SSD recommendation
primesuspect
Beepin n' BoopinDetroit, MI Icrontian
in Hardware
I've been running on the same 120gb OCZ Vertex 3 since whenever that came out, which is my OS and programs drive. I still use a 7200rpm spinner for games but now that SSDs are price/gb favorable I'd like to finally move to a 480+ gb SSD for my games drive.
I've been out of the hardware loop for a bit; in my head SSDs are still something you plug into SATA ports but apparently things have moved on a bit and now there are new interfaces and PCI-X SSDs.
I'd like to try to keep it under $200 but am willing to wiggle a bit if there's a super compelling reason (future-proofing, etc.).
Hit me, people in the loop. 480gb minimum is the only requirement.
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I'm also not fully up to date on the hardware game, but I know that this would be made easier if you posted what motherboard you have... because it'd be hard to recommend one of the newer SSD interfaces without knowing that your motherboard has the appropriate interface as well.
Do you know if you have an M.2 slot?
I forget what motherboard I bought. I just bought it recently (within the last 30 days) and it's the latest AMD chipset. I'll find out when I get home.
Crucial had the best price/performance when I bought my 512GB MX100 18 months ago. I'd give them a look.
I'm a big fan of Samsung memory devices:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147373
I am a big fan of OCZ memory devices:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820228143
That's cheap as fuck and I like that. Is it fast? I wouldn't mind paying more for speed. I'm seeing quite a gap in SSD performance at least according to Newegg stats: from 500gb/s to like 2500gb/s for the PCI-e versions. What's the current situation?
I'd go with the Samsung drive personally... read very good things about them. As for speed, any SSD is going to be a huge step up from spinning drives... but you could always buy two and stripe them if you're worried about it!
I stay away from OCZ, they had some major quality control issues a few years ago. Not sure if they ever recovered from that. My recommendation is for Samsung. I love my EVO. However, I will add: whatever size you decide to go with, go the next one up. 2 year Future you will thank you.
If you have an M.2 interface that is the fastest available, I don't think any AMD boards have that yet, only Skylake chip sets. That said, SATA SSD's are still plenty fast and easy to install and integrate into your system.
Here is the thing, there are a million benchmarks online and just about all of them will point to Samsung EVO drives, and you will be tempted to go there, but their track record on voltage stability and reliability has been suspect. For me reliability in a drive trumps speed. I buy a crucial MX200 drive every single time, every time someone needs one I buy it because they don't fail, they don't go sideways on you... I can't say that for a couple Samsung drives I installed in the past. Benchmarking sites will all say SAMSUNG you fool.... Cliff if telling ya, get a Crucial MX200, Micron develops everything for it in house, they have the best engineers in the world, they are a leader in the space, it's their focus. Samsung is a TV manufacturer with a side SSD business.
I was going to post the same thing, but then I checked and there are (at least according to NewEgg) a handful of AMD boards that have m.2 connectors onboard. Perhaps that is an error in their system, I'm unsure.
The TLC SSD's (Trion 150) will be a bit slower putting the games onto the drive (250MB/s vs 500 sustained for some drive models) but when reading the game for loading, etc yes it is 500+ all the time.
The Trion 150 is all Toshiba now.
PCI-e and M.2 are definitely faster than any SATA SSD could hope to be.
Our M.2 will be here mid April, we already have the Revo 350 PCI-e available. Much more expensive than the SATA drives though.
Is that the one I got you at one of the LAN parties? It's still my OS drive.
Couldn't even tell you. I've had so many OCZ drives floating around over the years.... I sometimes worry that the one I use is just going to fail... It's got to be at least five years old.
+1 for Samsung storage. That being said, OCZ drives are great. I doubt the average user would be able to tell a difference between the two brands honestly. OCZ also has some more immediate, somewhat local benefits as well.
I think finding either brand on sale within your price range would be a good choice. M.2 is really fast, but that speed comes at a premium. A Samsung 850 Pro 512GB is currently $220.99 while the M.2 950 Pro 512GB is $326.75. For my money, the 850 is fast enough.
I love my Samsung 950 pro 512 gig though.
Motherboard is a Gigabyte 990FXA-UD5, so no M.2 support.
Thanks for the recommendations, guys! I think Uncle Ryder is gonna get my donation for Reasons™
Not to threadjack... but how do you like that board? I'm looking at upgrades and am trying to decide between that and the MSI 990FXA-GAMING
You want the GA-990FX-Gaming. Has the latest m.2 and USB3.1 connectivity.
//edit: ASRock also has a really nice m.2+USB3.1 motherboard for AMD FX processors. I forget its name. ASRock has also really turned its quality around in the last two years. On the Intel side, they've made some of the best Intel motherboards in the last few years. Really incredible quality. No hesitations on recommending them these days.
Wait.... Do you mean the Gigabyte 990FX-Gaming over either of the two boards I listed? Goddamn similar product names.
Yes, it is confusing. But the Gigabyte 990FX-Gaming is their latest AMD FX motherboard with m.2 PCIe SSD support and USB 3.1 support. I highly recommend a mobo with these features.
Man, that board is so new it isn't even showing up on pcpartpicker... I think I had originally looked at that board, then accidentally added the MSI board to my list because of the naming similarity. Good thing I asked otherwise I would have ended up with the MSI board AND paid more for it.
I just bought mine because it was on sale at Microcenter and it was a half impulse buy to see if the motherboard was the problem with my ongoing USB voltage woes. It's fine. Stable. I don't overclock or tweak so I dunno about that.
Upgrading your AM3+ Mobo is like putting a rear spoiler on a Honda Civic. Dead end platform, wait a few months and see if AMD can deliver something competitive with Zen.
Zen might be out by the time I actually get around to upgrading, but I'm still probably not going to do it. End-of-life or not, it's still a huge upgrade over what I have and it has been a long time since I cared about having the absolute top of the line new shiny system. I don't have the time or money to care about getting the next big brand new shiny thing. I want good price-to-performance ratio. Getting a good solid $140 motherboard and $125 CPU will give me plenty of horsepower to get me through at least the next few years (I did the same thing 5 years ago, and it has worked out just fine).
And now what was a simple side question has turned into a full threadjack... so thanks for the good recommendation @Thrax, my motherboard tangent is complete.
I was thinking about picking up a new board to bump to PCIe 3.x, but made the decision to wait for Zen. My FX-6100 is fine, but definitely showing its age, and I'd like to get to DDR4 with my next bump as well.
Going .m2 with a Samsung 950 Pro with the next upgrade is intriguing as well. That would give me 4 tiers of storage. (.m2 boot, 256GB 850 Pro, 1TB WD Black, 3TB WD green)