Best SSD just for games?

darael

darael

darael

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I can't justify the cost of a 250/256 GB SSD drive to install Windows and my games on. Especially seeing that as once Windows is loaded, it's fast enough for me anyway. But it's the loading of games that I would like to speed up, so have come the conclusion that an SSD drive for just games will be sufficient.

I'm looking at 60/64 GB SSDs and I keep finding that the Kingston SSDNow V300 is a good drive for the price and performance.
- Maximum Read: 450MB/sec
- Maximum Write: 450MB/sec
- Random 4k read/write: 85,000/60,000 IOPS
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The Kingston SSDNow KC300 doesn't fair too badly, either:
- Maximum Read: 525MB/sec
- Maximum Write: 500MB/sec
- Max. random 4k read/write: 84,000/64,000 IOPS
- Sustained random 4k read/write3: 20,000/60,000 IOPS
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But could I get a better drive for a similar price range, which does the same job?

Opinions and advice welcome!
 
I think you need to spend a bit more (about £35 more) and get something like a Samsung 840 EVO 120GB.

You'll be able to install Windows onto it, plus all you main apps, antivirus etc, and still have more than 64GB space for your games.

Just £35 extra for much faster startup, much faster pretty much everything, and of course, faster loading games.

No brainer IMHO.
 
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And if you do go for the EVO, it's a very good SSD. Latest tech and good specification.

£30 more than the Kingston. Unless you absolutely can't afford the £30, I expect you to do the right thing ! ;)
 
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I would recommend that you buy a 120GB drive as a minimum, most SSDs under 120GB perform slower than their 120GB+ sister products in the same range. Its a limitation of current SSD technology.

I have 2 drives, a 256GB Crucial C300 I used for my OS (and some steam games) and 250GB Samsung 840 as my primary games/steam drive.
 
Okay two points I'd like to raise after reading the replies:

1) I wouldn't feel comfortable with just 120 GB - because the drive will last longer rather than filling it up and I'd use up 90 GB of the space pretty quickly. True I could uninstall games when I don't play them for a while, but reinstalling them takes away the purpose of being able to instantly play whenevr I want. Right now I have games installed that I can launch now - my problem is their load times due the slow nature of harddrives.

2) The Samsung Evo only has a three year warranty where the 840 Pro has a five year warranty. I believe this is down to the type of memory used and that the memory used in the Evo can't take as many writes.
 
yeah^^

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ssd's can still randomly die though so take it with a pinch of salt

@ the op I think your worrying about read/write wear too much

I have both the pro/non pro 840 and both are just as good tbh

remember the larger the capacity ssd = faster speeds
 
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A bit of research reveals that there really is no issue with the TLC used in Samsung SSDs.

64GB SSDs may be slower than larger drives, but they still provide very fast performance compared with a mechanical drive, and you'll often not notice the reduced performance in everyday use.

"1) I wouldn't feel comfortable with just 120 GB - because the drive will last longer rather than filling it up and I'd use up 90 GB of the space pretty quickly. True I could uninstall games when I don't play them for a while, but reinstalling them takes away the purpose of being able to instantly play whenevr I want."

I don't quite understand your reasoning. I suggested that 120GB would be a better bet than your original idea of getting a 64GB SSD. My suggestion is that for the extra ~£30 you can install your OS onto the SSD and have at least 64GB (if not more) to install you games.
 
£30 for an extra 60gb of storage is a great deal, and you never know what updates/patches/service packs will pop up on the OS, I came from an old Crucial 60gb, I had 3gb spare and I was deleting and moving files off the SSD just to keep it from filling up to the max with Windows 7.
If you only want the SSD for your games folder I think again you're better off with the 120gb Evo, more space means more games you can add whenever you like, and there's no need to remove them. I don't know about your games collection, but I'm over 158gb from Steam and Origin, and I've deleted a number of games to keep it that small.
If you want bang per buck the 120gig SSD's make the most sense, unless budget is a limiting factor?
 
theres always caching provided you have z68/77 board

use a small ssd to cache a big 2tb or 3tb hdd

ssd speeds with hdd storage space works very well too only 3-4 seconds slower at startup compared to having the os on the ssd everything else is just as fast

caching can only use upto 64gb ssd's
 
Dervious said:
I don't quite understand your reasoning. I suggested that 120GB would be a better bet than your original idea of getting a 64GB SSD. My suggestion is that for the extra ~£30 you can install your OS onto the SSD and have at least 64GB (if not more) to install you games.
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I always thought the school of thought was to allow for 15-25% free space to allow for TRIM and other houskeeping tasks that the drive might perform while idle?

Perhaps I am being over cautious on the type of memory used. But I am determined that if i want to use an SSD as my OS drive, it will be 256 GB. If not just for the availability of space, but to also to help with wear levelling. I have found myself using about 130 GB in the past, but this was short term until I made space.

I have an Asus P5Q Pro right now, which has an Intel P45 / ICH10R chipset hosting SATA 2 ports. I already know I won't see the full performance from the drive. But I will upgrade soon and most/all motherboards now have SATA 3 - allowing me to fully benefit from a good performing SSD.
 
The only time you will notice the difference between Sata 2 and 3 with an SSD is in benchmarking, or seriously heavy applications, in most normal uses you won't notice a difference at all.
There's only a small minority of cases where you will max out your Sata 2 speeds
 
Hakanese is spot on.

I`ve just installed a 840 250gb into an AMD based system, with an Nvidia Sata II controller.

In many people's eyes, this is a second class SSD being installed into a less than ideal system.

What I can tell you is that the only reason the machine goes from "off" to browsing the web in 27 seconds is that the POST phase of the motherboard is a bit on the slow side (15 seconds before the "Windows Swirl") appears. Launching commonly used apps (Firefox, Word, Windows Media Player etc) seems every bit as fast as other more "ideal" systems I`ve dealt with.

As far a wear and wear levelling goes, I think you are worrying too much.

http://uk.hardware.info/reviews/417...-with-final-conclusion-final-update-20-6-2013

And even if you spend £87 on a 120GB SSD that wears out, in say 4 years (unlikely), it's cost you just over £20 per year for a really big increase in your computer's performance.

I'd by an 840 EVO 120GB. Formatting and enabling over provisioning(setting aside 10% for "safety") will leave you with about 100GB of free space. Partion 64GB for your games, and install Windows and basic apps and utilities on the remaining 36GB.

So, you'd have the 64GB of space for your games (as requested in your first post) and you'd have Windows running from an SSD.

Personally I would go one step further and invest in a 250/6GB SSD, but what I`ve suggested is a sensible option that won't cost as much.
 
And here's something else that might help put your mind at rest.

My old Intel X25 80GB SSD spent nearly 3 years inside my PC. As you can imagine, it was often close to "full". It developed a fault after 2.5 years and was replace by Intel. As far as I know, the fault was not wear related. At the time the fault developed, ther "Wear Count" was down to 97% remaining. During the 2.5 years, I reckon I carried out 3 or 4 full Windows installs and full games were removed and installed several times.

OK, the X25 doesn't use the same type of NAND as the new Samsungs, and was maybe more durable. Even if the TLC NAND that Samsung use has a lifespan 4 times less than that of my old Intel, had I'd have only used about 12% of it's life in 2.5 years.
 
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