New Laptop Should I get an SSD

[Ven0xis]

So my Alienware 17 is coming in today

Is an SSD worth the investment at least as the primary drive (It has 3 bays)

[Ethes]

That depends on what your priorities are. Personally, I'm really happy with my SSD. But if your laptop is on all the time anyway and you don't mind waiting slightly longer for it to boot (both the laptop and the bigger programs) its not worth the investment.

[smokii]

yes, hard drives are major speed limiting factor in modern pc's

either an SSD or a hybrid drive will speed up your pc a lot and in a laptop, they are much more resilient to knocks and a bit of bashing around in a rucksack etc

[fetju]

Having put an SSD in my Desktop I say absolutely, and once you have done so it will be impossible to go back to a standard drive for your OS and common programs. I am even considering putting an SSD into my 2yr old laptop to give it a boost as I hate using it lately. If I don't do that, then I definitely have plans to include an SSD in the next laptop I get.

[Ven0xis]

Alright which one should I get? Id preffer its not a bottleneck drive

Specs are;

I7 4800qm
16 Gigs 1600mhz Ram
GTX 780M

I want it to be able to keep up

[Deleted]

The short answer is: yes, yes, yes (if you can afford it).
If you've never had an SSD before I'll guarantee you'll be in awe, with Windows & games starting so quickly.
I'd recommend 240-256 GB such as the Samsung 840 (pro).

On my M17xR2, at the time, I installed an Intel SSD X25-M 160 GB, which were, and I think still are reliablility champions, but there is a price premium. You can check their new lines but you may not want to pay the premium.

[Ven0xis]

Yeah I can afford it, I just want the best laptop I can get right now, I just dread re-installing windows again lol

[Deleted]

Windows is super quick to install. Otherwise there are non-expensive usb drive duplication kits which work very well. If you are interested I'll look for mine and give you the reference.

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http://www.anandtech.com/show/7006/s...i-review-480gb
Also note the Samsung 840 in the benchmark.


Cloning kits:
I own this one, which I can recommend:
http://www.amazon.com/Apricorn-Noteb...ds=ssd+cloning

I'm sure that Corsair's one is great too:
http://www.amazon.com/Corsair-2-5-In...ds=ssd+cloning

[Zylos]

Yeah I can afford it, I just want the best laptop I can get right now, I just dread re-installing windows again lol

On an ssd you won't even notice it.

[Deleted]

Yes, absolutely. SSD is simply the best investment you can do to improve general responsiveness of your system - you can feel it everywhere, it's not just about the boot time.

But I strongly recommend to do a fresh Windows install. Your partition gets correctly aligned and Windows automatically disable some services that make no sense for an SSD (such as defragmentation).

I believe that current TOP 3 are:
Samsung 840 Pro
OCZ Vector
Plextor M5P

I'd personally go with Vector - although it usually ends up (very slightly) behind 840 Pro in terms of performance, I prefer it's aluminium body and I'd rather support OCZ than Samsung.

[Ven0xis]

Going to pick up the 840 today, 200$ for a 256 gig isnt bad

EDIT: Cant leave the house Purolator still has not delivered my machine

[MasterNewbie]

If all you're doing is gaming, get the Samsung 840 (plain, not pro). Pro vs. plain is likely to be a waste of money for you.

[Ven0xis]

Yeah Im all gaming, I will be getting the non pro, I dont need the insane write speeds, just read

[Deleted]

The Samsung 840 is an excellent choice. Regardless of which SSD you pick though there will never be a bottleneck, whatever you meant by that.

[Killora]

An SSD will not improve in-game FPS, so don't expect any framerate performance increases from an SSD. But it will make the OS run much faster and smoother. Games will load up quicker and the OS will boot up much, much quicker. It's more of a quality of life improvement than a "performance" improvement.

[Deleted]

I don't know if this has been fixed since last I check but actually in some games like Diablo III it will make the game run a lot smoother compared to running on an HDD. It won't increase FPS but it will smooth out the loading of new textures which apparently there is a lot of in DIII

[Klutzington]

The short answer: yes.

Long answer: yeeeeeeeeessssssss.

On topic: Why the hell do you have 16 gigs of RAM in a gaming laptop? You wasted money on it. 8GB is way more than sufficient in a standard desktop for gaming.

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The short answer is: yes, yes, yes (if you can afford it).
If you've never had an SSD before I'll guarantee you'll be in awe, with Windows & games starting so quickly.
I'd recommend 240-256 GB such as the Samsung 840 (pro).

On my M17xR2, at the time, I installed an Intel SSD X25-M 160 GB, which were, and I think still are reliablility champions, but there is a price premium. You can check their new lines but you may not want to pay the premium.

OP, get the 840, but not the Pro version. It is priced higher due to write speeds being faster, which will not be noticeable in any way. Read speed is where an SSD shines.

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I don't know if this has been fixed since last I check but actually in some games like Diablo III it will make the game run a lot smoother compared to running on an HDD. It won't increase FPS but it will smooth out the loading of new textures which apparently there is a lot of in DIII

Yes. SSDs allow games - all Blizzard games really - and many other games to run smoother.

[Killora]

I don't know if this has been fixed since last I check but actually in some games like Diablo III it will make the game run a lot smoother compared to running on an HDD. It won't increase FPS but it will smooth out the loading of new textures which apparently there is a lot of in DIII

Well, the main issue with D3 and WoW is, it loads data from MPQ files in realtime, so a slow harddrive will cause some FPS stutter when it has to load stuff into ram, but i think that issue is mainly on 5400 RPM drives, not any good 7200 RPM drives.

It used to be terrible for all harddrives, but i think they fixed it to where it doesn't do it (nearly as frequently, at least) on a 7200 RPM. Still does it on 5400 RPM.

But yeah in general you're right. But in WoW things are only loaded like that when flying from zone to zone.