SSD for Gaming

[obev0098]

Hello everyone.

I'm in the process of gathering the information I need for a fresh build. My questions are:

Are SSDs good for Gaming.
Are they reliable
What brand to choose *(Recommendations with links appreciated).

Regards
Chris

[Phage]

What sort of budget / capacity were you thinking of ?

[obev0098]

Capacity no less than 120GB and budget around £150.

[Willzzz]

This should keep you very happy:
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/256gb...-write-400mb-s

[scaryjim]

When you say "are SSDs good for gaming?" do you mean will they improve your computer's performance in games?

If so, the answer's NO. They will do nothing at all to increase your FPS. What you will get is a large boost in the general responsiveness of your computer - so it will start quicker, applications and documents will open quicker, game levels will load quicker, etc. But you will see no performance increase in game at all.

SSD prices have crashed recent, so some careful shopping should get you a 240GB for ~ £150 (I think, I've not actually checked though ). General advice on Hexus is to stay away from Sandforce-based SSDs (they had a few issues on release and there are questions over their reliability), with the Samsung 830 and Crucial M4 being the common suggestions.

EDIT: OK, looked it up. As well as Willzzz suggestion of the Sammy 830, you can also get the Crucial M4 256GB and the OCZ Agility 4 256GB for around £150 from Scan. Any of those three should be fine, although most people would go for the Sammy or the Crucial - the OCZ uses a newish Indilinx controller which isn't as proven (although it should be fine, tbh).

[obev0098]

Thank you.

The Sammy 880 looks good and I like the Samsung brand. Is it worth getting extra Warranty if its available?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The Samsung has £20 cashback too.

Here is the relevant info from the Samsung website:

http://www.samsung.com/uk/student/cashback.html

[AlexGTR]

The only noticeable thing you will get with an SSD for gaming is mega quick map loading which is worth the money imho

[dangel]

It also helps if the game streams data sometimes too..

The 830 is a very good choice.

[Mistrical]

Yes, I can also confirm that there will not be an improved gaming performance. Only the things that are hard drive intensive will improve, like level loading times or game loading times. Actual gameplay will not improve. I recommend you use the SSD for windows only and then have your games, documents, photos and whatever on a separate hdd.

[shamus21]

The Samsung 830 256gb is a good choice for size, price and reliability.

[Sam__]

Just to back up what people have said so far. The Samsung is a good one to go for. A good price and great performance. It will be worth going for the 250Gb version. I filled my 120Gb SSD very quickly.

[Dookie]

I guess 250gb is probably worth the extra, my Guild Wars 2 and WoW folders are about 40GB combined, throw in an OS and a few more games and your 120gb is easily filled.

[deejayburnout]

I run 1 SSD for Windows and 1 for gaming.

Windows is super quick and gaming loads just as fast.

Go for the Samsung and you won't go wrong.

[Dookie]

Does it make much difference to FPS or anything whilst playing the games or just the loading times between zones/levels etc?

[technodean]

Ditto, got my M4 as a boot and bought a kingston 200 for gaming when they were under £50, ive never looked back.

I run 1 SSD for Windows and 1 for gaming.

Windows is super quick and gaming loads just as fast.
.