Going with (2) Intel X25-M SSD...

[cm123]

What you all think, going in the end with (2) X25-M 80GB SSD, should I raid 0 them or not? and move swap file, temp directories and such over on the 2nd drive?

Looking for best load times (between levels) on games, and I do bit web work too being honest on this system, so looking for most performance, no care about if one fails loose the data so raid 0 from that angle is no problem, just more of if SSD's in raid 0 beat out doing it vs 2 single drives...

(part concern I have with raid 0, I see review showing that with game loads, actually slower than non-raid and that was with a hardware raid card even - would be great if someone here has couple in raid 0 and has comments)






SAS - with drives coming down in price and few boards (Asus have nice X58) with SAS onboard, are more people going SAS for performance?


So for gaming system, (taking money 100% out of the picture), SAS drive like the Cheetah 15K.6 going to load things faster and/or increase performance over the WD VelociRaptor?

In my case I already have accress to Adaptec 2405 SAS controler with 256MB cache onboard, so thinking about going with 15K.6, if bit faster, and of course add benefit is much higher MTBF rating with SAS.

So what you all think, is it faster? Better solution (taking the money out of it of course)? or what you all think?

or in the end Intel X25-M SSD better/beat them all for gaming performance?

 

[IntelUser2000]

The SAS drives aren't optimized for PC usage. You'll see in server they'll vastly outperform Raptors in server usage but in PCs, it'll be the other way around(not as much but still). You can see that from the very first Raptor 36GB review.

 

[cm123]

Originally posted by: IntelUser2000
The SAS drives aren't optimized for PC usage. You'll see in server they'll vastly outperform Raptors in server usage but in PCs, it'll be the other way around(not as much but still). You can see that from the very first Raptor 36GB review.

I see that as a whole, however some of the lastest SAS 15K drives have very fast access times now.

also be interesting to see if Hardware SAS controller with cache onboard gives the Vraptor a performance increase vs onboard (software raid and no cache) in gaming and general performance.

 

[cm123]

also thought about raid 0 (2) of the X25-E (only 32gb), however 64gb still a tad small to hold all my data - now if just had cash for 3 of them for raid 0...

 

[LOUISSSSS]

u wanna spend $800 for fast load times + fast load times in games?

a single ssd might be fast for general desktop usage and my 150gb raptor still gives me the fastest map change times out of everyone in any cs server i've ever played on

 

[TridenT]

Originally posted by: LOUISSSSS
u wanna spend $800 for fast load times + fast load times in games?

a single ssd might be fast for general desktop usage and my 150gb raptor still gives me the fastest map change times out of everyone in any cs server i've ever played on

Did you even look at his signature? The man is loaded with money.

Go for it. Although I thought there were better drives on the way soon.

 

[LOUISSSSS]

BigFootNetworks KillerNIC

LOL

okay then do whatever you want. its better for the economy anyway.

 

[cm123]

Originally posted by: LOUISSSSS

BigFootNetworks KillerNIC

LOL

okay then do whatever you want. its better for the economy anyway.

Odd how some people that game and no give in and get killerNIC dis-like them so much (without hands on directly)... I have to be honest, over time and having 6+ systems and large family (many sons that love to game), can tell you, even my sons (and son-in-laws), they fight over who gets the systems with and without the killernics, and couple of them made comments thinking they was a joke too, but not anymore...


clearly the pings (so much more to it than that) are always better on the killerNIC systems at my location, sometimes not by much, maybe 24 vs 45, however when lots people jump on to (fear, cod 4, cod 5, farcry2 main games we play) servers, killernic systems are so much different to play on - you know, when others start bitching, saying look at the pings and things are laggy and so on, well with a killernic I can say that has never been the case, no matter a high ping player or loaded server, the systems with killernic play on just fine - it's now the 1st item I would add to a gaming system myself - let's just hope they get PCIe card soon ....everyone helped out and now this last upgrade, all systems have KillerNIC in them...

I work in area that I need to keep up with stuff, any many times get it from work at no or little charge.

Intel X25-E are bit better, had access to them, however too small yet in size for what I need - does sound as lots of higher size and faster products in SSD are coming, however for now - I'm not much into all the benchmarks, I like seeing in real life, as example the comment above, who cares how fast they bench if your still not one of the first into new level.

I'll have my SSD (X25-M qty 2) in new system and play around this weekend, my thought at this point is no raid, just move swap and ie temp, windows temp and such to drive 2 - and go with that and see.

This system will be:

AMD PII X4 940
HD4870X2
Asus Xonar D2X
Intel X25-M x2
KillerNIC
8GB DDR2-800MHz (found system seems and bench faster with DDR2-800 vs 1066MHz with using all 4 slots in this system)
Razer Mamba Mouse
Logitech G13
Logitech wave keyboard
Vista 64 (considering loading windows 7 as SSD performance should be better)


I still would be interested in seeing how SAS drive would match up to SSD - here and there I see reviews/posts of people with SAS and they say they are very fast - thinking about that on my Intel i7 965EE system...

 

[Idontcare]

Originally posted by: cm123
Odd how some people that game and no give in and get killerNIC dis-like them so much (without hands on directly)... I have to be honest, over time and having 6+ systems and large family (many sons that love to game), can tell you, even my sons (and son-in-laws), they fight over who gets the systems with and without the killernics, and couple of them made comments thinking they was a joke too, but not anymore...

It more has to do with price/performance than anything else. Not many question whether killernic adds value to the end-users computing experience. What we question is whether the value it does add is in excess of the cost it extracts.

Your kids no doubt experienced zero-cost associated with the killernic systems, so in the absence of cost they rightly choose the best performance when given the opportunity to do so. If you charged them $20 every time they played on the killernic system versus the non-killernic systems then you might find them valuing that performance level a little differently.

Don't chide people who might not find the value of killernic to exceed the cost for themselves and their situation anymore than you enjoy being chided for having found the opposite to be true for your own situation.

 

[cm123]

Originally posted by: Idontcare

Originally posted by: cm123
Odd how some people that game and no give in and get killerNIC dis-like them so much (without hands on directly)... I have to be honest, over time and having 6+ systems and large family (many sons that love to game), can tell you, even my sons (and son-in-laws), they fight over who gets the systems with and without the killernics, and couple of them made comments thinking they was a joke too, but not anymore...

It more has to do with price/performance than anything else. Not many question whether killernic adds value to the end-users computing experience. What we question is whether the value it does add is in excess of the cost it extracts.

Your kids no doubt experienced zero-cost associated with the killernic systems, so in the absence of cost they rightly choose the best performance when given the opportunity to do so. If you charged them $20 every time they played on the killernic system versus the non-killernic systems then you might find them valuing that performance level a little differently.

Don't chide people who might not find the value of killernic to exceed the cost for themselves and their situation anymore than you enjoy being chided for having found the opposite to be true for your own situation.

Great idea on charging them for use - thanks...

Not so quick to judge though, who said I was chide people other than you? comment made, and reply given, thats it - I'll stay with the fact as you say, vaule, how you know if has it value or not unless you try it/have one?

I can tell you from many a time playing online how ticked off people get when they get slammed as server gets full or laggy, often that is when the 1st words that come after some lag bs comments is, your a hacker or the such, just because no affects our systems with the killernic not near as much or in most cases at all... It is so much more simple to spend $150 and enjoy gaming than being the person complaining all the time when server fills, or someone with bad ping time joins or whatever - I'll be 100% honest here, without having one myself and sticking with it for some time, would I think much of killerNIC, heck no, just being honest, however after much use, I have changed my mind very much so in that I would not own a system today with KillerNIC installed...

I'm just offering things/comments from what I have had happen 1st hand myself - that's all... no one is slamming or chide anyone here.

There are other/many things just like that, example, my Intel i7 965 system, it should blow the doors off my AMD PII X4 940 system right? more-so in games like FarCry2 and such, however if bump up the res to 1920x1200 (what I play at normally) and use SAME parts in both systems (HD4870X2) - for some dam reason the AMD system turns higher frame rate for me, most would say that is not possible, (including me), but it is - it's not so much about in some or many cases what anandtech or tomshardware says it benchmarks to be I've found, same is true with KillerNIC... again though, as you do state, many others may find it to be much different, and to each their own I say.

 

[primosavant]

Killer Nic Rocks! If you have the money, it is a great upgrade versus going from last gen graphics to current gen. Hold on to the old GPU for a bit longer and get the Killer. You will be happy you did in the long run. If you can't get enough of gaming that is. I love getting comments that I am a hacker when I know nothing about hacking, lol. It is really a compliment (to the nic's performance ). It does give you an edge in most FPS situations. It increases your framerate during online play, which is everything in shooters.