SSD For Gaming

[Deadbolt]

Since my current game HDD is failing, I'm looking to get a new SSD or 2.

Looking for 1 or 2 SSDs, atleast 512GB in size, so any recommendations will be appreciated.


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I've seen a lot of reviews saying the MX 100 is a great drive, but been seeing a lot of posts recently about it failing, so not too keen on getting one of those.

[The_Brown_Light]

I have the MX100 256GB version. Not installed it yet but when I do I will try to get a review on the go to help you out.

[MrJim]

I have the MX100 256GB version. Not installed it yet but when I do I will try to get a review on the go to help you out.

I have the MX100 512Gb - I bought it for £120 at the Black Friday Amazon sale. It's been utterly reliable so far, has good (but by no means class-leading) performance, & has a 3 year warranty.

You might bear in mind that an SSD won't make your games run any faster - it will only speed up loading times.

[scaryjim]

Not sure why you'd bother with an SSD specifically for gaming, tbh. All it'll do is load your levels slightly faster, and you're paying way over the odds in terms of cost/GB of storage. e.g. a 1TB SSD is over £300 while a 1TB HDD is less than £50. Is your time really so precious that you're willing to pay over £250 just to have games load a few seconds quicker?

[watercooled]

I'm inclined to agree with scaryjim TBH. While I do load a few games onto an SSD, a lot of them don't load appreciably faster, and if you're playing certain online games you might not benefit anyway as the game won't start until other players have loaded too.

However there are a few games whose load times are significantly improved from being on an SSD, so I mostly install games to a HDD and use junction points to move them to my SSD if necessary.

Unlike many other apps and OS booting, games tend to consist heavily of sequential reads, which HDDs are really quite good at anyway. Sure, an SSD will be a good amount faster, but it's not orders of magnitude different like it is with random access.

[shaithis]

It depends on the game and the impatience of the gamer...

I actually have a striped SSD array for games, I am impatient and a number of the SP games I play benefit greatly from it (I freaking hate loading).

Biggest annoyances are BF4 now slows everyone down at the start of a map and those annoying "can't skip" intros on titles.

[MrJim]

It depends on the game and the impatience of the gamer...

I actually have a striped SSD array for games, I am impatient and a number of the SP games I play benefit greatly from it (I freaking hate loading).

Biggest annoyances are BF4 now slows everyone down at the start of a map and those annoying "can't skip" intros on titles.

I was going to add, that BF4 is the only game I've played which really benefits from an SSD. The map load times from a hard disk are truly glacial in speed!

[Singh400]

Definitely the Samsung series of SSDs. I wouldn't buy anything else. I've got the 840 Pro. But they are bound to have a newer line up currently.

Edit* And games like BF3/BF4 benefit greatly from SSDs. Instant level loads.

[Ulti]

I'd just like to add, if anyone values noise too, assuming you're running things on quiet settings (i.e. fans spinning below 1000rpm etc) then changing to an SSD reduces vibrations and general noise from a PC by a lot as HDDs, especially 7200rpm spinners, are pretty loud.

However, if you're one that has 4+ case fans with them on 2000+rpm with dual graphics cards or something then the noise from HDDs are probably quite negligible or something you don't care for in the first place.

Performance wise though, as many have explained, other than load times in single player games (unless everyone else in the multiplayer game also has an SSD), there's not much noticeable difference.

[Deadbolt]

Well if not an SSD (though i will still be looking at them), then any tips on a 1-2TB HDD?

Current one is a 2tb WD Green that's dying.

[watercooled]

The 840 Evos had a fairly serious issue with degrading read speeds of files older than a few months. A patch was released but there have been few recent reports of it recurring. More details are needed to see if it's another big problem, but it's something to be aware of. Still, there's no reason to just go for Samsung.

WRT BF, I noticed improved load times but as I said, you'll generally find yourself waiting longer in the lobby for the game to start instead.

Edit: An SSD could still be useful as an OS/game drive (maybe with junction points as I said) if you want to get one. In terms of HDDs though, the Green drives aren't the quickest anyway.

Maybe http://www.scan.co.uk/products/1tb-t...-cache-8ms-oem
or: http://www.scan.co.uk/products/2tb-t...he-8ms-ncq-oem

[shaithis]

If you do go HDD, then the WD reds or blacks I can recommend as highly robust.

[watercooled]

A lot of the reds are 5400rpm drives, and not really aimed at desktop use.

[shaithis]

A lot of the reds are 5400rpm drives, and not really aimed at desktop use.

Yes they are but they are still fast and have a nice warranty/price point.

[watercooled]

My point being they're generally not as fast as 7200rpm drives, despite being more expensive vs e.g. the Toshiba (Hitachi) drives I linked in the first place. You're paying for features you're probably never going to use in a desktop.

[satrow]

Out of the six Western Digital product lines we currently offer (Black, Green, Blue, Red, Velociraptor and RE), there are only two lines with much better than average failure rates in 2014: Red and Blue.

http://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/art...e-of-2014-616/

And some data on hard drive returns (in French): http://www.hardware.fr/articles/927-6/disques-durs.html