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Is Smart Response Technology worth it?

kevineugenius

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Dec 9, 2006
Messages
1,415
I run all my progs off of a 10k HD so I think the benefit to me would be slightly less than for a 7.2k user, but Gigabyte claims I can expect a 4x speed boost in HD performance. Firstly, is that true? Secondly, will it even be noticeable? I might see faster wake-up times, I might get Team Fortress to load a little quicker (I think Steam is the bottleneck there, not my HD), but honestly I'm not certain that it would be worth even a $75 investment.
 
Honestly it would be better to just flat out get a SSD for your core programs/OS. Smart Response is variable, it all depends on if you use some programs very frequently. The first time you use it, there will be no change, but as it learns your usage history it will adapt, and you'll see some boosts to load speeds.

However, it still won't match that of just a SSD. In terms of HDD vs SSD, even a 10k HDD won't match the speed of a SATA III SSD like the Crucial M4. As for whether it's worth it or not, that's purely up to you. Does those extra few seconds of load time bother you? Or are you content waiting for Windows to load, or if you game, for levels to load?

For comparison, I have windows 7 on a crucial m4 SSD, and it takes literally 2 seconds for Windows to load. I'm very impatient, and I HATE waiting for stuff to load, so I love my SSD.
 
I don't think I would mess with SRT to cache a 10K drive. I'd just spend the money on a decent sized OS/applications SSD instead. The technology does work, but the benefit/price ratio is a little uncertain.
 
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