New SSD a waste of $$?

[boles]

So i am fighting off the urge to upgrade my entire system. I figured i would simply upgrade to an SSD to gain some performance in my current setup. I did research and decided to get the OCZ Vertex 2 120GB. I was trying to get an idea of what kind of boost i would get and came to find out i might waste my time based on my current rig: EVGA 780i w/ q9300 & 8gb

From what i have read this board might not allow for the full advantage of a SSD. Short story am i setting myself for endless headaches and disappointment expecting to get a boost out of an SSD in this system?

 

[DaFinest]

It's not worth it at all imo unless you have money to blow, only difference you'll notice is booting up. Go with a new vid card/cpu or something.

 

[taltamir]

It's not worth it at all imo unless you have money to blow, only difference you'll notice is booting up. Go with a new vid card/cpu or something.

you mean:
booting up
loading game levels
reduced texture popping
saving games
loading games
installing games/software
installing patches
copying files
compressing files
video encoding
program compiling
and more.

although, to be fair this does not apply equally to all situations... for example, loading games can be much faster or the same speed depending on the game.
also, tbh booting up isn't all that much faster because MOST of the bootup time is spent in the BIOS, the seconds it takes once windows itself starts loading have been shortened but meh.

 

[boles]

Well i use my machine mostly for software dev and my current bottleneck seems to be disk io. Overall my machine just doesnt seem to be as 'snappy' as it once was due to more crap on my system i guess.

In regards to my MB: will it allow for the full capacity of the SSD?

 

[Anubis]

they are worth it however at this point id wait until the Gen 3 drives come out and get one of them or get a Gen 2 for a lot less as they are being cleared out

 

[BBMW]

Why? I think the pop from no SSD to a gen2 SSD would me much greater than gen2 SSD to gen3 SSD.

they are worth it however at this point id wait until the Gen 3 drives come out and get one of them or get a Gen 2 for a lot less as they are being cleared out

 

[BBMW]

What OS are you running (and is it the 64 bit version)?

Well i use my machine mostly for software dev and my current bottleneck seems to be disk io. Overall my machine just doesnt seem to be as 'snappy' as it once was due to more crap on my system i guess.

In regards to my MB: will it allow for the full capacity of the SSD?

 

[Termie]

From what i have read this board might not allow for the full advantage of a SSD.

What have you read? I've never heard of a motherboard-specific problem with SSDs (unless you didn't have SATA2, which I assume you do). We can help more if you share the information you've read.

 

[taltamir]

Why? I think the pop from no SSD to a gen2 SSD would me much greater than gen2 SSD to gen3 SSD.

because they should be out in less than a month.

 

[Old Hippie]

In regards to my MB: will it allow for the full capacity of the SSD?

You're probably talking about the difference between an AMD and Intel chipset?

The Intel is usually the better chipset but I'm gonna let you find out which one your MB uses.

5, 4, 3, 2, 1..........and the answer is............

 

[Snooper]

I just upgraded my system to the Patriot 120Gb SSD. My old system used a 300GB Velocirapor as the boot drive, but I had all my games and applications installed on a 5 disk RAID 5 (running on a 4320 RAID card).

My results were that boot was about twice as fast (from windows starting to load to desktop with everything loaded and read to run. The rest of the BOIS boot still takes forever) on the SSD.

The results with loading games and applications was pretty much a draw. I can't tell a difference between loading off the RAID and off the SSD. Of course, my RAID is almost 50% faster than the SSD in sequential reads, so loading apps is VERY quick on the RAID.

The other area that has noticeably improved is shutdown. All in all, it is probably NOT worth the money for me, but I am in a different situation than most people due to the performance of the RAID. The computer does feel a bit quicker in day to day usage, so it is probably IS worth it and it would definitely be a bigger jump for most people.

 

[RavenSEAL]

you mean:
booting up
loading game levels
reduced texture popping
saving games
loading games
installing games/software
installing patches
copying files
compressing files
video encoding
program compiling
and more.

although, to be fair this does not apply equally to all situations... for example, loading games can be much faster or the same speed depending on the game.
also, tbh booting up isn't all that much faster because MOST of the bootup time is spent in the BIOS, the seconds it takes once windows itself starts loading have been shortened but meh.

Games can only improve as far as the GPU will let em.

 

[taltamir]

Games can only improve as far as the GPU will let em.

have you bothered reading what I said? The GPU ONLY helps with the FPS, not once did I mention FPS. I mentioned level load speed, and texture popping, game saving delay, game loading delay, and and install speeds. None of those have anything to do with the GPU.
The FPS will indeed not be changed by an SSD.

 

[GundamF91]

SSD is worth it, I just got it and it definitely saves time.

 

[capeconsultant]

Worth it all day long. I would wait till the round 3 at this point. I will be looking closely myself. I like my Corsair Nova 128, but I never kept any hard drive for long as I like to upgrade storage when possible for more speed.

So, why should I be any different with SSD's?

 

[zCypher]

I'd say it's worth it, unless you don't do much with your system. If you spend lots of time on your computer, especially productive time, you'll appreciate the continual savings of time for sure.

Me, I upgraded from an old slow 80GB hdd to a 1TB WD Black, which is much much faster. After the SSD has matured some more and prices have come down I will definitely pick one up as a boot drive. Would not call it a waste of $ though even at today's prices.

 

[sub.mesa]

SSDs are the biggest breakthrough in performance consumers have ever had. No CPU upgrade, RAM upgrade (aside from quantity) or other upgrade benefits the average consumer more than an SSD. The point is that CPUs have become very powerful, and now the challenge is to keep your CPU from spending most of its time in IOWAIT, waiting for data from HDD to arrive. One HDD seek can waste as much as 20 000 000 (20 million) CPU cycles, and that's just counting one core. (i used 10ms as seek time)

For that reason, a low-powered CPU + SSD works much better for the average consumer than a high-performance CPU + HDD.

This starts changing if you have specific needs. Only few people do video trans/encoding. If you're one of them, an SSD won't help here.

Also gamers might prefer spending money on CPU+GPU instead. Though there are exceptions. The most common exception is World of Warcraft, which does fairly random reads on its 20GB data files; an SSD can actually help FPS here since this game does not and cannot preload all data into RAM. So while other games read all data in one big chunk which works well on HDD, Warcraft may benefit from an SSD and improve user FPS. More RAM will help too, but that still means you have to play for awhile before all data is cached to RAM, an SSD will allow you to play without hickups even after a reboot.

So keep in mind average consumers who run internet apps and care mostly for loading/waiting time, which is bound by disk rather than CPU, while gamers and other specific users may have more benefit investing in CPU+GPU instead, rather than SSD. Determine your own needs and spend your money wisely, is my recommendation.

If you buy an SSD, then do wait a couple months. Two reasons:
1) there will be newer, better, safer, faster third-generation SSDs available
2) the existing second-generation SSDs will fall in price, making them more accessible to users wanting an SSD but waiting for prices to drop.

January-March generally is a weak quarter, meaning low demand and high supply = good prices. 2011 will an interesting year for consumers interested in SSD.

 

[lmccrary]

All I know is my Vertex 2 increased my system performance enough to delay a complete rebuild. I think it is money well spent. Once you do decide to build a new system, transfer the Vertex 2 to it.

 

[Rifter]

you mean:
booting up
loading game levels
reduced texture popping
saving games
loading games
installing games/software
installing patches
copying files
compressing files
video encoding
program compiling
and more.

although, to be fair this does not apply equally to all situations... for example, loading games can be much faster or the same speed depending on the game.
also, tbh booting up isn't all that much faster because MOST of the bootup time is spent in the BIOS, the seconds it takes once windows itself starts loading have been shortened but meh.

I would have to be made of money to buy a SSD big enough to install my games onto(740GB).

IMO SSD's are only cheap enough for boot drives at this time.

 

[tweakboy]

I agree with all of you on different points.

yes saving and loading. But at the end of the day your RAM is the one that is gonna make the difference in a speedy system or a slow system.

120GB for 400 dollars compared to 160 dollars for a EVGA SC GTX 460 1GB

Also their capacity is too low and we still dont know much info on their lifespan or if they give out in couple years etc.

You have a good system OP ,,, upgrade on video card and/or get a 1TB drive for 60 bucks.

 

[taltamir]

I would have to be made of money to buy a SSD big enough to install my games onto(740GB).

you don't install the entire collection... only the games you play right now, and of those only those who benefit the most from SSD.

 

[ChrisAttebery]

You are missing the point. There is NO CPU or RAM upgrade that is going to speed up throughput of your system by ~10X like a SSD will. Your entire system speed is dependent on drive IO speed. Yes, once you get it loaded into RAM the system will be limited by RAM speed, but you can't buy RAM that is 10X faster than what's in 99% of the systems out there.

Your PC is only as fast as the slowest component which has always been permanent storage.

I agree with all of you on different points.

yes saving and loading. But at the end of the day your RAM is the one that is gonna make the difference in a speedy system or a slow system.

120GB for 400 dollars compared to 160 dollars for a EVGA SC GTX 460 1GB

Also their capacity is too low and we still dont know much info on their lifespan or if they give out in couple years etc.

You have a good system OP ,,, upgrade on video card and/or get a 1TB drive for 60 bucks.

 

[Tsavo]

Are they worth it? Who knows, but I just sprung for an Intel 120GB. Right price, right size.

Given all the gaga I do over my Samsung F3 vs all the other platter drives I've got, I was wondering why I thought SSD's weren't worth it. I'm guessing I'll love it because I love my F3's and this is a much larger jump from a WD Black to an F3.

And yeah, I know the G3 drives are due out soon, but I'm not an early adopter on these things and I'm going to wait 6 months to see if the G3's have any problems.

If the G3's are all that and a bottle of rum, then my 2nd PC will get the G2.

 

[sxr7171]

So i am fighting off the urge to upgrade my entire system. I figured i would simply upgrade to an SSD to gain some performance in my current setup. I did research and decided to get the OCZ Vertex 2 120GB. I was trying to get an idea of what kind of boost i would get and came to find out i might waste my time based on my current rig: EVGA 780i w/ q9300 & 8gb

From what i have read this board might not allow for the full advantage of a SSD. Short story am i setting myself for endless headaches and disappointment expecting to get a boost out of an SSD in this system?

When I read your title I assumed that you meant an upgrade of your current SSD, as I could not really fathom the concept of an upgrade from a HDD to SSD being a waste of money. I entered the thread to write "yes mostly likely an upgrade from your current SSD to a newer SSD is a waste of money". Then I realized that you meant an upgrade from a HDD to an SSD.

I don't know how many times it needs to said that HDDs are the biggest bottlenecks in computing period. CPUs are faster than they need to be except for a few computational intensive tasks like transcoding.

There is IMHO no better way to improve your overall computing experience than an SSD. It is only after an SSD that you can think about other upgrades with diminishing returns of course.

If your question revolves around your MB being too old, I'd have to say that MBs don't really change that much over the years. Also the Q9300 is a darn fast processor by any standard and if you O/C it, it is right up there with today's best.

 

[Dadofamunky]

This is a really good thread at the right time for me.

Getting ready to do essentially a mobo swap, from C2D E8600 to i7 950, keeping everything else essentially the same for now (maybe a new video card). My RAID boot drive is too big (~190 GB) even after ruthless pruning, for a smaller SSD. So I'm looking at spending as much for the SSD as for the rest of the upgrade, doubling my cost. Is the undeniable performance boost in Disk I/O worth it? Can't be sure, but I know there would be significant benefit. But having a new generation of drives coming out soon ices it for me. I'll stick with cheap RAID and wait for awhile.