they dealt with the limited write cycles problem yet? And is it really faster than current spinning hard drives?

SSDs are in their infancy, and it's going to be awhile before they are past the early adopter stage, but I have been predicting they will replace spinning hard drives faster than anyone expects, even faster than the LCD replaced the CRT and, like the LCD, earlier than should have been done. I really do see a lot of parallels between the CRT->LCD and spinning hard drive->solid state drive changes.

At this point, let other people find out the long-term problems with SSDs before jumping on it yourself.

[Tomcrit]

Originally Posted by evilsofa

$414 when I clicked. Have they dealt with the limited write cycles problem yet? And is it really faster than current spinning hard drives?

The tech in these is different from the flash drives and cards etc Evil so the write cycle problem doesn't occur in these.
Some tests on running windows from normal flash drives burnt through the write cycle limit in less than 24 hours. That wouldn't be cool for one of these acting as a system disk you would end up with a 400$ coaster in less than a week.

[Kriptical]

Its exciting to see the shiny, even if its not a viable option for us yet.

[Kriptical]

Oh what a bargain! ....more overpriced shiny, Hyperdrive 4 $1500 Be pretty cool in a couple years to have one of these for system files at least.

[rabb1t]

Originally Posted by Aristotle

1) Start up speed was 30 seconds instead of 90 s with a 5200 rpm hd.

Thing is that desktop drives are 7200 RPM. Even most laptops these days use 7200 RPM from what I've seen instead of the old 5200 RPM. The source on that didn't really do their homework (or are specifically targeting a laptop user audience.)

Now for playing games, what would be the best setup? One 32 gig ssd for windows + one 10k rpm hd for the game? ... May the computer geniuses of this forum come forth and opinionate!

So...

Option A: $300 + $200 at ~180 gig of space, so $500 total for 180 gig of space...
compared to
Option B: $75 for 250 gig of space + second 8800 GT + spending $175 more on the CPU.

Option A will likely load maybe 25% faster on the average, so instead of looking at that loading screen for say 15 seconds, you'll be looking at it for 10.5 seconds, while Option B will display the game at around 25-50% faster framerates, meaning the time you actually spend playing will run much faster, and you'd see say 67.5 FPS vs. 45 FPS.

Me, I'd go with Option B. Of course, option C would be to simply not spend the extra money on that gain and you'll notice that by comparing to option B said not spent money pays for an 8800 GT and higher-end C2D like the E6550/E6750.

When solid state is truly mainstream in cost and as fast, or faster, than a regular drive in all applications, then it would be worth it. Right now, particularly since you are just looking at a difference of load time, not actual game performance while you are playing, it just isn't worth the cost.

Give it a few years. Then we will probably be good to go on solid state.

[Holymoly]

Sorry....ignore

[janelled]

I can't remember when or where I read it, but apparently benchmarks have shown that Raptors are still faster all around drives than the SSDs... And far cheaper. I'll look for them now.

[rabb1t]

Yes and no. They are faster than many of the cheaper SSDs, but there are a few which are significantly faster. Though it is again important to note that said "faster" gain is only in load times and really doesn't matter much for gaming.

We are the very starting point of gamers wanting to consider such things, but again I'd put it well below every last other upgrade in your system, X-Fi sound card, Logitech Z-5500 speaker set, dual high end graphic cards.

My recommendations for SSD are really up there along with using the Samsung UN40B6000 for a monitor.