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Roundup: The Best SSDs For Enthusiasts

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The SSD market continues evolving. We got our hands on six drives we hadn't yet tested, including Samsung’s 470-series, and ran them through our benchmark suite. All told, this roundup includes a total of 24 SSDs to compare. Which drive is right for you?

Benchmark Results: PCMark Vantage Storage

The Intel X25-M, along with the SandForce SSDs by Corsair, Patriot, G-Skill, and OCZ, are strongest when it comes to launching applications.

The best SSDs for gamers remain the Intel X25-M and Crucial’s RealSSD C300. Samsung’s 470-series comes next, though, and there’s really no poor performer in this test.

The ranking for video editing is RealSSD, Samsung 470, and SandForce.

There are a few SSDs you don’t want for media center applications…

…or if you use Windows Media Player a lot.

This chart shows which drives are best suited to booting your operating system. The span from 100 to 200 MB/s here translates into only a few seconds on a fresh Windows installation.

According to PCMark Vantage’s overall score, many drives seem rather equal.