{"id":32878,"date":"2012-12-18T09:23:40","date_gmt":"2012-12-18T09:23:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/?p=32878"},"modified":"2013-08-02T16:33:43","modified_gmt":"2013-08-02T15:33:43","slug":"owc-premium-sandforce-based-mercury-extreme-pro-6g-240gb-ssd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/owc-premium-sandforce-based-mercury-extreme-pro-6g-240gb-ssd\/","title":{"rendered":"OWC Premium SandForce-Based Mercury Extreme Pro 6G 240GB SSD is Blazing Fast!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\" align=\"left\"><script type=\"text\/javascript\">\/\/ < ![CDATA[\ngoogle_ad_client = \"pub-7021221536180758\"; \/* 468x60, created 11\/11\/09 *\/ google_ad_slot = \"1949837292\"; google_ad_width = 468; google_ad_height = 60;\n\/\/ ]]><\/script><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">This SSD evaluation is going to focus on advantages for gamers with OWC&#8217;s premium\u00a0Mercury EXTREME\u00a0Pro 6G\u00a0as it compares to\u00a0Kingston&#8217;s line-up including their consumer SSDNow V200\/V300 and enthusiast\u00a0HyperX SSDs. <em>O<\/em>ther <em>W<\/em>orld <em>C<\/em>omputing is primarily known for their\u00a0products for Mac computers and their SSDs are quite popular with the Apple enthusiasts.\u00a0<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-32883\" title=\"SSD-2\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/SSD-2.jpg?resize=346%2C255\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/SSD-2.jpg?resize=346%2C255 800w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/SSD-2-300x221.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 346px) 100vw, 346px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/>The Mercury EXTREME Pro 6G promises incredible performance with Sustained Data Rates up to 559MB\/s Read, 527MB\/s Write!\u00a0 At 60,000 IOPS for\u00a0Random 4K writes,\u00a0the OWC SSD\u00a0may prove to be the fastest SSD that ABT will have tested.<\/p>\n<p>This is ABT&#8217;s sixth SSD evaluation and we are now going to continue to look at the performance differences within the Kingston SSD lineup while\u00a0comparing them with\u00a0the new Mercury EXTREME Pro 6G 240GB SSD. Just as with the <a href=\"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/?p=32755\">last SSD evaluation<\/a> less than\u00a0ten days\u00a0ago, our test bed uses Ivy Bridge, Intel&#8217;s latest consumer and enthusiast platform, a mechanical 500GB Seagate Barracuda hard drive, two HyperX SSDs and a SSD<em>Now<\/em> V200 and V300\u00a0SSD. <a href=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/allSDs.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-32939\" title=\"allSDs\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/allSDs.jpg?resize=384%2C327\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/allSDs.jpg?resize=384%2C327 800w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/allSDs-300x255.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 384px) 100vw, 384px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a>We are using our Intel\u00a0Core i7-3770K and GTX 670 at stock settings on a EVGA Z77 FTW USB 3.0\/PCIe 3.0 to once again test the differences between this\u00a0Mercury EXTREME Pro 6G drive and the other drives pictured above.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Pricing and Performance<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>All of these drives differ from each other in price and in capabilities &#8211; you will pay approximately $200 to $400 for a\u00a0240GB Kingston HyperX drive.\u00a0 The 240 GB HyperX 3K SSD costs <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Kingston-HyperX-2-5-Inch-SH103S3-240G\/dp\/B007R67FTY\/ref=sr_1_2?s=electronics&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1352053339&amp;sr=1-2&amp;keywords=kingston+hyperX+ssd\" onclick=\"_gaq.push(['_trackEvent', 'outbound-article', 'http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Kingston-HyperX-2-5-Inch-SH103S3-240G\/dp\/B007R67FTY\/ref=sr_1_2?s=electronics&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1352053339&amp;sr=1-2&amp;keywords=kingston+hyperX+ssd', '$179.99 at Amazon']);\" >$179.99 at Amazon<\/a> which we found to be quite a bargain in our evaluation and was recommended by\u00a0ABT as great bang-for-buck.\u00a0 The 240GB HyperX SSD using 5K NAND is Kingston&#8217;s fastest SSD\u00a0and it costs <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Kingston-SandForce-Technology-SH100S3B-240G\/dp\/B005C95NCY\/ref=sr_1_8?s=electronics&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1352053339&amp;sr=1-8&amp;keywords=kingston+hyperX+ssd\" onclick=\"_gaq.push(['_trackEvent', 'outbound-article', 'http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Kingston-SandForce-Technology-SH100S3B-240G\/dp\/B005C95NCY\/ref=sr_1_8?s=electronics&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1352053339&amp;sr=1-8&amp;keywords=kingston+hyperX+ssd', '$408.211 at Amazon.']);\" >$408.211 at Amazon.<\/a>\u00a0 The OWC Mercury EXTREME Pro 6G uses the premium 5K-rated NAND and it\u00a0lists for <a href=\"http:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/shop\/SSD\/OWC\/Mercury_Extreme_Pro_6G\/\" onclick=\"_gaq.push(['_trackEvent', 'outbound-article', 'http:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/shop\/SSD\/OWC\/Mercury_Extreme_Pro_6G\/', '$295 at OWC&#8217;s macsales.com']);\" >$295 at OWC&#8217;s macsales.com<\/a> or you can get it for <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/offer-listing\/B0052UN7TY\/ref=dp_olp_new?ie=UTF8&amp;condition=new\" onclick=\"_gaq.push(['_trackEvent', 'outbound-article', 'http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/offer-listing\/B0052UN7TY\/ref=dp_olp_new?ie=UTF8&amp;condition=new', '$1.20 cheaper at Amazon.com']);\" >$1.20 cheaper at Amazon.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The OWC Mercury EXTREME Pro 6G SSD utilizes synchronous NAND instead of\u00a0the less expensive\u00a0asynchronous NAND for higher bandwidth potential.\u00a0 Synchronous NAND enables reads and writes to be synced with the SSD processor&#8217;s clock signal for maximum data throughput.\u00a0 Both OWC and Kingston SSD<em>s<\/em> feature an independent garbage collection function that maintains a system at optimum performance level. This is especially important for systems running on Windows XP or other OSes which doesn\u2019t feature TRIM, and it will also help organizations extend the software cycle on their systems, delaying upgrades of operating systems and compatible applications.<\/p>\n<div>\n<h4>Over Provisioning &amp; Wear Management Explained<\/h4>\n<p>From <a href=\"http:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/shop\/SSD\/OWC\/Mercury_Extreme_Pro_6G\/\" onclick=\"_gaq.push(['_trackEvent', 'outbound-article', 'http:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/shop\/SSD\/OWC\/Mercury_Extreme_Pro_6G\/', 'OWC&#8217;s site']);\" >OWC&#8217;s site<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>OWC SSDs allocate some of the drive capacity for RAISE, to provide real time data redundancy, ECC Error Correction, and reserve cell space.<\/p>\n<div style=\"width: 460px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/img2.macsales.com\/Customized_Pages\/owc_ssd\/include\/img\/chart.gif\" onclick=\"_gaq.push(['_trackEvent', 'outbound-article', 'http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/img2.macsales.com\/Customized_Pages\/owc_ssd\/include\/img\/chart.gif?resize=450%2C171', '']);\" ><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/img2.macsales.com\/Customized_Pages\/owc_ssd\/include\/img\/chart.gif?resize=450%2C171\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Base Data Findings \u00a9 Copyright 2010 DIGLLOYD INC (MacPerformanceGuide.com).<\/p><\/div>\n<p><strong>Example<\/strong>: A 240GB OWC Mercury EXTREME Pro 6G SSD is actually a 256GB drive with 7% of the drive&#8217;s capacity allocated for data management.\u00a0 This management maintains the drive&#8217;s high-performance and high reliability levels.Unlike many SSDs on the market today, the Mercury Pro family uses advanced DuraWrite\u2122 wear-leveling and block management technologies to keep Read\/Write performance at peak, while others see performance fall.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><strong>\u00a0The Notebook Advantage\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Two major benefits of the SSD over the mechanical HDD should be noted especially for notebooks &#8211; power savings and durability. A SSD uses significantly less battery power than a HDD and is also less prone to failure from dropping it.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>OWC&#8217;s Mercury EXTREME Pro 6<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>From <a href=\"http:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/shop\/SSD\/OWC\/Mercury_Extreme_Pro_6G\/\" onclick=\"_gaq.push(['_trackEvent', 'outbound-article', 'http:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/shop\/SSD\/OWC\/Mercury_Extreme_Pro_6G\/', 'OWC&#8217;s site']);\" >OWC&#8217;s site<\/a>:<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\n<h4>Why Own OWC SSD?<\/h4>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<blockquote>\n<ul>\n<li>Designed &amp; built in the US from domestic &amp; imported parts.<\/li>\n<li>Intelligent &#8220;recycling&#8221; for advanced free space management.<\/li>\n<li>Best in class error correction (ECC) and SandForce RAISE\u2122 (Redundant Array of Independent Silicon Elements) technology provides RAID-like data protection and reliability without loss of transfer speed due to parity.<\/li>\n<li>SandForce\u00ae Processor with 7% over-provisioning maximizes read and write performance to greatly extend the endurance and overall reliability of the drive.<\/li>\n<li>Up to 100X greater data protection than what the highest rated enterprise class conventional hard disk drive (HDD) provides.<\/li>\n<li>SandForce DuraClass\u2122 technology with Ultra-efficient Block Management &amp; Wear Leveling offers highest endurance and performance in a SSD.<\/li>\n<li>Chip Based Data Encryption: 128-bit AES-compliant<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div id=\"ssd_riskfree\">\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/service\/returnpolicy#s22\" onclick=\"_gaq.push(['_trackEvent', 'outbound-article', 'http:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/service\/returnpolicy#s22', ' \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 ']);\" target=\"_blank\"> \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" style=\"border: 0px currentColor;\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/img2.macsales.com\/Customized_Pages\/owc_ssd\/imgs\/ssd_riskfree.jpg?resize=100%2C100\" align=\"left\" border=\"0\" hspace=\"5px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>No Risk, No Hassle 30-Day Money Back Guarantee.<\/div>\n<div>For complete program details and return policies, <a href=\"http:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/service\/returnpolicy#s22\" onclick=\"_gaq.push(['_trackEvent', 'outbound-article', 'http:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/service\/returnpolicy#s22', 'click here.']);\" target=\"_self\">click here.<\/a><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<h3>Mercury EXTREME Pro 6G 240GB Specifications:<\/h3>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center; padding-left: 30px;\">From <a href=\"http:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/item\/Other%20World%20Computing\/SSDMX6G240T\/\" onclick=\"_gaq.push(['_trackEvent', 'outbound-article', 'http:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/item\/Other%20World%20Computing\/SSDMX6G240T\/', 'OWC&#8217;s site']);\" >OWC&#8217;s site<\/a>:<a href=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/Specs.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-32937\" title=\"Specs\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/Specs.jpg?resize=540%2C492\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/Specs.jpg?resize=540%2C492 600w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/Specs-300x273.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 540px) 100vw, 540px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<div id=\"specs_expand_pnl1\" style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>Warranty\/support<\/strong>: Five-year warranty with free technical support &#8211; and\u00a0 note that it is assembled in the USA.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Instead of concentrating on the technical, we are going to be looking at the advantages that a PC gamer might have using a SSD over a fast mechanical hard drive. And of course, we will compare the OWC Mercury EXTREME Pro 6G SSD with the\u00a0Kingston consumer SSD<em>Now<\/em> V300<em><\/em> line with the (now) older V200 series and the current and more expensive HyperX 3K and premium HyperX SSDs.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Since our <a href=\"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/?p=32503\">SSD evaluation in November<\/a>, we have upgraded all of our results with Sisoft&#8217;s Sandra 2013 from the 2012 version and we have added three new benchmarks that will particularly interest gamers &#8211; (1) <em>Crysis<\/em> game level load times, (2)the time to install GeForce 306.97 drivers, and (3) the time to unpack for installation, 15.3GB of <em>Assassin&#8217;s Creed 3&#8217;s<\/em> .rar files. This may give us a practical reason for upgrading to a SSD over a HDD &#8211; or not.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Let&#8217;s open the package.<\/p>\n<h3 style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><\/h3>\n<p><!--pagetitle:Introduction --><!--nextpage--><!--pagetitle:Unboxing &amp; Bundles --><\/p>\n<h3 style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>Unboxing<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p style=\"text-align: left; padding-left: 30px;\">Here is the retail\u00a0package that you would buy from OWC. As you can see the contents are well-packed for transport safely to your door as inside the clamshell, the precious contents are well-protected by the soft packing material with anti-static properties. SSDs are by their nature, rather tough anyway.<a href=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/ssd-pack1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-32940\" title=\"ssd-pack\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/ssd-pack1.jpg?resize=384%2C529\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/ssd-pack1.jpg?resize=384%2C529 800w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/ssd-pack1-217x300.jpg 217w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/ssd-pack1-744x1024.jpg 744w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 384px) 100vw, 384px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left; padding-left: 30px;\">We note the promised tech service and the 5-year warranty are printed right on the box as well as that it is proudly\u00a0deigned and built\u00a0in America.<a href=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/ssd-packOBv1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-32941\" title=\"ssd-packOBv\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/ssd-packOBv1.jpg?resize=384%2C303\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/ssd-packOBv1.jpg?resize=384%2C303 800w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/ssd-packOBv1-300x236.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 384px) 100vw, 384px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left; padding-left: 30px;\">Here is the OWC Mercury EXTREME Pro 6G SSD out of the packing.<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-32882\" title=\"SSD-1\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/SSD-1.jpg?resize=432%2C403\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/SSD-1.jpg?resize=432%2C403 600w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/SSD-1-300x280.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 432px) 100vw, 432px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left; padding-left: 30px;\">Here is the SSD&#8217;s other side and we see the standard connections.<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-32884\" title=\"SSD-obv\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/SSD-obv.jpg?resize=432%2C384\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/SSD-obv.jpg?resize=432%2C384 600w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/SSD-obv-300x267.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 432px) 100vw, 432px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">The physical look and dimensions of all SSDs are the same except for their thickness (7mm for notebook &#8211; not shown &#8211; and 9mm for desktop). <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-32942\" title=\"Sidebyside\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/Sidebyside1.jpg?resize=288%2C442\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/Sidebyside1.jpg?resize=288%2C442 480w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/Sidebyside1-195x300.jpg 195w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 288px) 100vw, 288px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/>All\u00a0SSDs all have the standard SATA power and data connectors.<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-32881\" title=\"Sidebyside-1\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/Sidebyside-1.jpg?resize=480%2C338\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/Sidebyside-1.jpg?resize=480%2C338 1000w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/Sidebyside-1-300x211.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/p>\n<h3 style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><\/h3>\n<h3 style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>Testing the SSDs versus the HDD<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p style=\"text-align: left; padding-left: 30px;\">Below is Thermaltake&#8217;s BlackXduet 2.0 USB and eSATA hard drive dock which proved very useful in reading data from internal drives that are now accessed as external drives. Check out <a href=\"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/?p=23961\">the review<\/a> published by Leon Hyman. <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-32442\" title=\"HDD-SSD-dock\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/HDD-SSD-dock.jpg?resize=350%2C496\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/HDD-SSD-dock.jpg?resize=350%2C496 350w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/HDD-SSD-dock-211x300.jpg 211w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 350px) 100vw, 350px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/>We also use find the built-in USB 3.0 docks on the top of our Thermaltake Chaser MK-I and Overseer RX-I are also extremely useful for transferring data quickly and for cloning drives.\u00a0 We also received a very useful\u00a0external USB 3.0 SSD\/USB Dock from Newer Technology which we shall be evaluating for ABT readers next week.<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-32887\" title=\"ssd-dock-2\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/ssd-dock-2.jpg?resize=432%2C490\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/ssd-dock-2.jpg?resize=432%2C490 1000w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/ssd-dock-2-264x300.jpg 264w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/ssd-dock-2-902x1024.jpg 902w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 432px) 100vw, 432px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/>\u00a0We set up Windows 7 64-bit on one of our Seagate 500GB 7200.12 Barracuda hard drives along with two or three games, favorite applications and benching tools. We put about 100GB or so of data on our HDD so that we would not have any issues cloning the HDD to our 4 SSDs, the one with the smallest capacity being 120GB.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">There is no software nor any hardware supplied with the OWC Mercury EXTREME Pro 6G SSD.\u00a0\u00a0We used Acronis cloning software to make a exact copy of our HDD to all five SSDs (individually, each in under 15 minutes), and we were able to then boot from any of the now identically cloned drives. However, before we get to the benching, let&#8217;s recap the SSD and what makes it unique from mechanical drives.<\/p>\n<h3 style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>SSD Recap<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">One mistake many enthusiasts make is to think of a SSD like a mechanical HDD. Instead, think of it as a giant flash drive with the strengths and weaknesses inherent to that kind of storage. MrK&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/?p=19868&amp;all=1\">article<\/a> on the previous series of Kingston SSD<em>Now<\/em> is extraordinarily well-written and detailed, and it would be good to review it if you are not familar with Solid-State storage. Also, here is his article on the faster but much more expensive <a href=\"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/?p=15999&amp;all=1\">Patriot TorqX 256 GB SSD<\/a> which goes into even more detail. MrK explains the strengths and weaknesses of the SSD. Instead of repeating his information, this section will be the briefiest of recaps and we will focus instead on secure erase and performance degradation.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Because of the way data is written to and erased from a SSD, the write speeds will go down as more and more data is written to it. There is a definite need for TRIM and other garbage collection. When Windows 7 identifies the drive as a SSD, it enables the TRIM command for the drive when files are deleted from it. The TRIM command tells the SSD controller to delete the pages on the NAND flash block when the user deletes the data. The entire block containing the data is copied into the memory cache and then the block is erased. After this procedure, the data without the user-deleted part is rewritten back to the block from the memory cache. This results in longer delete times, but allows the write performance to remain nearly like-new.<\/p>\n<h3 style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Secure Erase and Performance Degradation<\/h3>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">A secure erase restores your drive to a like-new state where each cell is effectively zeroed out. So its performance would be like-new also as if it was fresh out of the box. Simply cloning over from an HDD to SSD would not zero out the cells like a secure erase would. This is because you&#8217;re not guaranteed to be writing over the same cells. In a clone, information is just being transferred over, not like erasing a cell first and then writing to it. On a\u00a0premium SSD such as OWC&#8217;s Mercury EXTREME Pro6 G , there is simply no need to secure erase periodically, but whenever you format or re-image your drive, it&#8217;s probably\u00a0a good idea.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.markc.me.uk\/MarkC\/Blog\/Entries\/2009\/8\/13_Erasing_an_SSD.html\" onclick=\"_gaq.push(['_trackEvent', 'outbound-article', 'http:\/\/www.markc.me.uk\/MarkC\/Blog\/Entries\/2009\/8\/13_Erasing_an_SSD.html', 'This']);\" >This<\/a> is perhaps the most detailed yet simplified step-by-step way to secure erase your SSD &#8211; something you must do (for safety) if you ever sell it. Be aware that your SSD&#8217;s BIOS may have some sort of mechanism that prevents the secure erase tool from detecting the SSD for secure erase.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Let&#8217;s check out our test bed.<\/p>\n<p><!--nextpage--><!--pagetitle:Test Configuration &amp; Benchmarks --><\/p>\n<h2><strong>Test Configuration &#8211; Hardware<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Intel Core i7-3770K (reference 3.5GHz, HyperThreading and Turbo boost are on), supplied by Intel.<\/li>\n<li>EVGA Z77 FTW motherboard (Intel Z77 chipset, shipping and latest Beta BIOS 107 July 26, 2012; USB\/PCIe 3.0 Specification; CrossFireX and Quad-SLI using PLX chip for extended PCIe bandwidth)<\/li>\n<li>ECS Z77H2-A2X motherboard (Intel z77 chipset, shipping BIOS, USB\/PCIe 3.0 specification; CrossFire\/SLI 8x+8x)<\/li>\n<li>Gigabyte GA-Z77MX-DH3 Series 7 mATX motherboard (shipping BIOS, USB 3.0, PCIe 3.0 specification, CrossFire\/SLI 8x+8x)<\/li>\n<li>8 GB Kingston DDR3 PC 1866 Kingston RAM (2\u00d72, 3&#215;2 and 4&#215;2 GB, dual- and tri-channel at 1833MHz; supplied by Kingston)<\/li>\n<li>GeForce GTX 670, 2 GB (reference clocks), supplied by Nvidia<\/li>\n<li>500 GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 hard drives<\/li>\n<li>OWC Mercury EXTREME Pro 6G 240GB SSD on loan from Other World Computing (OWC)<\/li>\n<li>Kingston V<em>Now<\/em> 300 SSD, 120 GB, retail desktop upgrade drive, supplied by Kington<\/li>\n<li>Kingston HyperX SSD 240 GB, retail desktop upgrade kit, supplied by Kingston<\/li>\n<li>Kingston HyperX 3K SSD, 240GB, retail desktop upgrade kit, supplied by Kingston<\/li>\n<li>Kingston Vn<em>ow<\/em> 200 SSD, 128 GB, standalone drive, supplied by Kington<\/li>\n<li>Thermaltake ToughPower 775 W power supply unit supplied by Thermaltake<\/li>\n<li>Thermaltake Overseer RX-I supplied by Thermaltake<\/li>\n<li>Thermaltake Water2.0 Pro watercooler supplied by Thermaltake<\/li>\n<li>Philips DVD SATA writer\/Sony DVD SATA writer<\/li>\n<li>HP LP3065 2560&#215;1600 thirty inch LCD<\/li>\n<li>ASUS VG278 1920&#215;1080 120Hz 3D Vision 2 ready 27&#8243; display supplied by ASUS\/Nvidia<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2 style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>Test Configuration &#8211; Software<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>GeForce WHQL 306.97 drivers<\/li>\n<li>Latest drivers for Series 7 motherboards.<\/li>\n<li>Windows 7 64-bit; very latest updates<\/li>\n<li>Latest DirectX<\/li>\n<li>All games are patched to their latest versions.<\/li>\n<li>VSync is off in the control panel.<\/li>\n<li>Varying AA enabled as noted in games<em><\/em>; all in-game settings are specified with 16xAF always applied if possible; 16xAF forced in control panel for <em>Crysis.<\/em><\/li>\n<li>All results show average rates as noted.<\/li>\n<li>Highest quality sound (stereo) used in all games.<\/li>\n<li>Windows 7 64, all DX9 titles were run under DX9 render paths, DX10 titles were run under DX10 render paths and DX11 titles under DX11 render paths.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2 style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>The benchmarks<\/strong><\/h2>\n<h3 style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>The Game benchmarks<\/strong><\/h3>\n<ul style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Heaven 3.0<em><\/em><\/li>\n<li><em> Crysis<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3 style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>Other Tests<\/strong><\/h3>\n<ul style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Super Pi<\/li>\n<li>Fritz Chess Bench<\/li>\n<li>Custom PC Benchmark<\/li>\n<li>Cinebench<\/li>\n<li>x264 HD<\/li>\n<li>Crystal Disk Mark<\/li>\n<li>AS SSD<\/li>\n<li>ATTO2.34<\/li>\n<li><em>Crysis 2<\/em> folder copy<\/li>\n<li>HD Tach 3.0.4<\/li>\n<li>HD Tune 2.55<\/li>\n<li>Windows startup &amp; shutdown<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3 style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>Synthetic Benching Suites<\/strong><\/h3>\n<ul style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>SiSoft Sandra 2013<\/li>\n<li>PC Mark Vantage &#8211; HDD tests<\/li>\n<li>PC Mark 7<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3 style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>Synthetic Gaming Benchmarks<\/strong><\/h3>\n<ul style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Vantage<\/li>\n<li>3DMark11<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>New Benchmarks<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><em>Crysis<\/em> Game Level Load time<\/li>\n<li>Install GeForce 306.97 video drivers time<\/li>\n<li>Unpack 15.3GB <em>Assassin&#8217;s Creed III<\/em> .rar files for installation<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">We have got an interesting project going. First we look at synthetic and real world benches before we head for gaming results.<\/p>\n<p><!--nextpage--><!--pagetitle:Synthetic Tests --><\/p>\n<h1 style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>Synthetic Tests<\/strong><\/h1>\n<h3 style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>CrystalDiskMark<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Crystal DiskMark version 3.0 is an excellent way to test your motherboard\/HD&#8217;s performance. CrystalDiskMark is primarily a HDD benchmark utility for your hard drive that enables you to measure sequential data and random read\/write speeds in 4k blocks and 512k blocks.<a href=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/crystal.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-32946\" title=\"crystal\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/crystal.jpg?resize=400%2C352\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/crystal.jpg?resize=400%2C352 400w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/crystal-300x264.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Here are two key features of \u201cCrystalDiskMark\u201d:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 60px;\">\u00b7 Sequential reads\/writes<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 60px;\">\u00b7 Random 4KB\/512KB reads\/writes<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left; padding-left: 30px;\">And now we put the sequential read\/write information into a comparison chart:<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-32953\" title=\"crystal-chart\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/crystal-chart2.jpg?resize=482%2C498\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/crystal-chart2.jpg?resize=482%2C498 482w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/crystal-chart2-290x300.jpg 290w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 482px) 100vw, 482px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">All of the SSDs leave the HDD far behind in this benchmark. The SSD<em>Now<\/em> V200 is slower in this test than the HyperX enthusiast SSDs overall whereas the SSD<em>Now<\/em> V300 is the very fastest in Read speeds but slower than V200 in Writes.\u00a0 The OWC Mercury EXTREME Pro 6G 240GB SSD\u00a0matches the fastest Kingston SSDs in\u00a0Read speeds\u00a0but takes a real lead in the Write speeds.<\/p>\n<h3 style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>HD TACH<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p style=\"text-align: left; padding-left: 30px;\">HD Tach v3.0.4.0 is a hard drive benchmark utility which will measure the average read speed, the random access time, and the CPU utilization. Here is the OWC Mercury EXTREME Pro 6G 240GB SSD result:<a href=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/hd-tach.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-32949\" title=\"hd-tach\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/hd-tach.jpg?resize=480%2C356\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/hd-tach.jpg?resize=480%2C356 800w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/hd-tach-300x222.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left; padding-left: 30px;\">From looking at the chart, what is impressive is the performance in HD Tach of our HDD.<a href=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/hd-tach-chart1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-32954\" title=\"hd-tach-chart\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/hd-tach-chart1.jpg?resize=482%2C412\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/hd-tach-chart1.jpg?resize=482%2C412 482w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/hd-tach-chart1-300x256.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 482px) 100vw, 482px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">The\u00a0OWC Mercury EXTREME Pro 6G 240GB SSD once again leads in this synthetic\u00a0benchmark.<\/p>\n<h3 style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>HD Tune 2.55<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">HD Tune is a hard disk utility. We are using the default setting of 64KB blocks for testing. We run the standard benchmark with all of our five drives.<a href=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/hd-tune.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-32952\" title=\"hd-tune\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/hd-tune.jpg?resize=480%2C401\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/hd-tune.jpg?resize=480%2C401 480w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/hd-tune-300x250.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left; padding-left: 30px;\">Now the chart.<a href=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/hd-tune-chart.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-32955\" title=\"hd-tune-chart\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/hd-tune-chart.jpg?resize=482%2C397\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/hd-tune-chart.jpg?resize=482%2C397 482w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/hd-tune-chart-300x247.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 482px) 100vw, 482px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">There is absolutely no comparison in these synthetic tests. All SSDs are much faster than the mechanical HDD but the performance of the Kingston HyperX drive simply blow away the SSD<em>Now<\/em> V200&#8217;s transfer rate performance in this test.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0In contrast,\u00a0the SSD<em>Now<\/em> V300&#8217;s rate is quite respectable even compared to the much more expensive Hyper-X drives.\u00a0\u00a0 The OWC is the second-fastest SSD in this test, but only by about 0.10%<\/p>\n<h2 style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>ASSD<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">ASSD is designed primarily for Solid-State Drives. There are four synthetic and three practice tests. The synthetic tests determine the sequential and random read and write performance of the SSD and are carried out without use of the operating system caches. In Seq-test the program measures how long it takes to read and write a 1 GB file respectively. In the 4K test the read and write performance for random 4K blocks is determined. The 4K-64-thrd test corresponds to the 4K procedure except that the read and write operations on 64 threads are distributed as with the usual start of a program.<a href=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/ASSD.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-32956\" title=\"ASSD\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/ASSD.jpg?resize=480%2C486\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/ASSD.jpg?resize=480%2C486 480w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/ASSD-296x300.jpg 296w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">In the copying test following folders are created: ISO (two large files), programs (typical program folder with many small files) and games (folder of a game with small and large files). These three folders are copied with a simple copy command of the operating system. The cache is turned on for this test. The practice tests show the performance of the SSD with simultaneous read and write operations.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Here is the chart comparing the scores:<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-32958\" title=\"ASSD-cht\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/ASSD-cht1.jpg?resize=482%2C371\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/ASSD-cht1.jpg?resize=482%2C371 482w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/ASSD-cht1-300x230.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 482px) 100vw, 482px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">As in most of our tests, the SSDs leaves the HDD trailing far behind in this benchmark and the OWC SSD is fastest; and together with the HyperX SSDs, are significantly faster than the SSD<em>Now<\/em> V200 and V300.<\/p>\n<h3 style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>ATTO<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p style=\"text-align: left; padding-left: 30px;\">The ATTO Disk Benchmark is an aging performance measurement tool which measures storage systems performance with various transfer sizes and test lengths for reads and writes. Several options are available to customize the performance measurement including queue depth, overlapped I\/O and even a comparison mode with the option to run continuously. Here is the SSD<em>Now<\/em> V300 SSD&#8217;s results:We are way ahead of Kingston&#8217;s published conservative figures of 450MB\/s for Read and Write!<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left; padding-left: 30px;\">Here are the results of the HDD benchmark.<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/ATTO-hdd.jpg?resize=480%2C614\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left; padding-left: 30px;\">Here is the results of the ATTO Disk benchmark results for our 128GB V<em>Now <\/em>200 SSD:<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" title=\"ATTO-vnow\" alt=\"ATTO vnow Kingstons HyperX and VNow 200 SSDs turn up the heat on the Hard Disk Drive\" src=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/ATTO-vnow.jpg?resize=480%2C618\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/> V200 is quite a bit slower than the V3oo<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/Atto-v3.jpg?resize=482%2C621\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left; padding-left: 30px;\">Here is the Hyper3K SSD<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" title=\"ATTO-Hyx3K\" alt=\"ATTO Hyx3K Kingstons HyperX and VNow 200 SSDs turn up the heat on the Hard Disk Drive\" src=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/ATTO-Hyx3K.jpg?resize=480%2C606\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/>\u00a0Here are the HyperX SSD results:<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center; padding-left: 30px;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/ATTO-hyperX.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" title=\"ATTO-hyperX\" alt=\"ATTO hyperX Kingstons HyperX and VNow 200 SSDs turn up the heat on the Hard Disk Drive\" src=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/ATTO-hyperX.jpg?resize=480%2C618\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Notice that\u00a0the OWC SSD is really fast like the HyperX SSDs in Read, but in this test is even faster in Write.<a href=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/atto-owc.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-32959\" title=\"atto-owc\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/atto-owc.jpg?resize=472%2C621\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/atto-owc.jpg?resize=472%2C621 472w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/atto-owc-228x300.jpg 228w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 472px) 100vw, 472px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">It doesn&#8217;t really prove anything (yet), but synthetic benchmarks are definitely faster on the SSD vs the HDD. We also note the continuing trend of performance differences between the consumer and the enthusiast-grade SSDs until the SSD<em>Now<\/em> V300 series where the consumer-grade SSD comes close to the HyperX enthusiast SSDs in performance. In some areas, one is faster than the other, but we want to know practically if one is faster. Perhaps PCMark Vantage may provide a clue.<\/p>\n<p><!--nextpage--><!--pagetitle:Benchmark Suites --><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3 style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>PCMark Vantage<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">PCMark Vantage is a PC benchmark suite designed for Windows Vista and 7 that offers one-click simplicity for casual users and detailed, professional grade testing for industry, press and enthusiasts. A PCMark Vantage score is a rough measure of your computer\u2019s performance across a variety of common tasks. The measurement for the PCMark Vantage hard drive suite is the total score with the scoring for each test further broken down. There are a total of eight hard drive tests within PCMark Vantage and all eight are run to measure the relative performance of the SSD vs the HDD we tested.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">The HDD Test suite in PCMark Vantage consists of the following 8 tests and we are going to be paying particular attention to the disk drive tests:<\/p>\n<ul style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>HDD 1- Windows Defender<\/li>\n<li>HDD 2- Game HDD<\/li>\n<li>HDD 3- Importing pictures<\/li>\n<li>HDD 4- Windows Vista start-up<\/li>\n<li>HDD 5- Video editing<\/li>\n<li>HDD 6- Media Center<\/li>\n<li>HDD 7- Adding music to Windows Media Player<\/li>\n<li>HDD 8- Application loading<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">First we run the standard PCMark Vantage benchmark suite using our OWC Mercury EXTREME Pro 6G 240GB SSD:<a href=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/pcmark-vantage-owc.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-32961\" title=\"pcmark-vantage-owc\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/pcmark-vantage-owc.jpg?resize=315%2C811\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/pcmark-vantage-owc.jpg?resize=315%2C811 315w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/pcmark-vantage-owc-116x300.jpg 116w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 315px) 100vw, 315px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Now we run the same benchmark suite with our OWC Mercury EXTREME Pro 6G 240GB SSD but we pay particular attention to the drive scores.\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/pcmark-vantageSSD.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-32997\" title=\"pcmark vantageSSD\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/pcmark-vantageSSD.png?resize=310%2C472\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/pcmark-vantageSSD.png?resize=310%2C472 310w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/pcmark-vantageSSD-197x300.png 197w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 310px) 100vw, 310px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a>If you want to compare these detailed scores with the HDD and\u00a0with other Kingston SSDs, check out <a href=\"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/?p=32503&amp;page=5\">our last evaluation<\/a> which uses exactly the same test bed and conditions. Here are the overall scores as expressed in a chart:<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-32962\" title=\"PCMarkVantage\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/PCMarkVantage.jpg?resize=482%2C472\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/PCMarkVantage.jpg?resize=482%2C472 482w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/PCMarkVantage-300x293.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 482px) 100vw, 482px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left; padding-left: 30px;\">In all cases, the SSDs are faster with PCMark Vantage than with the mechanical hard disk drives and the HyperX drives are faster for some applications than the older SSD V<em>Now<\/em> 200 series but not the new SSD<em>Now<\/em> V300.\u00a0 The OWC Mercury EXTREME Pro 6G 240GB SSD scores second best in this benching suite.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left; padding-left: 30px;\">We also see from the chart above that the kind of drive used in the benchmarking will affect the final score of most benchmark suites but we have to look at the actual drive test to see the differences between SSD performance.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left; padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>PC Mark 7<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left; padding-left: 30px;\">PCMark 7 is Futuremark&#8217;s updated verion of our last benchmark suite but for Windows 7. Just as the overall score is affected by the drive used in Vantage, the same applies to PCMark 7. The standard version of the suite does not give a breakdown score for the SSD\/HDD tests. <a href=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/pc-mark-7-owc.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-32963\" title=\"pc-mark-7-owc\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/pc-mark-7-owc.jpg?resize=309%2C755\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a>Here is the overall chart.<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-32964\" title=\"pc-mark-7-owcChart\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/pc-mark-7-owcChart.jpg?resize=482%2C372\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/pc-mark-7-owcChart.jpg?resize=482%2C372 482w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/pc-mark-7-owcChart-300x231.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 482px) 100vw, 482px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left; padding-left: 30px;\">As in all synthetic suites, the overall score depend a great deal on the drive used. However, there is not a lot of difference in the scores between a mechanical Hard Disk Drive, a consumer SSD, and a high-performance enthusiast\u00a0SSD running the entire benchmark suite although the OWC Mercury EXTREME Pro 6G 240GB SSD scores\u00a0highest in\u00a0Futuremark&#8217;s most modern PC\u00a0benching suite.<\/p>\n<h3 style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong><span style=\"color: #ffff00;\">SANDRA 2013 <\/span><\/strong><\/h3>\n<p style=\"text-align: left; padding-left: 30px;\">SANDRA, short for the System ANalyser, Diagnostic and Reporting Assistant is an information and diagnostic utility. It provides a tremendous amount of information about every hardware and software component in your PC. It also provides various benchmarks including for measuring and reporting disk performance.<a href=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/Sandraowc.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-32965\" title=\"Sandraowc\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/Sandraowc.jpg?resize=480%2C524\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/Sandraowc.jpg?resize=480%2C524 800w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/Sandraowc-274x300.jpg 274w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Although we used the last verson of 2012 in our <a href=\"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/?p=32503&amp;all=1\">November SSD evaluation<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sisoftware.co.uk\/?d=&amp;f=home&amp;l=en&amp;a=\" onclick=\"_gaq.push(['_trackEvent', 'outbound-article', 'http:\/\/www.sisoftware.co.uk\/?d=&amp;f=home&amp;l=en&amp;a=', 'SANDRA 2013']);\" >SANDRA 2013<\/a> came out last month and we\u00a0are using our\u00a0updated SSD benchmarks for this current evaluation. Sandra 2012&#8217;s overall benchmark score is generally higher than the overall Sandra 2013 score. We find Sandra 2013 is an incredibly useful suite which we use regularly as a diagnostic utility.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Here is a summary chart of SANDRA 2013&#8217;s benchmarks:<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-32943\" title=\"Sandra2013chart\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/Sandra2013chart.jpg?resize=500%2C295\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/Sandra2013chart.jpg?resize=500%2C295 500w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/Sandra2013chart-300x177.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left; padding-left: 30px;\">As usual, all SSDs are significantly faster than the HDD for synthetic benchmarking when benching physical disks and file systems; very little else is affected. We do see huge differences between the HDD and the SSDs and although the HyperX SSDs are faster than the V<em>Now<\/em> 200 series the performance gap is nearly closed by the new Kingston V<em>Now<\/em> 300 series.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left; padding-left: 30px;\">Overall, the OWC Mercury EXTREME Pro 6G 240GB SSD is proving to be the fastest and it leads in most of the important benches that are affected by drive performance.\u00a0 Let&#8217;s head for real world testing<strong>.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><!--nextpage--><!--pagetitle:More Tests --><\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: left; padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>More Testing<\/strong><\/h2>\n<h3 style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>CustomPC Benchmark<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">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\u2019s 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 and which SSD is fastest overall.<a href=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/custompcOWC.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-32966\" title=\"custompcOWC\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/custompcOWC.jpg?resize=480%2C469\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/custompcOWC.jpg?resize=480%2C469 480w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/custompcOWC-300x293.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">The tests are:<\/p>\n<ul style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><em>GIMP Image Editing<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>H.264 Video Encoding<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>Multi-tasking<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Here are the results expressed in a chart:<a href=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/custompcOWCchart.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-32967\" title=\"custompcOWCchart\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/custompcOWCchart.jpg?resize=482%2C738\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/custompcOWCchart.jpg?resize=482%2C738 482w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/custompcOWCchart-195x300.jpg 195w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 482px) 100vw, 482px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">All of the SSDs are a few seconds faster than the HDD in each task, the biggesst difference being in multi-tasking; and there is really only slight variation overall between the SSDs.<\/p>\n<h3 style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Super Pi<\/h3>\n<p style=\"text-align: left; padding-left: 30px;\">Here is Super Pi which calculates Pi to 32 million places if you like. We ran Super Pi on our HDD and then on our 3 SSDs to see if there was any difference.<a href=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/Spi.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-32968\" title=\"Spi\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/Spi.jpg?resize=410%2C477\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/Spi.jpg?resize=410%2C477 512w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/Spi-257x300.jpg 257w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 410px) 100vw, 410px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Let&#8217;s compare the speed of the drives to see if there is any difference.<a href=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/Spi-cht.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-32969\" title=\"Spi-cht\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/Spi-cht.jpg?resize=482%2C347\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/Spi-cht.jpg?resize=482%2C347 482w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/Spi-cht-300x215.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 482px) 100vw, 482px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">No difference really. Please continue on to Fritz Chess Bench.<\/p>\n<h3 style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Fritz Chess Bench<\/h3>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Fritz Chess Benchmark is found within the game\u2019s program files and basically it crunches numbers to test your processor\u2019s speed. Deep Fritz takes advantage of massive calculations and multi-threaded performance to work any CPU fully. It loads all threads 100%.<a href=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/ftitz.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-32970\" title=\"ftitz\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/ftitz.jpg?resize=454%2C472\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/ftitz.jpg?resize=454%2C472 454w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/ftitz-288x300.jpg 288w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 454px) 100vw, 454px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Besides showing relative speed when compared to a P3 1.0GHz CPU, it also shows the nodes completed. The faster your CPU, the more nodes completed.<a href=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/ftitzCHART.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-32971\" title=\"ftitzCHART\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/ftitzCHART.jpg?resize=482%2C462\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/ftitzCHART.jpg?resize=482%2C462 482w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/ftitzCHART-300x287.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 482px) 100vw, 482px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">The HDD makes no practical difference.<\/p>\n<h3 style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">CINEBENCH<\/h3>\n<p style=\"text-align: left; padding-left: 30px;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.maxon.net\/downloads\/cinebench.html\" onclick=\"javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http:\/\/www.maxon.net']); _gaq.push(['_trackEvent', 'outbound-article', 'http:\/\/www.maxon.net\/downloads\/cinebench.html', 'CINEBENCH']);\">CINEBENCH<\/a> is based on MAXON\u2019s professional 3D content creation suite, CINEMA 4D. This latest 11.5 version of CINEBENCH can test up to 64 processor threads accurately and automatically.<a href=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/cinebenchOWC.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-32972\" title=\"cinebenchOWC\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/cinebenchOWC.jpg?resize=375%2C603\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/cinebenchOWC.jpg?resize=375%2C603 375w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/cinebenchOWC-186x300.jpg 186w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 375px) 100vw, 375px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left; padding-left: 30px;\">Now we run the benchmarks and chart our results; first is the OpenGL test:<a href=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/cinebenchOWC-OGL-chart.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-32973\" title=\"cinebenchOWC-OGL-chart\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/cinebenchOWC-OGL-chart.jpg?resize=482%2C443\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/cinebenchOWC-OGL-chart.jpg?resize=482%2C443 482w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/cinebenchOWC-OGL-chart-300x275.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 482px) 100vw, 482px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Of course, there is no practical difference in the CPU test and only slight variations in the OpenGL test.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/cinebenchOWC-CPU-chart.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-32974\" title=\"cinebenchOWC-CPU-chart\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/cinebenchOWC-CPU-chart.jpg?resize=482%2C419\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/cinebenchOWC-CPU-chart.jpg?resize=482%2C419 482w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/cinebenchOWC-CPU-chart-300x260.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 482px) 100vw, 482px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<h3 style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">X264<\/h3>\n<p style=\"text-align: left; padding-left: 30px;\">Basically this test encodes a HD video clip into a x264 video file. The first pass is very quick and the second one is much slower and much more demanding of a task as it does the actual encoding. This benchmark is heavily multi-threaded.<a href=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/x264owc.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-32975\" title=\"x264owc\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/x264owc.jpg?resize=480%2C644\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/x264owc.jpg?resize=480%2C644 600w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/x264owc-223x300.jpg 223w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left; padding-left: 30px;\">Here is the chart of our results.<a href=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/x264owcCht.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-32976\" title=\"x264owcCht\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/x264owcCht.jpg?resize=482%2C504\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/x264owcCht.jpg?resize=482%2C504 482w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/x264owcCht-286x300.jpg 286w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 482px) 100vw, 482px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">The end user can feel free to use his HDD for x264. Generally a lot of storage is needed anyway and there is not a lot of difference in performace.<\/p>\n<p><!--nextpage--><!--pagetitle:Game Related Benches --><\/p>\n<h1 style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>Game-related benchmarks<\/strong><\/h1>\n<h3 style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>The synthetics<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">3DMark 11 and Vantage are useful tests to track changes within the same system and they are often used to give a rough comparison between platforms.<\/p>\n<h3 style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>Vantage<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p style=\"text-align: left; padding-left: 30px;\">First up we look at Vantage on the HDD using our GTX 670 and i7-3770K at stock speeds. Looking carefully at each of the runs; all drives fall within a very small margin of error.<a href=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/vantageOWC.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-32977\" title=\"vantageOWC\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/vantageOWC.jpg?resize=480%2C278\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/vantageOWC.jpg?resize=480%2C278 800w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/vantageOWC-300x173.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Here is the chart.<a href=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/VantageOWCchart.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-32979\" title=\"VantageOWCchart\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/VantageOWCchart.jpg?resize=482%2C400\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/VantageOWCchart.jpg?resize=482%2C400 482w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/VantageOWCchart-300x248.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 482px) 100vw, 482px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">There is no performance difference running a SSD or a HDD for Vantage.\u00a0 For the record, the OWC Mercury EXTREME Pro6G 240GB SSD scores the highest; 401 points higher out of nearly 31,000 points.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Now let\u2019s look at 3D Mark 11.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>3D Mark 11<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Now lets check out the score with the OWC Mercury EXTREME Pro6G 240GB SSD:<a href=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/3d-mark11owc.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-32981\" title=\"3d-mark11owc\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/3d-mark11owc.jpg?resize=314%2C752\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/3d-mark11owc.jpg?resize=314%2C752 314w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/3d-mark11owc-125x300.jpg 125w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 314px) 100vw, 314px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Here is the chart of our results:<a href=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/3d-mark11owcCHT.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-32982\" title=\"3d-mark11owcCHT\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/3d-mark11owcCHT.jpg?resize=482%2C437\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/3d-mark11owcCHT.jpg?resize=482%2C437 482w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/3d-mark11owcCHT-300x271.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 482px) 100vw, 482px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">There is no difference running a HDD or a SSD. Let\u2019s look at Heaven Benchmark and <em>Crysis<\/em> to see if there is any difference in frame rates between SSD and HDD.<\/p>\n<h3 style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>Heaven 3.0 &amp; Crysis framerates<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">We run <em>Crysis<\/em> at 1920&#215;1080 on Very High setting with 4xAA\/16xAF. Heaven 3.0 is run as below on all 5 of our drives. Everything is at identical settings under the same conditions:<strong><a href=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/heaven-vnow.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-32519\" title=\"heaven-vnow\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/heaven-vnow.jpg?resize=300%2C168\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/heaven-vnow.jpg?resize=300%2C168 300w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/heaven-vnow-1024x576.jpg 1024w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/heaven-vnow.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">We compare identical runs and chart the result:<a href=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/Heaven-cryi-OWC-chart.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-32984\" title=\"Heaven-cryi-OWC-chart\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/Heaven-cryi-OWC-chart.jpg?resize=482%2C596\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/Heaven-cryi-OWC-chart.jpg?resize=482%2C596 482w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/Heaven-cryi-OWC-chart-242x300.jpg 242w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 482px) 100vw, 482px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">No difference outside of benchmarking &#8220;noise&#8221;.\u00a0<em> <\/em>We do not find\u00a0the o.35 fps\u00a0varience in the frame rates in Heaven to be significant.\u00a0 The <em>Crysis<\/em> result is certainly less than 3% difference but it bears further\u00a0investigation as the OWC SSD\u00a0 is slightly faster than the pack.\u00a0 This week, ABT is looking at frame times and frame rate comparisons and we will again\u00a0attempt to determine if there is any difference in gaming performance by using a faster SSD over a slower one or a HDD.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Now we will look at three new very practical tests for gamers.<\/p>\n<p><!--nextpage--><!--pagetitle:3 New Gamer's benches &amp; Win 7 Startup &amp; Shutdown --><\/p>\n<h2 style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>4 Practical Benchmarks for Gamers<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Besides updating to Sandra 2013, we\u00a0recently added three benchmarks that regularly affect every gamer in a practical way.<\/p>\n<h3 style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>File Copy: Crysis 2<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">In this test, we are using <a href=\"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/?p=15999&amp;page=12\">MrK&#8217;s method<\/a> of installing the <em>Crysis Warhead<\/em> game to the drive being benchmarked. The game folder is copied to another folder on the same drive using Microsoft\u2019s Robocopy GUI and the time used is noted. This real world benchmark tests both the read and the write speeds of the drive at the same time. This time we choose <em>Crysis 2<\/em> for this purpose as this game has 10GB 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.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Here is the chart of the copy time results in seconds.<a href=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/folder-copy-owc-cht.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-32985\" title=\"folder-copy-owc-cht\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/folder-copy-owc-cht.jpg?resize=482%2C350\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/folder-copy-owc-cht.jpg?resize=482%2C350 482w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/folder-copy-owc-cht-300x217.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 482px) 100vw, 482px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">The OWC Mercury EXTREME Pro 6G 240GB SSD is the very fastest of our drives, beating the second-fastest SSD\u00a0time by 5 seconds.\u00a0 The SSD<em>Now<\/em> V200 took 2 minutes and 6 seconds on average to copy nearly 10GB. The HyperX 240GB SSDs only averaged 1 minute and 35 seconds and the new SSD<em>Now<\/em> V300 only took ten seconds longer; a significant improvement over the older series. And the HDD took 5 minute and 32 seconds.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Need we say more? Here we see a practical difference demonstrating the advantages of SSD and even the advantages of the faster premium SSD over the\u00a0slower consumer grade SSDs.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left; padding-left: 30px;\">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 over using a mechanical drive.<\/p>\n<h2 style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>Game Level Load Times <\/strong><\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: left; padding-left: 30px;\">Solid-state drives evidently won\u2019t increase game framerates but they can certainly reduce game startup times and save\/load times. This means less time waiting for the game to load and more time playing the game. There is also the issue of &#8220;immersion&#8221;. If it takes a long time to load a level or an autosave, it may cause irritation, and getting back quickly into the game after your character dies is important for staying immersed in any game.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left; padding-left: 30px;\">There is an incredible variation in game loading times between the HDD and SSDs, depending on the game engine used. Some games bring you almost instantly back into the game, with very little difference between HDD and SSD. The ones that take longer, tend to favor the SSD and load noticeably more quickly. The differences between the two HyperX SSDs is imperceptable and the SSD<em>Now<\/em> V300 has got faster than the SSD<em>Now<\/em> V200 drives.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left; padding-left: 30px;\">To represent loading a level in <em>Crysis<\/em>, we time the average length of time it takes to load the GPU benchmark after the first time.<a href=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/levelload-owccht.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-32986\" title=\"levelload-owccht\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/levelload-owccht.jpg?resize=482%2C290\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/levelload-owccht.jpg?resize=482%2C290 482w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/levelload-owccht-300x180.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 482px) 100vw, 482px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left; padding-left: 30px;\">If you are into saving time, the SSD is definitely faster in loading PC levels and autosaves. The SSD will not improve your framerates &#8211; or your aim &#8211; but it may improve immersion by getting you back into the game a bit more quickly.<\/p>\n<h3 style=\"text-align: left; padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>Installing Video Drivers<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p style=\"text-align: left; padding-left: 30px;\">A gamer often installs WHQL drivers as soon as they are available. Beta drivers may be released weekly and installing drivers for a video card is a common task. <a href=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/installVideoDrivers-1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-32987\" title=\"installVideoDrivers-1\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/installVideoDrivers-1.jpg?resize=400%2C195\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/installVideoDrivers-1.jpg?resize=400%2C195 400w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/installVideoDrivers-1-300x146.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left; padding-left: 30px;\">Here is the chart showing the time difference in installing downloaded drivers from a HDD versus\u00a0two\u00a0SSDs:<a href=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/installgfdrivers-owcCHT.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-32988\" title=\"installgfdrivers-owcCHT\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/installgfdrivers-owcCHT.jpg?resize=482%2C290\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/installgfdrivers-owcCHT.jpg?resize=482%2C290 482w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/installgfdrivers-owcCHT-300x180.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 482px) 100vw, 482px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">It takes nearly twice as long to install video card drivers from a HDD than it does from\u00a0an SSDs.<\/p>\n<h3 style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>Installing a game from downloaded compressed files.<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p style=\"text-align: left; padding-left: 30px;\">As the world moves to digital downloads as the preferred method for installing games, the importance of a fast drive in saving time becomes more important. We recently downloaded <em>Assassin&#8217;s Creed III<\/em> and installed it to our drive which reminded us to make it a new benchmark. After you download all 15.3GB in .rar files, they must be uncompressed to install the game.<a href=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/15.3GB-AssassinsCreed-11.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-32989\" title=\"15.3GB-AssassinsCreed-1\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/15.3GB-AssassinsCreed-11.jpg?resize=480%2C409\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/15.3GB-AssassinsCreed-11.jpg?resize=480%2C409 800w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/15.3GB-AssassinsCreed-11-300x255.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Let&#8217;s see how long it takes to uncompress over 15GB of files.<a href=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/ACE-owc-CHT.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-32990\" title=\"ACE-owc-CHT\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/ACE-owc-CHT.jpg?resize=482%2C290\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/ACE-owc-CHT.jpg?resize=482%2C290 482w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/ACE-owc-CHT-300x180.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 482px) 100vw, 482px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a> There is no contest as the\u00a0slower Kingston consumer-grade\u00a0SSD is more than twice faster than the HDD.\u00a0 And the\u00a0OWC Mercury EXTREME Pro 6G 240GB SSD is significantly faster than Kingston&#8217;s SandForced-based SSD SSD<em>Now<\/em> V300.\u00a0 Again we ask, how do you value your time?<\/p>\n<h3 style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>Benchmarking and testing overclocks<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">One thing that a reviewer or overclocker will note is while pushing hardware to its limits, it will often cause a display driver to stop responding or the operating system to crash. Using a HDD takes quite a while to recover and return to testing compared to benching with a SSD. This editor estimates that using a SSD over benching with a HDD for a major CPU or video card evaluation, saves twenty percent of his time!<\/p>\n<h2 style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Windows Startup and Shutdown<\/h2>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Now we come to what is arguably one of the most frustrating part of Windows &#8211; waiting for it to start-up or shutdown. For some of us, it is not important as we rarely start-up or shutdown our PCs. For others, it is a painful process to watch &#8211; while others of us do something else while our programs start-up or shut down.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">The average shutdown time represents an &#8220;average range&#8221; for the test PC as there are so many variables when you shutdown your PC (installing updates will prolong the process). From the chart, basically you are saving nearly half the time, on average, with a SSD over a HDD.<a href=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/start-shut-owcCHT.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-32991\" title=\"start-shut-owcCHT\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/start-shut-owcCHT.jpg?resize=482%2C543\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/start-shut-owcCHT.jpg?resize=482%2C543 482w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/start-shut-owcCHT-266x300.jpg 266w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 482px) 100vw, 482px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Startup on an SSD offers even more time-saving &#8211; you will spend one third of your time waiting for an SSD to load Win 7 compared to using a HDD.\u00a0 Since we are keeping score, the OWC Mercury EXTREME Pro 6G 240GB SSD is the fastest drive.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">The charts speak for themselves again and power users will love this feature as no one wants to go make a cup of coffee while Windows sets up. Windows 8 mitiages this issue somewhat for HDD holdouts as it boots much faster than Windows 7. Let&#8217;s head for our conclusion.<\/p>\n<p><!--nextpage--><!--pagetitle:Conclusion --><\/p>\n<h2 style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>Conclusion<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">As we concluded last year, SSD technology is still one of the most rapidly improving while their price is dropping. With more and more motherboard manufacturers offering SATA 3 6Gb\/s ports, the ceiling for maximum transfer speeds for disk drives has been nearly doubled from the SATA 2 3Gb\/s standard. We have seen the SSD develop improved new controllers that bring faster speeds and now we have\u00a0found the fastest one that we have tested so far\u00a0&#8211; the OWC Mercury EXTREME Pro 6G.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">We have watched SSD technology get slowly cheaper over time and it is much more accessible to the regular consumer and not just for enthusiasts. Since last year&#8217;s Thailand floods which crippled HDD production, many consumer-grade SSDs have dipped below the $1-per-gigabyte MSRP pricing regularly and sales frequently go well below this pricing once considered breakthrough. The OWC Mercury EXTREME Pro 6G series offers a\u00a0solid bang-for-buck value for consumers who\u00a0will not accept any compromise\u00a0with performance.\u00a0 At $295 the OWC Mercury EXTREME Pro 6G is faster than Kingston&#8217;s premium $400+ HyperX 240GB SSD.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><em>It is absolutely not &#8220;mandatory&#8221; to have a SSD if you use your PC only for gaming.<\/em> A hardcore gamer would more likely save his money by buying a large fast mechanical drive and upgrading his graphics instead. A 1TB drive can again be had for $50 on sale. Mechanical HDDs have got quite fast for gaming and their only disadvantage compared to the SSD is waiting a second or two longer for your autosave to load; or longer for an entire level to load. However, if a gamer is impatient and wants to get right back into the game, then the SSD will definitely improve immersion and decrease frustration.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">With a low-capicity drive SSD , gamers will constantly be installing new games and uninstalling them after playing them to make room for even newer games. At 240GB, many gamers will be satisfied with the amount of storage and it is a good compromise size for a performance conscious gamer with $300 to spend on a premium\u00a0SSD.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>Pros <\/strong><\/p>\n<ul style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>The SSD is of a magnitude faster than the mechanical hard drive in almost every way. Windows startup is blazing fast and shutdown is noticeably quicker!<\/li>\n<li>OWC&#8217;s Mercury EXTREME Pro 6G is simply the overall\u00a0fastest SSD that we have tested!<\/li>\n<li>At $295 the OWC\u00a0240GB Mercury EXTREME Pro 6G\u00a0SSD price is\u00a0more than $100 less than the Kingston 240GB HyperX drive although\u00a0the OWC\u00a0is the faster SSD.<\/li>\n<li>TRIM support and garbage collection keeps your drive &#8220;like new&#8221;. \u00a0OWC SSDs offer advanced wear-leveling technology, S.M.A.R.T. tools and DuraClass Technology.<\/li>\n<li>240GB is sufficient for most gamers who can juggle their game library between their storage HDD and the SSD; perhaps keeping up to ten of their favorite\/current games on the SSD.<\/li>\n<li>Designed and assembled in America!<\/li>\n<li>5-year warranty is far beyond the industry usual\u00a0three-years,\u00a0and superb\u00a0OWC support stand it out from the &#8220;SSD crowd&#8221;.\u00a0\u00a0Evidently\u00a0OWC is a must have for Mac computing.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>Cons <\/strong><\/p>\n<ul style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Price per GB is still high compared to mechanical hard drives.<\/li>\n<li>Limited storage compared to HDDs<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/EditorChoice.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-32992\" title=\"EditorChoice\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/EditorChoice.jpg?resize=150%2C251\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">The 240GB\u00a0OWC Mercury EXTREME Pro 6G\u00a0deserves the ABT\u00a0Editor&#8217;s Choice\u00a0award. It is a\u00a0superb drive for the\u00a0enthusiast who demands a blazing-fast SSD without compromise and doesn&#8217;t mind its limited capacity.\u00a0 At $295 it is also very good value, outperforming the much more expensive premium $400\u00a0240GB\u00a0Kingston HyperX SSD.\u00a0\u00a0 This OWC SSD\u00a0is also highly recommended as a time and frustration saver in starting up and shutting down Windows and for anything to do with file access, copying, or loading game levels.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Our 500GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 drives continue to perform admirably and demonstrate improvements in every way over our older 7200.10 drives. We even filled our drives to capacity as we tested over 80 games for our original 3D Vision evaluation, and they still perform as they did over a year ago when they were less than half-filled! They are awesome for storage and we will upgrade them to 1TB drives as we are already feeling capacity constrained by our 28-game benchmark suite.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">It pays in every way to keep up with ABT. Expect a\u00a0Newer Tech\u00a0HDD\/SSD dock, a Genius PC speaker review, and\u00a0Mario will have a\u00a0new Thermaltake Level 10 mouse evaluation\u00a0coming shortly.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">\u00a0You can even join us as we conduct experimental benching using frame times and a high speed digital camera\u00a0to <a href=\"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/abt\/viewtopic.php?f=6&amp;t=26747&amp;sid=2b3e4abd48b05bb599ca6d884544aede\">determine gaming &#8220;smoothness&#8221; on ABT forum<\/a>.\u00a0 And we shall revisit gaming performance using OWC&#8217;s Mercury EXTREME Pro 6G 240GB SSD to see if there is any difference in gaming performance by\u00a0using hard drives and\u00a0comparing multiple\u00a0SSDs.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Mark Poppin<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">ABT Senior Editor<\/p>\n<blockquote style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><p>Please join us in our <a href=\"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/abt\/index.php\" target=\"_blank\">Forums<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Become a Fan on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/pages\/AlienBabelTech\/123268467142\" onclick=\"_gaq.push(['_trackEvent', 'outbound-article', 'http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/pages\/AlienBabelTech\/123268467142', 'Facebook']);\" target=\"_blank\">Facebook<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Follow us on <a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/alienbabeltech\" onclick=\"_gaq.push(['_trackEvent', 'outbound-article', 'http:\/\/twitter.com\/alienbabeltech', 'Twitter']);\" target=\"_blank\">Twitter<\/a><\/p>\n<p>For the latest updates from ABT, please <a href=\"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/?feed=rss2\" target=\"_blank\">join our RSS News Feed<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Join our Distributed Computing teams<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Folding@Home &#8211; Team AlienBabelTech &#8211; 164304<\/li>\n<li>SETI@Home &#8211; Team AlienBabelTech &#8211; 138705<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.worldcommunitygrid.org\/reg\/viewRegister.do?teamID=3P39R3SRV1\" onclick=\"_gaq.push(['_trackEvent', 'outbound-article', 'http:\/\/www.worldcommunitygrid.org\/reg\/viewRegister.do?teamID=3P39R3SRV1', 'World Community Grid &#8211; Team AlienBabelTech']);\" target=\"_blank\">World Community Grid &#8211; Team AlienBabelTech<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/?p=32878\"><img decoding=\"async\" align=top title=\"Author: Mark Poppin\" src=\"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/OWC-ssd-ImageLink.jpg\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":32882,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2533,7814],"tags":[5968,5970,5969,5967,3096,611,5957],"class_list":["post-32878","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-abt-news","category-articles","tag-240gb-ssd","tag-gaming-benchmarks","tag-kingston-hyperx","tag-mercury-extreme-pro6g","tag-owc","tag-ssd","tag-ssdnow-v300"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32878","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32878"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32878\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32882"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}