SATA 3 SSD Roundup Review
Introduction and Setup
Published: 27th February 2012 | Source: OC3D | Price: |
Introduction
Solid State Drives are constantly becoming cheaper and cheaper, whilst the performance is increasing massively from the first ones that we tested. Of course if you're going to grab a SSD you want the best performing one you can, and that means going SATA3. Even the average models will max a SATA II connection and its 300MB/s cap.
Benchmarking is always a tricky balance. On the one hand we want to give you the most up-to-date and relevant benchmark tests possible, but equally data in a vacuum is pointless and so we can't just endlessly chop and change.
One area that has been in need of some tweaking has been our storage testing though. A lot of the benchmark suites we've been using were originally designed with mechanical drives in mind rather than the blistering pace, and abilities, of Solid State Drives. As our storage reviews have solely focussed upon SSDs for a long while now, Velociraptor RAID notwithstanding, we felt it was time to finally refresh our suite.
Enter the Anvil SSD Benchmarking tool. This provides the simplest 'one stop shop' for testing Solid State Drives and is the most consistent method we've found to obtain the all important IOPS result. Regular readers will remember our brief trials with IOMeter for these, but Anvil manages to be both easier to use, much easier to configure, and more reliable with its output.
So we felt it was time to give a roundup of some of the most popular SATA 6Gbp/s SSDs on the market and see which one of them will come out on top.
Test Setup
We have four of the main drives on hand, the Intel 520, the Mushkin Chronos, the Corsair Force 3, and the Kingston Hyper X. All of these drives are the 240GB versions, so that we'll be comparing like for like. This is important as different sized Solid State Drives have differences in performance.
Intel 520
Mushkin Chronos
Corsair Force GT
Kingston Hyper X
Intel Core i7-3960X @ 4.6GHz
ASUS Rampage IV Extreme
nVidia GTX570
Corsair AX1200W
Corsair GTX8
Corsair H100
Windows 7 Ultimate x64
Most Recent Comments
to the SSD market. and thatll change with the months due to more and more technology and users of SSD.
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All prices are approx after a quick search:
Intel = £360
Mushkin - only found a price for 120gb = £170
Corsair = £280
Kingston = 300
Definately gettting bang for your buck.Quote
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F*** me, i'll get the 520 240GB sooner or later anyway...
edit: @leerory: Companies have quite different demands in terms of reliability, as such they pay more for that than raw POWER!!!!111
Quote Nice to have some other tests to compare with.QuoteQuoteGlad I bought a Corsair Force GT 120GB the other week. Awesome drive imo.Quote
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Originally Posted by Timbaloo
I'm not cheap, and i believe the intel 520 is one of if not the best SSD out there, but paying almost twice the money per GB compared to eg. the Mushkin Chronos is something to consider. ... F*** me, i'll get the 520 240GB sooner or later anyway... |
QuoteMushkin Chronos Deluxe - $279
Kingston HyperX Drive - $330
Kingston HyperX Kit - $350
Corsair Force GT - $330
Intel 520 Series retail- $370
Intel 520 Series OEM - $335
Price wise, the best is the Mushkin drive. As long as you don't mind getting a OEM package you can get the Intel for close to the same price as the Corsair and Kingston offerings. For the most part, most of us on here build our own computers and don't really need a retail package.
IMHO if I was going to pay extra for a drive I would get the HyperX kit, comes with the external case, screwdriver, migration software, sata and usb cables, and a 3.5" tray.
For me personally the Intel did perform the best, but I have really good luck out of corsair products and think I will continue to buy quality products they offer.
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As we bring a new benchmark to the OC3D suite of testing, we thought we'd give you a quick run through of some popular SSDs.
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