Considering an ssd cache drive

[Zarxrax]

On my aging computer, some of my applications and especially games can take a long time to start up. The idea of an ssd cache drive seems pretty appealing, since it will supposedly automatically cache my most used stuff and speed it up for me, which is exactly what I want.

I am aware of 3 different cache drives.
Corsair Accelerator
Crucial Adrenaline
OCZ Synapse

I am very budget conscious, so the 30gb Corsair Accelerator is the one I'm currently leaning towards, and I believe that should be enough space for me.
Now my first question is, do these drives require a new motherboard with the intel smart response technology, or do they work in any system with an SATA connector?
Next, are these all mostly equal in performance, or is there a reason I might want to avoid the Corsair Accelerator?
And finally, are there any hidden downsides to these drives that I may not be considering?

 

[Dereck47]

Now my first question is, do these drives require a new motherboard with the intel smart response technology, or do they work in any system with an SATA connector?

Any motherboard with a SATA connector.

And finally, are there any hidden downsides to these drives that I may not be considering?

The OCZ Synapse drives use 50% Over Provisioning to maintain advertised Read/Write speeds over the life of the drive.
So if you buy the 64GB model your actual user capacity is 32GB; if you buy the 128GB model your user capacity is 64GB; etc.