Looking to add SSD to my 3yr old PC

[stylez777]

Hey everyone,

I'm looking into jumping into the world of SSD's, my PC is probably 2-3 years old. I have a Phenom II x2 550be with Asus Motherboard M4a79xtd evo (it has the on board Marvell 88SE6121 controller) it supports SATA II 3Gb/s.

I was curious as to what SSD would work with my system? I have seen posts saying that Sandforce SSD's (like the vertex 2 which i was looking at) don't work well with Marvell controllers. Could anyone offer up some advice on what to look into that would work with my hardware. thanks!

 

[saint19]

Crucial C300 or C400 is a very good option for the money.

 

[stylez777]

I looked at the C300 and found a few reviews that say it's not as fast as the Vertex Drives. I'm not huge into benchmark results I'm more of a real world performance guy. I know on par the Vertex 2 is a bit cheaper than the C300. am I limited to only the Crucial or would I have issues running the Sandforce SSD with my hardware?

 

[saint19]

The Vertex 2 is much faster i WRITE performance, but 90% of time you are READING, in that part the C300 is the best one.

 

[JohnnyLucky]

If you are still using hard disk drives, then just about any ssd will be an improvement.

A solid state drive that is SATA III (6 Gb/s) capable is backwards compatible with SATA II (3 Gb/s) ports on your motherboard. However, there will be a performance hit until you upgrade to a new motherboard.

Right now the Crucial RealSSD C300 128GB SATA III ssd is a pretty good value. From time to time newegg.com will have it on sale for $199.99 and free shipping. You just have to be patient and check every day to get the sale price.

 

[stylez777]

So for price/reliability/speed the Crucial C300 would be the best bet?

 

[JohnnyLucky]

At $199.99 for 128GB it is definitely a good deal. That works out to approximately $1.56 per GB. It doesn't get any better than that. Most prices are around $2.00 per GB or more.

The new OCZ Vertex 3 120 GB SATA III (6Gb/s) ssd which leads the pack in synthetic benchmarks currently costs $299.99 at newegg. I can't remember if newegg ever has the Vertex 3 120GB on sale.

 

[JohnnyLucky]

I read the press release this morning. The new Corsair Force 3 should be available by the end of this month. If technical reviews are favorable and the prices are accurate then it appears we may have a new price/performance leader.

According to the press release the Force 3 has a SandForce SF-2281 controller. If the controller configuration is similar to the one in the OCZ Vertex 3 things might get interesting. We'll also have to see how Corsair handled channels and the memory cache.

 

[stylez777]

I am certainly not rushing in to a decision on a drive. I actually have been looking at the new drives coming out and the debate over the use of the 25nm vs the 34nm chips. From the reading I've done mostly all the new drives eventually will be using 25nm chips even though they don't last as long or are not as reliable as 34nm (but they are cheaper which will bring the prices down) Is their any information on which chip the Force 3 will be using? I know the c300 uses the 34nm, the c400/m4 use the 25nm and the Vertex 3 max iops version uses 34nm while the non max iops model uses 25nm. Kinda get's confusing trying to keep track of who is using what.

 

[stylez777]

Best answer selected by stylez777.

 

[saint19]

This topic has been closed by Saint19