Ssd + ram

[joshhedge]

Hey guys,

I'm looking to a) get a 120GB solid state and the main contenders for that are the OCZ Agility 3, Corsair Force 3 and the Crucial M4. I've looked at a lot of benchmarks but I really can't choose between them, any help would be great! b) I'm running 4GB of RAM on my MBP and I know that the maximum is capped at 6GB, would there be any performance loss from switching to 4GB+2GB from 2GB+2GB?

Thanks!

 

[RavenSEAL]

You'll most likely lose any dual channeling.

 

[joshhedge]

You'll most likely lose any dual channeling.

What are the real life impacts of losing dual channelling?

 

[Anteaus]

What will probably happen is your MB will run asynchronous. With my last two motherboards, mismatched dimms (say 4GB and 2GB) would have given me 4GB dual channel and 2GB single channel. Read your MB manual it should tell you if it supports this. Otherwise, the other poster is correct. It will simple run them single channel. There are performance penalties to running single channel, but honestly unless your running apps that need the throughput your not likely to notice on a day to day basis...but thats relative.

 

[peonyu]

Personally I would spend the extra 30-50$ and buy a Corsair Force GT. I had the Force 3 model myself, and while it is *very* fast [compared to a HDD] there is a noticable speed difference between it and a GT. Pretty much any data that cant be compressed will transfer slowly compared to a GT. On the Force 3 a video transferred at 120 mb/s, on my GT its about 3x faster, so if you want the best speed [and your buying a SSD so you do] then pony up the extra $ for the best and be happy.

As far as the companies go, OCZ is something I avoided...I really wanted to buy a Vertex 3 but there are to many people complaining about them and the Agility series, so again, I spent 10$ more and went with Corsair. So far im happy, zero problems with the GT or the Force 3.

 

[joshhedge]

Thanks for the responses so far. As for the RAM, unfortunately it is synchronous DDR2, I think that I will need 6GB at some point for running VM clients of Snow Leopard and Windows 7, I just hope the performance hit isn't to great. In the UK ( I failed to set my account up properly, it thinks I'm American ) the GT is around £50 more, I don't really want to spent that and if I did it would be to buy a greater capacity drive as I'm only using Sata 2

 

[Coup27]

Why have you ruled out the Samsung 830?

 

[joshhedge]

Why have you ruled out the Samsung 830?

Haven't even heard of it... I'll look it up. Tah

 

[Denithor]

What model motherboard are you using? I cannot think of any setups in the last few years that would have been capped at only 6GB of RAM.

 

[RU482]

get two 3GB modules
/I'm sure AMD makes them

 

[joshhedge]

What model motherboard are you using? I cannot think of any setups in the last few years that would have been capped at only 6GB of RAM.

Early 2008 MBP, unofficially its capped at 6GB, apple want you to only run with 4 though.

 

[peonyu]

Thanks for the responses so far. As for the RAM, unfortunately it is synchronous DDR2, I think that I will need 6GB at some point for running VM clients of Snow Leopard and Windows 7, I just hope the performance hit isn't to great. In the UK ( I failed to set my account up properly, it thinks I'm American ) the GT is around £50 more, I don't really want to spent that and if I did it would be to buy a greater capacity drive as I'm only using Sata 2

I would buy a Force 3 then, its compatible with Sata 3 aswell and if you ever upgrade to a board with Sata 3 it will use it to its fullest. It is just capped on incompressible data while the GT is not, but games and common apps it is still extremely fast.

I know some people will disagree and have had zero trouble with OCZ drives, but between OCZ and Corsair I would go with the latter.

The Force 3 drive that I had was the 180GB version btw, absolutely awesome drive.

 

[joshhedge]

I would buy a Force 3 then, its compatible with Sata 3 aswell and if you ever upgrade to a board with Sata 3 it will use it to its fullest. It is just capped on incompressible data while the GT is not, but games and common apps it is still extremely fast.

I know some people will disagree and have had zero trouble with OCZ drives, but between OCZ and Corsair I would go with the latter.

The Force 3 drive that I had was the 180GB version btw, absolutely awesome drive.

Cheers bud, I will look up prices on the 180GB one!

Does anyone know if I stick two 4GB modules in my Mac will that work but cap it at 6GB recognisable or will it just not recognise the RAM modules at all? Tah