BigMack70 :
[apologies... No worries, Onus]
Can anyone actually explain with words instead of thumb downs, why an SSD is worth the money at all in a less than or equal $1k gaming-only build?
I have a general purpose + gaming computer with a 240GB SSD. The only time I ever notice the SSD is when I restart the computer (which happens somewhere between once a day and once a week), and in BF3, which I at one point had installed on a fast HDD and moved it to the SSD because of the atrocious load times.
My computer felt almost as "snappy" on a 7200 RPM WD Black drive as it does now on an SSD. I do like my SSD, but my build was not concerned with value and was way above these price points. There are impressive benchmarks for SSDs and they've become the new "must have" item due to a lot of positive press over the past two years, but for a GAMING build concerned with VALUE, I just don't understand their inclusion.
I just had this discussion with a buddy of mine actually, and I was once in the same frame of thinking as yourself.
Basically I'll list the reasons I gave him for having an SSD. These reasons may/may not apply to most people.
1. Booting time is reduced greatly. This helps for overclocking sessions really well for trial and error overclocking testing. If you are installing a new OS there will be many restarts involved in the update process as well, which an SSD will help with greatly. Anything really that requires a restart. If you have a lower end system and want to get the most out of it, overclocking is a must in most cases.
2. Some games, like BF3 for example let you start to play in multiplayer as soon as your loaded. With an SSD you will be one of the first to load allowing you to set up camp, or get to a safe location before everyone else loads in. I'm not talking about 5-10 seconds either. It can easily be 30-45 seconds, allowing you to maybe even have an objective captured before everyone is loaded. They may of changed this along the way though. I haven't loaded the game in almost a year. Some games load different areas as well as you move from one point to another. This is almost instant on a decent SSD.
3. Working on a system to repair it can be a real pain as well when your faced with a non SSD system, after getting used to having one yourself.
4. Multitasking with an SSD is sped up signifigantly. You can record video and play a game with higher FPS. Not confirmed by myself, but have read of it in alot of places. One of my buddies used to use fraps to record video for montages, and he always said that recording would drop his FPS quite a bit if recording in 1080p. After he got his SSD he said his FPS would barely budge.
5. It's said that good SSD's are more reliable than HDD's, but I don't know if they have been out in the mainstream long enough for that claim to be true. I still have an original WD Raptor 10k that is still kicking and that thing is 8+years old now. We'll have to wait and see about that one.
Really it's not 100% necessary to have one, but once you've been using one for awhile it would be really hard to go back to a standard HDD for these tasks.
PS: For a budget gaming PC, I would recommend a smaller(128gb) for just the OS and a few programs that would benefit from the SSD so that it doesn't cut much into a lower budget. 256gb drive takes to much money away that can be spent on other things.