New Build/ Is a SSD worth it?

[potzy81]

I am building a new system in a couple weeks (waiting on the P67 boards) and was wondering if it would be worth purchasing an SSD?

My system is a 2500k and an AsRock P67 Extreme4 board.

If it is worth purchasing an SSD, which would should I get.

I am going to load Windows 7 64 bit, as well as MS Office, and some other programs. I am in school, so I have a lot of smaller files. I would like to spend under $200.

 

[JohnnyLucky]

It is probably worth buying a new ssd. The biggest hurdle for consumers right now is price. The new ssd's are very very expensive when compared to hard disk drives. Consumers compromise by purchasing a low capacity ssd for the operating system and just a small handful of most used applications. Everything else is stored on a hard disk drive.

The motherboard you selected has several SATA III (6 Gb/s) ports so you'll probably want an ssd that is SATA III (6 Gb/s) capable. That narrows the search down. The $200.00 budget further narrows your choices.

Here is a link to the 5 ssd's at newegg.com that meet your requirements:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100008120%20600038519%204017&IsNodeId=1&name=%24100%20-%20%24200

You'll notice they are all 64 Gb drives which means you'll have about 60 Gb for your operating system and a few other applications.

There are three 128 GB ssd's with prices starting at $244.00 for a Crucial C300:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100008120%20600038519%204018%20600038463&IsNodeId=1&name=2.5%22

Every once in a while Newegg sells that $244.00 Crucial ssd for $199.00. The Crucial ssd's are very popular with consumers. Since you are waiting to purchase the motherboard I recommend checking sales at newegg every day. On the newegg.com home page you will find two important links - one is for the daily deals and one is for email specials. Keep checking the daily deals and sign up for the email specials.

 

[geofelt]

Absolutely worth it. Everything will feel snappier.

Intel will give you good results with everyday workloads which are 90% small reads and writes.
Do not be seduced by high sequential benchmarks which do not reflect what we really do.

The 120gb drive is reasonably priced per gb at $229.99.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820167035

The Intel emcrest 510 drives will launch Marh 1, and be faster, but also more expensive at $280 for 120gb.

What you might do is get a 40gb or 80gb drive and add a cheap hard drive for overflow, storage, and backup.

 

[JohnnyLucky]

Geofelt - GEEZ! Almost had a heart attack when you mentioned Intel. Couldn't get over to newegg fast enough to check it out. Took a minute before I saw it was the current SATA II (3 Gb/s) ssd. I had SATA III (6 Gb/s) on the brain because potzy81 will be purchasing a mobo with SATA III (6 Gb/s) ports.

 

[geofelt]

From what I can see, 6gb sata helps, but perhaps not that much.
The big performance comes from ANY SSD.
Intel seems to be the most consistent and trouble free so far.
The benchmarks, particularly sequential are not impressive, but it seems to get the job done better than any others.

I used a X25-M 160gb drive for a while, but I gave it to my son. I miss it terribly.
I expect to jump on a Intel 510 120gb when they launch.


But, for the OP, any ssd will serve him well.

 

[tomate2]

it really depends if you want to have your windows to boot up in 20 seconds or in one minute...
its probably by far the best upgrade that would make your machine feel "snappier" as they say
but i dont really see a need for it especially in with the high prices that fortunately are still continuing to fall...
id hold out a bit on the ssd if you can... its still quite new... id give it a couple years to see if any1 finds any serious problem in ssd performance degradation which i think can only be found after using for long periods of time

 

[JackNaylorPE]

That's a question that very much depends on how you use your puter.

For example......

Situation A

I arrive in my office each morning, pop open my lappie, swipe my finger across the print reader and then do one of two things:

1. Check my phone messages
2. Grab a cup a joe.

Would an SSD impact me in any way ? Nope.....both SSD and HD will be waiting on me before I finish either of those 60 second chores. Nothing I use in every day usage will benefit from snappier storage. Whether my app / file opens in 1.5 seconds or 3 has no effect on daily productivity.

Situation B

I have my OS on my SSD and still enough room to fit 1 or 2 games. If I pay attention it seems like it loads faster but not so much that it has a real effect on gameplay.

Situation 3

I move over to my desktop to do some heavy CAD work and photo work. I have my scratch disk and page file / temp files on the SSD and it reduces my re-rending and vector manipulations from 30 seconds to 15 seconds. Since I am doing these about once every 2-3 minutes it has a significant effect on my productivity.

 

[potzy81]

Thanks for the great info...with that being said, I am going to wait a little while and throw the extra cash into a GPU.

Maybe in a year or so, I will revisit SSD's.

 

[potzy81]

Best answer selected by potzy81.

 

[DXRick]

I agree with your conclusion. At the last minute I dropped an SSD from my build (i7-950 and HD 6870), deciding to see just how fast the new 1T Western Digital Black drive is first. The speed is much better than the old 160GB drive in my late (5 year old) P4 system. Windows 7 boots really fast, and so far I have not done anything that does enough I/O where I feel I need more speed. A fraction of a second doesn't matter to me.

 

[fomoz]

I agree with your conclusion. At the last minute I dropped an SSD from my build (i7-950 and HD 6870), deciding to see just how fast the new 1T Western Digital Black drive is first. The speed is much better than the old 160GB drive in my late (5 year old) P4 system. Windows 7 boots really fast, and so far I have not done anything that does enough I/O where I feel I need more speed. A fraction of a second doesn't matter to me.

i had your point of view a few months ago when i was buying a similar system to yours (but with 2 6870's). a few weeks ago i bought an ssd and wow, the speed difference is huge. it's hard to understand this until you get an ssd, but it's very worth it.