New CPU or SSD - Which will give better gains?

SouthEastBlue

SouthEastBlue

SouthEastBlue

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Got my birthday in a couple of months or so and was planning on getting my other half to get me something computer related... Despite her reluctance to spend money on this kind of thing and a wedding to spend all our money on! ;)

I did originally talk her into letting me get a new CPU, and was aiming for an i5 2500k minimum, or i5 3570k max as a step up from my i3 2100.

But with SSD prices dropping down over the last few months to around the £80 mark I was wondering if it would be a better and more noticeable upgrade to persuade her to grab one of these now instead while the price is right?

I have my eye on either the Corsair Force 3 120GB or the Samsung 830 128GB model that seems quite popular. Which of these would be the better choice? I know Corsair have good RMA and also says the drive is firmware error free, and also heard Samsung have poor support for their drive but that it's a decent unit so I'm not sure... Any feedback from people who've experience of similar upgrades (CPU vs SSD)?
 
I guess the Samsung is popular for a reason - price and performance, just worried after that little thread I read regarding their support. I guess if OCUK cover the warranty its not a too bigger deal... How long is the warranty on these 830 drives, 3 years?
 
Upgrading to an SSD is one of the best upgrade I have made to my PC in as far back as I can remember, everything is much more responsive and everything opens so quickly, far more noticeable gains than a processor upgrade :)
 
SouthEastBlue said:
I guess the Samsung is popular for a reason - price and performance, just worried after that little thread I read regarding their support. I guess if OCUK cover the warranty its not a too bigger deal... How long is the warranty on these 830 drives, 3 years?
Click to expand...

price, performance and reliability. but if your drive gets screwed, rma is gonna be a pita. but i guess you can get ocuk to do the rma for you
 
I do have experience of using a Kingston HyperX SSD on my work computer coupled with a i7 2600k and although it seems fairly quick it never blew me away, although I guess some of the stuff I access is on mechanical drives and never had it next to my home PC to compare either. I definitely wouldn't consider the SSD in that machine anyway due to the trouble it's caused, but getting an SSD over a new CPU is probably what I'm swaying towards.

Will probably order on Friday but I may need to do a little more looking into the Samsung drive to be sure whether it's worth buying with the potentially iffy support... Thanks for the replies so far though guys. :)
 
Sorry to bump this but need an opinion before Friday and saves me opening a new thread...

What's better value for money a Crucial M4 128GB for £79 delivered (competitor) or samsung 830 128GB from OCUK for £83 I think on the weekly deal? :)
 
From what I've read Samsung has one of the best performance for it's price bracket, but a lot of people seemed to love the crucial m4 on here with it's latest firmware but is it as fast as the Samsung?
 
The speed difference will be so close you won't be able to tell. However it is easy to tell the difference between two different companies for their customer service.
 
Is Crucial a UK based RMA? I guess I wouldn't notice a huge difference in speed to be honest I only web browse and play games from my home computer anyway...
 
You'll notice the upgrade :) - but I doubt the difference between the sammy and the crucial drive
I upgraded from a Core 2 Duo to an i7 a few years back. Not actually a huge difference in every day usage. I then upgraded from my HDD to an Intel X25-M, BOOM. Wow... that did the trick!

Now i'm upgrading to the sammy 830, as it's meant to be twice as fast and is cheap so I can buy a larger capacity. When I bought the intel one, it was £200 for 80gb... but I just managed to pick up a 256gb sammy 830 from the member market for £130.

SSD is totally worth the upgrade.
 
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