There are a ton of terms used to quantify storage performance. If you're a gamer, you have to be wondering how such dry terminology can apply to having fun. Rather than telling you, we're going to dissect three popular titles to show you instead.
SSDs cost a lot more than hard drives; that much is well-established fact. Depending on the drives you're comparing, the difference in price per gigabyte can be as much as 30x.
So why on earth would anyone want to buy a solid-state drive, then? Shave down Windows' boot time? Fire up applications faster? Accelerate file transfers? Sure, on all accounts. But if you're a gamer, first and foremost, you want to spend your money on the components that'll give you the best possible performance. And if that means giving up CPU or graphics budget to score an SSD, you want to know if the trade-off is worth it, right?
| Storage Type | Magnetic | Solid-State |
|---|---|---|
| Brand | Seagate | OCZ |
| Model | Barracuda | Agility 3 |
| Capacity | 1 TB | 120 GB |
| Price | $60 | $210 |
| Price Per Gigabyte | $0.06 | $1.75 |
That evaluation isn't an easy one to make, though. When you read through an SSD review, you typically see a handful of measurements that try putting performance in context compared to other solid-state and magnetic products. But you generally don't get any frame of reference when it comes to gaming. Those familiar metrics include:
- 4 KB random writes
- 4 KB random reads
- 128 KB sequential reads
- 128 KB sequential writes
But what do input/output operations per second and megabytes per second really mean to the enthusiast interested in knowing how storage technology affects the launch times and game play of the latest and greatest first-person shooter?

In the lab, we’ve already seen situations where dropping in a cutting-edge SSD doesn't have a big effect on performance. The reasons why aren't particularly complicated. However, we thought it'd be a good idea to break down the way three popular games affect storage performance in order to give you a better understanding of how they tax your storage subsystem. Crysis 2, World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, and Civilization V are all going to get tested.
It might surprise you to learn that the "one size fits all" approach doesn't apply to SSDs and it doesn't apply to games. If you want to better understand storage reviews when it comes to gaming, this information will help you make a more informed purchase.
- A Gamer's Guide To SSD Performance
- Test Setup
- Understanding Storage Performance
- Is A Trace-Based Analysis Accurate?
- Launching Crysis 2
- Loading Levels In Crysis 2
- Gameplay In Crysis 2
- Launching World Of Warcraft: Cataclysm
- Loading A Realm In World Of Warcraft: Cataclysm
- Gameplay In World Of Warcraft: Cataclysm
- Launching Sid Meier's Civilization V
- Loading Levels In Sid Meier's Civilization V
- Gameplay In Sid Meier's Civilization V
- How Does Storage Performance Affect Gaming?
Does that mean if you had an infinitely fast disk, the level loading would take 56s? In which case, where is the bottleneck for level loading? Is it CPU bound? (if so, why isn't CPU usage at 100% when loading a level?) Memory? Graphics card?
Longer loading times are not crucial when all you want is to frag your enemies!
Doesn't this reduce the life of a SSD?
I'd like to see how the witcher stacks up with SSD. You are constantly having to load different areas the entire game so I made sure to have that on the SSD while playing it hoping to reduce the load times. Would like to see if that really paid off or not.
Does that mean if you had an infinitely fast disk, the level loading would take 56s? In which case, where is the bottleneck for level loading? Is it CPU bound? (if so, why isn't CPU usage at 100% when loading a level?) Memory? Graphics card?
1. Level loading with dragon age ( which dramatically improved over my 1 TB Samsung F3 , in reality the level loads 2x faster from 1 minute to around 22-28 seconds )
2. My OS which was transfer to the SSD ( which brought faster windows loading , extremely faster shutdowns , instant application lunch , and better multitasking because i have my browsers on the SSD )
If any of you don't wanna invest into a SSD believe me , IT IS WORTH IT !
If you wait for performance to not cost you , you will wait an eternity.
60GB SSD CORSAIR NOVA FORCE
- The more randomly data is accessed, the more performance boost is given by an SSD
- The higher the queue depth is, the more performance boost is given by an SSD
- The higher the transfer size is, the more performance boost is given by an SSD
- The more (less?) write operations you have, the the more (less?) performance boost is given by an SSD
Otherwise interesting read, thanks!
excellent point. i would like to know that too.
@andrewku
the end graph is not clear at all. can you add a bigger/better looking graph ?
I put Oblivion on my SSD and that was a fantastic idea, there are loading times at least every 20 mins or so in that one, and sometimes within 2 mins. Fallout would be another good one for it, similar load times and all. Witcher would be a good one, I'm wondering about NWN, Dragon Age and the Mass Effect series but it's been a little while since I've played those and can't remember what the load times are like.
I imagine since large capacity SSD are VERY expensive, most people use 2 or more middle-of-the-road SSDs in RAID 0 striping method...
I hear 10000RPM HDDs are very fast in loading when in RAID 0 configuration...
I imagine in real world situation, 2 of 10000RPM HDDs in RAID 0 are just as fast as 2 of the most SSDs in RAID 0....
Meh, the faster I can start Fragging, the better...
But while I can NOT live without an SSD as a boot drive, I CAN live with my games being on a 3-way RAID-0 of 10,000 RPM Raptors...