SAMSUNG 830 Series 2.5-Inch 128GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive $90 shipped at Amazon

Quote from FaTM1Ke : Well what's the point of having an SSD at all unless it's going in a laptop? Am I supposed to store my porn on it for immediate access? I plan on using my 128gb drive for windows/small programs and my eventual 256 drive for games/bigger programs. Really I just want to be the first person in game when playing LoL and BF3 though. I will store some porn on it though.

Get an external with the code lock or software security for that!

Quote from ikcizokm : There's really no benefit to running games from an SSD. You might notice a slight improvement in load times, but it certainly won't improve FPS, graphic quality, latency in online gaming, etc.

According to the article you posted, "In short, you'll see a substantial speed-up loading a level on a SSD compared to a hard drive." It's a "substantial" difference in load times. And, that's just with some crap Vertex drive. Real-world performance with a Samsung is better. Also, FPS and latency *will* be affected - think about the stuttering effect when loading sprites and other game effects. Diablo 3, for instance, runs much better off a SSD gameplay-wise than a HDD. How do I know? Because I've done a side-by-side comparison on my own computers.

Thabks for bringing this to light... I jumped on the Dell outlet deal and got a 15" refurbished i3 for $295, now this guy to boost some more speed for my parents.

With the new Samsung 840 series coming out in two weeks, do you think the price for the 830 will drop even more within the next month? I'm really tempted to bite on this deal for my first SSD, but I am willing to wait a few weeks if I could save another $20-$30 on this drive.

Advice and opinions are welcomed.

Quote from sigmaxix : According to the article you posted, "In short, you'll see a substantial speed-up loading a level on a SSD compared to a hard drive." It's a "substantial" difference in load times. And, that's just with some crap Vertex drive. Real-world performance with a Samsung is better. Also, FPS and latency *will* be affected - think about the stuttering effect when loading sprites and other game effects. Diablo 3, for instance, runs much better off a SSD gameplay-wise than a HDD. How do I know? Because I've done a side-by-side comparison on my own computers.

The crap Vertex should read just as a fast - it just may not last as long.

Ordered, thanks for the heads up. This is going in my wife's old Lenovo Y430 notebook which recently had it's hard drive fail.....

Quote from ikcizokm : There's really no benefit to running games from an SSD. You might notice a slight improvement in load times, but it certainly won't improve FPS, graphic quality, latency in online gaming, etc. Reference: http://www.tomshardware.com/revie...,2991.html

Upgrade Worthiness - SSD is the most important upgrade for performance in any computer ESPECIALLY for gamers, assuming you already have a capable graphics card. I will never own another computer without adding a solid state to it.

Load Times - Load times are dramatically reduced. On my new Ivy Bridge i5 Lenovo laptop with a 256GB Samsung 830 booting to windows is reduced from 30-40 seconds to 10-12 seconds. On my gaming desktop with an older 240GB OCZ Agility 3 game and level load times are 1/2 to 1/5 the time compared with my 1TB 7200rpm Seagate Barracuda.

I'm not finding many good examples, but here is an example from AnandTech which shows HDD, HDD + 20GB Intel cache, and 240GB Vertex 3. http://www.anandtech.com/ [anandtech.com]
Just adding a 20GB cache cuts the loading times of most Adobe products such as Photoshop and Premier to 1/2. Speed improvements may vary a lot by individual game and tend to improve level loading times more than game loading times. For example: their loading time on launching Portal 2 only dropped from 12 to 8.5 seconds on SSD, while average level load times on WoW went from 11.9 to 4.7 seconds. Huge difference!

FPS - Yes graphics quality is not improved, after the longer load time on a HDD it will look identical and ping should be the same; however, FPS is a trickier issue. While a SSD may only give you say a 5% increase in AVERAGE FPS, it can have a huge impact on MINIMUM FPS. At busy times where a HDD is thrashing and can't keep up your FPS can drop immensely while a SSD would be able to keep up and prevent that huge dip. Here is another example from AnandTech http://www.anandtech.com/ [anandtech.com]
In their benchmarks of Crysis the average FPS on a Seagate Barracuda is 44.1 vs 48.2 on an Intel X25-m. The minimum FPS, however, for the Seagate Barracuda was 12.2 vs 25.7 on the Intel X25-m, a much more playable FPS.


Buy a SSD and have a nice day.

Is Samsung better than intel 330?

Quote from homeless76 : Is Samsung better than intel 330?

I am tempted to give you a lmgtfy link...
Both are good, go for the 330 180GB if it is the same price than 830 128GB, you won't see the difference in performances, but you will appreciate the extra capacity.

I'm not sure why this deal has more repped points then the Intel 330 256g for $109... $20 and double the capacity seems no brainer for me.

oops... $109 is for 180 gig drive. This is still better bang for the buck.

Quote from wangcho78 : I'm not sure why this deal has more repped points then the Intel 330 256g for $109... $20 and double the capacity seems no brainer for me. oops... $109 is for 180 gig drive. This is still better bang for the buck.

Samsung 830 is more equivalent to Intel 520, quality, reliability and performance wise.

I guess but I only care about reliability and not speed. I don't think it matters too much if my window boots 10 sec vs 12 sec. Then again..I can see geeks caring about every little details. I'm just excited to own my first SSD!!!

Quote from wangcho78 : I guess but I only care about reliability and not speed. I don't think it matters too much if my window boots 10 sec vs 12 sec. Then again..I can see geeks caring about every little details. I'm just excited to own my first SSD!!!

And as I mentioned, RELIABILITY wise, the Samsung 830 > Intel 330. If you look at the roughly equivalent Intel (128GB 520 series) you are looking at 30 or 40.00 more than this Samsung deal.

Quote from chrisexv6 : And as I mentioned, RELIABILITY wise, the Samsung 830 > Intel 330. If you look at the roughly equivalent Intel (128GB 520 series) you are looking at 30 or 40.00 more than this Samsung deal.

My sentiments, exactly.