SSD Summer Slam: 12 New 2.5" And 1.8" Drives Rounded-Up

OCZ Vertex Turbo 2.5” (120GB)

The Vertex Turbo is an improved version of the Vertex, running with faster cache memory clocked at 180 MHz as opposed to Indilinx’s usual 166 MHz. Obviously, overclocking has arrived in the storage market. The result is improved throughput (224 versus 214 MB/s peak) and dramatically improved write performance (167 versus 52 MB/s minimum write throughput). The Vertex Turbo is also is the second-fastest SSD in terms of throughput after the Intel X25-M G2. However, the Vertex Turbo seems to be optimized for throughput instead if I/O, as the regular Vertex delivers faster I/O performance in most of the benchmarks.

The Turbo’s application performance in PCMark Vantage is very different, It dominates in some test runs but loses in others. Finally, the memory overclocking has an effect on power consumption, as the Vertex Turbo requires 1.3W instead of 1.1W at maximum streaming throughput. The result is improved performance per watt for streaming operations and decreased efficiency for workstation I/O.