Best SSDs For The Money: August 2012 (Archive)

[degreesofuncertainty]

where do the new amd ssds fall in this heirarchy?

 

[Sakkura]

where do the new amd ssds fall in this heirarchy?

Slightly slower than the OCZ Vector 150, which uses the same controller.

 

[pyro226]

being silly. as many are, say u r broke or trying to stretch an old pcS life ...

As they say, lottsa ram wins, even if slow.

So what say a big swap file on an ssd?

My 2gb, soon to be replaced, 98xp PC has a 4gb HDD swap file (suggested by windows) & it crawls - u can hear it
swapping
at least the ssd can be re-used - ram upgrades cannot

You can put the page file on an SSD if you want. SSD's have limited lifespans, and are quite slower than RAM. In the short run (probably 2 years or less under moderate use), an SSD may do the trick until you can afford an upgrade.

More RAM is preferred if the price is reasonable and you plan on keeping the computer for a long time. My dad's desktop is a pentium 4 that is probably 10 years old. He has already repaired and re-soldered capacitors on the motherboard, replaced the power supply, maxed out the processor for a Pentium 4 that's ~3Ghz and has RAM at maybe 1GB (may be 1.5 GB at most, with a Mobo max of 2GB i think?). He plans on running it until it experiences complete failure or until someone gives him a new one due to upgrading. It's the living room computer. I've used it for web-browsing, photo-editing (adjusting levels, cropping, clone brush), youtube videos. It handles the tasks just fine.

This is an extreme case. Most users just upgrade when it breaks. However, in this case, more ram and an HDD pagefile is the better option. An SSD pagefile would likely be pushed to failure before the rest of the computer fails beyond hope of repair. RAM would be the better investment. He doesn't even care about 1-2 minute boot times. It's what he's used to. He just powers on the computer and grabs snacks while it's loading 😉