Currently these Intel SSD drives are extremely expensive. Around $700 for the X-25E 32GB model. This makes early adoption of this drives limited to enterprise or very wealthy gamers.
The performance increase from using a solid state disk is phenomenal. But when comparing this drive to other SSDs such as the badly designed MLC chip based products released in late 2007 early 2008. They are unmatched.
The low latency of data access makes everything on your computer perform faster. Average FPS in games will go up, your minimum FPS will go up which makes a huge difference in action packed fast paced first-person shooters. You can't have your frames dropping to an unplayable level for even a slight moment or you might miss your opportunity.
Loading applications happens in an instant. Your computing experience will never feel the same after using these solid state disks. You will not be able to go back to a 7200rpm kind of disk without noticing the dramatic difference in load times. A few seconds might not seem like much difference when looking at a chart or something. But in real life a program that took 4 seconds to load before but now only takes 1 second that is a 300% improvement. Meaning it will load 3 times as fast.
These new SSDs are the single biggest improvement to the computing experience we have seen in a long time. Once the price comes down these will become the standard drive for Gaming Computer Systems. The Intel X25-E Extreme High Performance 32GB drive is the beginning of a new era for disk access.
Look over my intro to this Online Guide For Gaming Computer Systems and check back for more information on High Performance Gaming in the future.
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1 comment:
Agreed. Intel is really pushing the envelope of SSD flash disk read-write performance and drive lifespan. I've never seen a tech product evolve SO RAPIDLY, it's almost scarey to buy a SSD, cuz a new generation of drives is happening every 3 months and prices just keep collapsing! Patriot is now selling a reasonably fast 64gb SSD for just under $200. This market really is one of 'How fast do you want to go? How much are you willing to pay? - Until SSD's become a much more common, truly off-the-shelf commodity item, drives like the Intel X25 will command top-dollar for their brief performance advantage on the bleeding edge.
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