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Adding SSD will improve gaming performance?

Joined
Nov 5, 2014
Messages
22
I'm thinking of adding a SSD to my system to speed up the time to run the games and to have info transferred quicker. Any suggestions, I'm thinking a 128GB or 256GB.
 
In a lot of cases loading will be significantly faster however some games you will not have a big difference.

In either case I would not bother with a 128GB model these days since the price difference is not that much to a 256 GB model.

I recommend Samsung, Crucial or Intel.
 
Yes. An SSD is all around faster in everything vs a mechanical drive, the only place it loses its competitiveness is price where older tech is still cheaper $/GB. I'm a Samsung fan personally, but depending on mobo form factor and empty available slots, best of may vary.

BTW: If you are a newb just trying to get enough posts to start selling in FS - the mods / admins will delete your posts and you won't get any credit anyway, so idiot posting not really a good way to intro yourself (e.g. should I upgrade from VGA?).
 
You would see a nice improvement in overall system speed. Games loading time will be improved depending on the game. The prices of 128gb SSds are anywhere from 50-75 dollars which, IMO is a great way to improve your system and see the difference in speed. Like someone else said above the 250gb drives arent that much more expensive. I had a 128gb and felt that it was just barely enough for Windows and 2 or 3 games.
 
This Crucial MX100 256GB model for only $105 is about as good as you get for $$/GB. The 128gb version is only $70.

Really all you need right there, OP. Pull the trigger ;)

Edit:
-snip-

BTW: If you are a newb just trying to get enough posts to start selling in FS - the mods / admins will delete your posts and you won't get any credit anyway, so idiot posting not really a good way to intro yourself (e.g. should I upgrade from VGA?).

The OP is asking for recommendations, not a discourse on the benefits of getting a SSD.
 
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It is definately worth it for games that load frequently like MMO type games. On average it dropped loading times about 30s for me.
 
Do it, you will never look back! and dont buy it just for games, make the SSD your MainOS/ Game drive and move your other stuff to the mechanical drive.
 
Thats true. I think they have complete access to NAND flash from Toshiba and thats all they use now for their stuff.
 
In a lot of cases loading will be significantly faster however some games you will not have a big difference.

In either case I would not bother with a 128GB model these days since the price difference is not that much to a 256 GB model.

I recommend Samsung, Crucial or Intel.

256GB is enough? And which specific models?
 
@atp1916, cool MX100 looks like a good deal, but what about the OCZ or Sandisk, are they also worth considering?
 
Hey lee,
The OCZ Arc 100 and Sandisk Ultra II are worth taking a look at, but i feel the MX100 warrants a recommend over both of those drives.
 
I wouldn't look at any OCZ drives, though they are probably less bad than they used to be.

Stick to Intel, Crucial, Samsung and Plextor, IMO. Maaaaybe Sandisk, but I personally wouldn't recommend TLC flash. Kingston HyperX drives are decent, but don't even consider their non-HyperX drives.

The MX100 is a great drive for the price. You can also find deals on old stock of Crucial M500, M550 for cheap. Also some slightly older Samsung or Intel drives.

Check Slickdeals and Bensbargains.
 
256GB is enough? And which specific models?


No, it is never enough. We tell ourselves that we don't need 1TB+ SSD's, but we still want them. I would always recommend 256GB over 128GB though because it's just too little nowadays without making huge concessions. Even 480/512GB should be looked at more as the standard IMO.

As far as models go. If I could do it again I'd go with just about anything from Samsung in the 830/840/850 models depending on the best deal you can find. Samsung is pretty much the leader at this point.
 
I also do not recommend 128GB, and even 256GB runs out quickly if you intend to put games on it. You can get 960GB M500s for under $350 sometimes.

I have a 120GB Intel 320 and am waiting to be able to afford an Intel (or Samsung) PCI-E SSD of 512GB+ (800GB if Intel)... Most of my games have to be installed on a good old mechanical HDD. 256GB would allow many of them to be installed on the SSD, but still not all.
 
I wouldn't look at any OCZ drives, though they are probably less bad than they used to be.

Stick to Intel, Crucial, Samsung and Plextor, IMO. Maaaaybe Sandisk, but I personally wouldn't recommend TLC flash. Kingston HyperX drives are decent, but don't even consider their non-HyperX drives.

The MX100 is a great drive for the price. You can also find deals on old stock of Crucial M500, M550 for cheap. Also some slightly older Samsung or Intel drives.

Check Slickdeals and Bensbargains.

Never had any problems with any of my OCZ drives. And if I did, OCZ offers ShieldPlus warranty which is sick, they get ur unid and send you a new at no cost :cool:
 
Never had any problems with any of my OCZ drives. And if I did, OCZ offers ShieldPlus warranty which is sick, they get ur unid and send you a new at no cost :cool:

Lots of problems with Vertex, Vertex 2 drives plus NAND lotteries are somewhat unacceptable, IMO. Newer ones are probably not as bad, but as far as I'm concerned, they have not proven themselves to be worth another chance.
 
he's the only gaming downside of an SSD - in games like dragon age III
it's hard to read all the History text / use info between the loading screen because the zone loads so fast
 
Loading speeds are indeed faster on SSD's. but now games like BF4 have timers set,
so scrubs with HDD's can get their tanks...
would recommend the Crucial MX100's for their price for storage capacity.
and for "reliability" of SSD's chances are, that any newer SSD's will outlast your Motherboards - plural..
SSD Endurance test - 2 Petabytes! on Techreport

and DimmDrive on steam looks like an interesting piece of load times booster, if you got the extra RAM to spare that is. but i'll wait for that program to mature, before I spend money on it.
 
If you manage your OS SSD well, the system and most applications shouldn't take up that much space (mine takes up only 40GB, thats with OS, Office, Codec, NOD32, etc). I moved the documents and downloads folders to my platter drive as I found the save games and all that took much more space than I liked. With a 120GB drive, that should leave about 50GB left for 1~2 games, depending on the amount of apps you have.
 
In terms of FPS? Absolutely not. In terms of loading times? Dramatically, which is often important in open world games like GTA where going to a new area needs the map to be loaded.
 
No, it is never enough. We tell ourselves that we don't need 1TB+ SSD's, but we still want them. I would always recommend 256GB over 128GB though because it's just too little nowadays without making huge concessions. Even 480/512GB should be looked at more as the standard IMO.

As far as models go. If I could do it again I'd go with just about anything from Samsung in the 830/840/850 models depending on the best deal you can find. Samsung is pretty much the leader at this point.

For sure, I'd consider Samsung, they're the biggest brand for SSD, but they also cost a bit more, for example 840EVO 256GB is $135-140, but Crucial or OCZ is just around 100 bucks...
 
Go with OCZ ARC100 if you're tight on budget, but got extra money go with Samsung 840EVO!
 
Go with OCZ ARC100 if you're tight on budget, but got extra money go with Samsung 840EVO!

840 Evo is still a value drive with low-quality non-3D TLC NAND, so I wouldn't really list it as the "splurge" option.... It could be argued that the 3D TLC NAND in the 850 Evo is good enough since they increased the process node (and stacked them vertically to make up for the space lost by doing that). Not that 840 Evo is crap; it's just... not worthy of being the high-end option.
 
For sure, I'd consider Samsung, they're the biggest brand for SSD, but they also cost a bit more, for example 840EVO 256GB is $135-140, but Crucial or OCZ is just around 100 bucks...

I wouldn't worry about getting the fastest or best SSD for gaming. The actual real world difference between SSDs in terms of game loading is very low. Even a Ramdisk (which is more than an order of magnitude faster than the fastest SSD) is barely faster in real terms.

Price, capacity, and reliability over speed is more beneficial for the typical consumer. The sell, by various parties, to the average person for a "high end" SSD is extremely misleading.
 
I've been so impressed with the Msata SSD boot drive in my Lenovo T420 that I do plan on adding an SSD to my Desktop too. Much faster.
 
Unless you have an ultra new fully optimized system, almost any reasonably modern SSD will make a big difference in your gaming experience. You don't need the latest and greatest SSD to get a large benefit. Primarily helps in start up and area transition times. Don't expect much help with FPS or ping times. Don't underestimate the help of fast loading times. Especially when you are in game and have to recover from a game client crash in the middle of a battle. :eek:

I adopted early and have a 128 and a newer 256 in mine. OS is on the 128, games on the 256. Have a 1TB spinning disk as well. I try to change the game's install location to the D(256) instead of the more normal ProgramFiles or MyDocuments. Also point the various temp file folders to the spinning disk.

Some articles suggest leaving a few gigs unallocated when you partition, claiming it helps with the SSD's normal wear leveling routines.
 
Lots of problems with Vertex, Vertex 2 drives plus NAND lotteries are somewhat unacceptable, IMO. Newer ones are probably not as bad, but as far as I'm concerned, they have not proven themselves to be worth another chance.

That's like 5 years ago. Hardly a recent example. Also they used the Sandforce controller similar to what Intel later put in their own drives. If you're buying 5 year old SSD's then buy the old Intels with the old Intel controller (slow transfer speeds by today's standards but reliable), but if you're buying new, I would give OCZ under Toshiba another try depending on the price.
 
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