A Gamer’s perspective of Kingston’s 128 GB SSDNow V100 series – revisited
Real World Testing
CustomPC Benchmark
CustomPC benchmark use widely available open-source applications to carry out the tasks that most of us perform on a regular basis. There are three tests, each of which measure different aspects of a PC’s performance. These tests themselves are not synthetic benchmarks but instead they use real world image, video and multi-tasking tasks to test the performance of your computer. We are looking to see if tasks are faster on the SSD than the HDD.
The tests are:
- GIMP Image Editing
- H.264 Video Encoding
- Multi-tasking
As usual we test with the Seagate 500GB HDD first.
Now the same test is repeated on the SSD.
No difference in image editing speed. Let’s copy a video file, first on the HDD.
Let’s copy a video file on the SSD.
Video encoding has completed about 6 seconds faster on the SSD – 329 seconds on the HDD and 323 on the SSD. Not a lot of difference, so let’s check out our final test, multi-tasking.
Now on to Multi-tasking with the SSD test.
The SSD is one to three seconds faster. Now we will go to a very practical test of something we all do, file copying.
File Copy: Crysis Warhead
In this test we are using MrK’s method of installing the Crysis Warhead game to the drive being benchmarked. Then that game folder is copied to another folder on the same drive using Microsoft’s Robocopy GUI and the time taken is noted. This real world benchmark tests both the read and the write speeds of the drive at the same time. MrK and I both choose Crysis Warhead for this purpose as this game has a lot of files of various sizes. This should test the hard disk transfer speeds across vast sizes of files and is indeed a real world scenario.
The game was patched with the 1.1 and 1.1 hotfix patch which introduces the 64-bit executable. The test is performed 3 times and the results averaged. The HDD took 2 minutes and 47 seconds on average to copy 5.83GB.
The SDD took 1 minutes and 51 seconds on average to copy 5.83GB.
Need we say more? You are saving nearly one minute; nearly three minutes for the HDD to copy the same files that the SSD does in less than two!!
We have already seen very slight improvements in video editing and multi-tasking when the drives are accessed and huge gains in copying big files, but will it also translate to improved performance in gaming? We will look at gaming load times now that we are finished with the synthetic and real world benchmarks.
I was actually impressed with the performance in most everything but the games dont look nearly as impressive as say the windows start up time. The numbers are there and for gaming SSD should be low on the list of priority; A luxury that should only be considered last, if there is money left for it, after all other components are bought.
Considering the size of modern PC games, I would consider a large drive very important. 128GB would hold only a hand full of games and even less with the OS on it. I would recommend 500gb minimum for a PC gamer and thats the lowest. With the SSD the higher capacity drives are insanity expensive, 500gb drives cost nearly $1200. So a single SSD of 128gb isnt practical for the modern PC gamer and the only way it makes since is a system that has more than one drive. The SSD along with a large mechanical HDD would be the best route for a gamer that really wanted to enjoy the technology. With the OS and the most used programs on the SSD and use the other larger drive for storage.
I can see plenty of advantages in SSD. Its lightning fast for sure. I can see the potential and will go out on a limb to say the SSD will eventually replace mechanical HDDs all together. But for now, for the average PC gamer, I just dont see it as worth the price at all, especially not a system running purely SSD. If you have extra cash to blow and you just want the best of the best tech, a hybrid system with a small SSD and a large mechanical drive will give you all the speed of an SSD without any sacrifice of capacity. There are some nice 60gb SSDs for a just at 100$ and it would serve well for a hybrid system with a small investment. Enough for your OS and for your most used programs at blasting SSD speeds. You can easily move the data to storage when its not being used as much to keep the SSD with the most used programs and keep the fast. This is the best use i can imagine for a PC Gamer and the SSD.
Your conclusions are very close to mine. I got ten games on a 128GB SSD and it eventually ended up with 5 games and a lot of programs. I really never play more than about 4 or 5 games at one time although I benchmark nearly 30 games. This SSD may not be practical for my desktop but it definitely has a future in my notebook! After all, I do everything *but* game and edit video on my dual-core Athlon Compaq notebook.
However, your pricing is way off. This same $235 SSD has been on Buy.com and NewEgg.com for about $125 after a mail-in-rebate. So pricing has come way down and that $125 doesn’t buy such a great upgrade any longer.
Setting up the SDD to work seamlessly with the HDD is not difficult and the size of the SSD that you choose should reflect how many programs you want to be really fast and on the SSD itself. Windows 7 takes up a nice chunk of drive real estate and a 128GB drive becomes “full” with about 119GB of data.
If you just want a fast start-up and shutdown and maybe a few apps, then even a 30GB SSD might be sufficient.
I am just reporting that the state of the SSD art is up a level and that pricing is down. If you are looking to speed up your PC, it might be a good upgrade for a gamer.
I still wouldn’t touch an SSD. You can get a fast 2 TB HD that in most practical cases will be just a bit slower while costing far less and offering much more capacity.
Also SSD technology is still unproven in terms of reliability. I have a 13 GB HD from 2000 that still goes the last time I tried it.
As long as both technologies keep improving at the same rate, mechanical will continue to be far ahead of solid.
I felt *exactly* like you do before I got one.
– and I stand by my conclusion. It is unnecessary for a gamer; it’s just “nice” to have one in a gaming PC.
However, this SSD has a permanent home in my notebook. 5400 rpm notebook HDDs suck and 128GB is a good size for me.
I do not think I have ever seen an SSD review that good.
In fact, I did not know that an SSD review could be that good!
Hey BFG10K, at least an upgrade to SSD would show you so many more “felt” benefits than upgrading from say, 6GB to 12GB memory, or even from 4GB to 8GB. If I had to choose, I’d rather spend that $$ on a good SSD like this one here.
thats what i feel. I think the ssd technology is extremely stable thus far and a smaller drive does make since, lots more since than 12 gb of ram!!!! Also apoppin, are you saying my pricing was off on the 500gb SSDs? The cheapest 500gb SSD that i seen on new egg is $1179, if you know of some cheaper ones do let me know, i am looking at getting one for a new OS installation.
I’m sorry, I may have misunderstood you, Ocre. When you mentioned 60GB SSDs for $100, I thought that was rather expensive since this 128GB drive is only $125 after M-i-R.
Two 128GB SSDs can be set up in RAID to make the equivalent of a single 256GB capacity solid-state drive. That might just work for a gamer for a reasonable price.
no apologies please, i was hoping there were some deals i was overlooking. the SSD pricing isnt what you would expect after 160gb. I think two 125gb is much cheaper than one 250gb. then the 500gb ssd is unbelievably high. Was kinda hoping that there was some cheaper ones i didnt know about, but they will eventually come down, that i am sure.
This is the right blog for anyone who wants to find out about this topic. You realize so much its almost hard to argue with you (not that I actually would want…HaHa). You definitely put a new spin on a topic thats been written about for years. Great stuff, just great!