SSD for gaming - does speed matter?

Steviepunk

Steviepunk

Steviepunk

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I'm speccing myself a new PC and have been looking at the SSD side of things.

The PC will be used for general Office/Web/Email usage as well as software development (Visual Studio, Photoshop). And if I have any spare time, I'll play some games.

I had been thinking of getting 2 Samsung SSDs (2 x 250GB 840s - one for OS and general software, other for games), however based on what I've read here I'm thinking of changing this to a 256GB 840 Pro for OS and software and then something cheaper for the games.

From what I've read here, the 840 Pro is good for speed and reliability so good for OS, however for games the fast speed is not taken advantage of in the same way (due to large sequential loads). But how much does the SSD speed actually affect game loading times?

Would running games from a SATA2 OCZ Vertex Plus (255MB/s read) be more or less indistinguishable from using a faster 840? (after all, I'm used to running games from HDD) Or would I still be best getting a SATA3 SSD?
I've seen a few Corsair SSDs that are quiet a bit cheaper than the Samsungs and (unless I've misread) these are good for reliability - would these be a good choice?
 
OpenToSuggestions said:
You really don't need two SSDs for your main windows install.

Buy a single good 120-240GB SSD and a 2TB mechanical hard drive for all your music/films/porn.
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This. The only benefit for games with an SSD that I have found, is multiplayer FPS games like Call of Duty MW. Having this on my SSD means I'm in the server fast. But it's not much of an advantage. The rest of my games I have on my HDD.
 
jamesaltria said:
SSD will speed up your loading screen times and loading up textures. That's about it really
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That's pretty much what I'm after - obviously I don't expect an FPS increase, but reduced loading times would be useful. That's also why I'd rather not spend the same money on the SSD for the games that I spend on the 840 Pro for the OS.

I've seen a 250GB SATA2 SSD going for just under £100, figured that would provide some loading benefit without being too costly.
 
I do recommend getting an SSD. If you have a HDD also, store the majority of games on that and keep your main games on SSD. Then when you want to play a different game, use steam mover to move the games from your HDD to your SSD
 
i have noticed a big difference with Arma 2...Dayz. I get to the host page instantly now.

Other games have seen a great improvement for loading screens. I went for a 500gb Samsung so i could fit most of my games on my SSD.
 
I have two 840 Pro's (256GB) in RAID and i can notice a difference between RAID and a single drive with games. I can also notice a speed improvement with games compared to my previous SSD's as well (Crucial C300's).

I went for RAID because i don't see the point in having one SSD for OS and another for software/games, when you can just combine them and get literally double the performance (as SSD's scale very well with RAID 0). You wont notice much difference in games, but RAID SSD's can be quite noticeable with certain OS tasks and software. I also use my PC as a workstation though with very demanding software, so i'm more likely to notice this stuff.

With games SSD's will affect two things: loading times, but also them annoying slight stutters you get with certain games as they load parts of the map/level while you're playing. Loads of games have stuff like that, and SSD's can reduce it greatly.

There WILL be a difference with games if you go for the best (Samsung 840 Pro) but it will be very small compared to any remotely good SSD.

If you compare a high-end SSD to a HDD though then game loading times can be massively improved. It depends on the game, but with some it can literally be 2 - 3 times faster.
 
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Had thought about RAID, but what always is at the back of mind about that is that if one drive fails, then everything is lost - even though I'll be backing everything up, it's still the hassle of having to restore everything if anything does go wrong.

Even with HDDs, I always partition out my drives for different purposes (usually 2 or 3 drives separated for OS, Games, Data, Music, movies, etc), maybe using SSDs needs a slightly different mindset to using HDDs!

On my original question, it does sound like load times will be improved with SSDs, so still thinking of a 840 Pro for the OS and possibly a Crucial M4 for the games (since it's quite a bit cheaper than the Pro) - will think about RAID, but not so sure that I'm comfortable with it

thanks for the feed back :)
 
I have just installed 2 x 256gb Samsung 840 Pro (raid0) on my new build and the performance is blistering, its nearly as fast as the fastest RevoDrives. Booting up is quick as well, it only takes about a second to load the raid array.

The down side though is the reliability question with raid0. Having said that I have another PC running 2 x C300s in raid0 and 2 more PCs using RevoDrives (4 way raid0) and have not had any problems with any of them.

I have had SSDs fail on me OCZ vertex (the original ones) - need I say more. But they were just rubbish SSDs with a reputation to match.
 
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I have now 2 840 Pros in RAID 0 (just changed from 2 830s) and I concur with the 2 posters above you really can notice the difference in games and in OS tasks. Loading times are cut down hugely and to me it is defiantly worth the cost.
 
some benefit from ssd's and some show no improvement,plus theres the added halt due to the raid console display at startup

a single ssd should be plenty imo,raid can be a pain to maintain ect but it does improve certain things
 
Very little real world benefit between ssd's of the last 2-3 generations, we're ultimately stuck by 4kb speeds, benchmarking provides completely unrealistic loads for anything but server usage. 4kb reads at a 5 and above queue depth mean squat to home users, while a server can make awesome use of it. We've been stuck at 4kb single depth speeds for ages now because latency hit a peak and stopped.

You can even see on a ram drive benched on something like crystal disk mark that while sequential will be 3000+mb's 4kb random reads are down at 190mb's, because its limited by latency not bandwidth, read, send request latency before read, rinse repeat. Ram is WAY lower latency than a ssd. SSD's have all had similar 4kb random reads for 2-3 years really now. outside of benchmarks its almost impossible to notice a difference.

Just go for the cheapest 240gb you can get, sync mem, toggle, just not async. if you can get a 840 for the same price as a 830, go for it, if not get a 830.

It can be worth it for games, as said little bits of stutter in games which dynamically load do improve the feel of games. In something like COD single or multiplayer the maps are small, characters are limited and loading is pretty simple, load in, mostly done. In MMO's in particular you bounce around big worlds quicker, load more often and anywhere in the world if a group of player characters all wearing different stuff run across your screen or 10 groups all fight different people with fancy effects, you get more loading, ssd's help with MMO's quite a bit.

Any MMO I felt generally any stutter with in the past is long gone with SSD's.

Raid 0 is fairly pointless for ssd's because again the 4kb limit is what you want to raise, and raid 0 doesn't do anything for it at all. Sequentials go through the roof, very few things need HUGE sequentials as loads are interupted with uncompressing data and other things.

M4, 830, 840, Vertex 4, Corsair whatever, get whatevers best value. Any of those vs a hdd is a monumental improvement, the difference between them in real world use will be completely invisible to the end user.

With storage there is basically fast enough, and everything beyond does very little, 4kb reads on ssd's might be limited, but they are 30-40 times faster than an hdd and more doesn't help particularly much. IE its really easy to use a ram drive, get 16gb memory, stick 8gb in a ram drive, put all temp files, page file or even install a full game(that is getting harder to do because of size) and run a game off a ram drive, quicker, yes, hugely quicker, mostly no, some stuff can be but games/99% of home use, not really.
 
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kitkat9933 said:
I have now 2 840 Pros in RAID 0 (just changed from 2 830s) and I concur with the 2 posters above you really can notice the difference in games and in OS tasks. Loading times are cut down hugely and to me it is defiantly worth the cost.
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Exactly what I've been arguing in this thread....

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18472217

But no no they all want to go for the cheaper 830 option. These pros are unbelievable. Best SSD purchase for a good few years
 
sorry to hijack the thread ....my new samsung 840 just turned up .. damn its small lol ... anyway .. having never fitted any for of hard-drive before - how does this install ? and how do i go about "cloning" my current stanarded drive ?

and can i fit this thing on case using standard cellotape for now ?

thanks in advance
 
TALON1973 said:
sorry to hijack the thread ....my new samsung 840 just turned up .. damn its small lol ... anyway .. having never fitted any for of hard-drive before - how does this install ? and how do i go about "cloning" my current stanarded drive ?

and can i fit this thing on case using standard cellotape for now ?

thanks in advance
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cellotape?

you are jk ing aren't you?

for the price of a large roll, you could have bought

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-002-OP&groupid=1657&catid=2101&subcat=2102

dont be tight, your welsh not scotish :) :D
 
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