SSD or 7200 rpm HDD for gaming

[mrbowler]

I am building a gaming PC and am having a tough time choosing what hard drive setup to use. I originally thought about having and SSD for everything, but then I saw that many people have a smaller SSD for the OS with a 7200rpm HDD for gaming (and all other applications). Is this because there is no noticeable difference between gaming on an SSD vs an HDD? I am so confused, so I decided to come to the Tom's Hardware forums for advice. So, sole SSD or smaller OS SSD with a larger 7200 rpm drive for gaming? Thanks!

 

[ronmoho]

The only benefit you get from SSD for gaming is the game load faster, by that I mean those loading time before you get to the gameplay. Once you get into the game there's no different between HDD and SSD.

SSD is however make everything else in your everyday computer tasks better because it shorten loading, booting time. You will boot to the window much faster, open application that you used to feel like it taking forever to launch(e.g. photoshop) feel like opening a regular application, etc.

And that's the reason why most ppl prefer to use SSD as OS drive(and those apps like PS) while the rest goes to HDD for storage since it's considered a very reasonable option as of now until SSD price became cheaper and has larger space(Crucial just recently released one with 960GB but at $599...)

 

[mad-max79]

Using the SSD for all kinds of applications including games is great! But if you want save some money you can put some capacity consuming games to a hdd. Games will load slower, maybe it would make sense to put your most wanted games to the ssd and some seldom player to the hdd.

 

[jaguarskx]

Yeah, the benefit of a SSD is faster read/write speeds. It will not improve your frame rates. However, if you play a game that load maps every so often and you find it annoying because the game momentarily stutters, then a SSD will benefit you.