5400RPM to SSD

Could you advise what difference this would make to the gaming performance of my laptop?

I have two 5400RPM HDD's that are a real bottleneck I could try to put them in to RAID 0 Configuration but I dont know what speed increase I would get from doing this?

Would picking up an SSD improve my Frames or gameplay performance in any way?

 

Solid-State Drives | Intel.com - Video / Audio Center there is a video about difference in gaming. Basically it will load game extremely faster. Also if you have not much RAM (2-3GB or less) it will give you increase in performance as paging file will be used like additional RAM. And it will give some performance in every other situation but SSD gives overall performance not gaming one

 

5400rpm --> SSD would make absolutely zero difference whatsoever to your gaming performance. The only thing that would be affected is game and level load times.

Getting RAID-0 configuration for 5400rpm drives would do absolutely nothing for your gaming performance. Similarly, the only thing that would be affected would be game and level load times (and the difference probably wouldn't even be noticeable).

However, you mentioned that your 5400rpm drives feel like a bottleneck. Going 1x 5400rpm drive --> 2x 5400rpm drives (RAID-0) wouldn't help at all. RAIDing slow drives like 5400rpm 2.5" drives only helps in increasing Sequential read times. And 98% of what you do with your computer is not Sequential reads. So just about the only thing that RAIDing 2x5400rpm drives would do is increase your benchmark numbers and give you a bigger number to look at, but give you nearly zero benefit in real-world performance.

If you were to go from 5400rpm --> SSD, then you would notice a monumental difference in overall system responsiveness and "smoothness". SSD's are literally 100x faster than 7200rpm hard drives in areas that make a difference to system responsiveness (Random 4KB Read speeds, and IOPS)... It would be like going from a 56Kbps dial-up connection to a 5.6Mbps broadband connection. Or, imagine the opposite... someone takes away your 5.6Mbps broadband connection (SSD) and replaces it with a 56Kbps dial-up modem (7200rpm hard drive).

To give you an idea of what an SSD can do: I boot Windows + load 27 applications in about 1 minute (including POST) on a 3.5-year-old computer with an SSD. How long do you think a 5400rpm drive would take to do the same?
YouTube - Why I love my SSD - Windows 7 boot + loading 27 applications in about 1 minute.

If your main concern is gaming framerates, then your storage disk won't make a difference. If your main concern is better responsiveness for everything else you do with your computer except gaming framerates, then SSD's are the only game in town.

 

Anyone who says that HDD's don't effect gaming performance is incorrect...

Dynamically loaded textures are going to load much faster. Depending on the game this can give you no speed up or a pretty decent speedup.

Oh and naturally you'll load levels faster and the game itself.

 

The best way really is to run fraps on a demanding game and then run the same thing on an ssd. I don't think the performance increase is enough to justify the upgrade. I'm guessing the performance increase is ~2%.

 

+100 points

 

You would be better off upgrading the GPU before going to an SSD to get a noticeable FPS difference. Getting an SSD to get 1-2 FPS better is a waste IMO.

 

meh... SSD's are overrated

I used a good one -and while it provided the "gee-wiz" factor with awesome loading times, silent operation, and a little better battery life; it was not worth the cost, limited read/ writes to the disc (I do a lot of "data moving"), or the very limited storage space. For games, don't expect much of any improvement (to those saying contrary, a GPU/ CPU upgrade would show a huge improvement; compared to the insignificant one from SSD's -as Tsunade_Hime said)


Maybe in 4 years SSD's will be *the* thing to get, and it will be better than a hdd in every way; until then just buy a decent 7200rpm drive for your OS to go on, get a USB case to put one of the 5400rpm drives in, and don't bother with RAID.

IMHO, the only thing a SSD brings to your computer is a "perceived" increase in performance -few things are actually going to be better- as opposed to upgrading your ram, or your CPU/ GPU which would give you more headroom/ raw power when using your computer


PS: unless your drives are 1.8" drives, they aren't much of a bottle neck; 1.8" drives are so much slower than 2.5" drives at the same RPM

 

If I wфы so categorical like you I would say that CPU upgrade about what you were talking gives no improvement in gaming performance and I would be right as much as you are. Actually CPU in modern laptops gives very low (5-7%) performance in gaming depending on what exactly you want to put inside instead of old CPU. I have I7-740 and I won't get close upgarading to I7 extreme edition than I would have got with GT 425M graphic card instead of mine 330M. But SSD won't let you see changing of textures from low to high when you have just started a new level like it happens in some games sometimes (like Crysis). And you won't wait drinking coffee whaiting while map is loading.
RAM above 6 GB is unnecessary (almost) for games.
GPU is hardly upgradeable.
Easiest way to change something in computer without full disassembly is RAM and HDD

As I said SSD is not so good for gaming FPS but I suggest you to use it. You will never want to go back to usual hard drive

 

As others have said, if you use your laptop as a console and never do anything except gaming, then an SSD is not worth it.

However, if you use your computer for other things in addition to gaming, then an SSD is the best possible upgrade you could make for an older laptop.

 

Gotta disagree with you there.

Once you have enough RAM to make sure that you never page to disk, extra RAM os a waste of money. A HDD --> SSD upgrade always gives immediate gains, and is easily carried over into future laptops. You do not get such easy guaranteed transferrability with RAM.

 

The OP already has 4GB of DDR2. If he or she wants 8GB, it's not only going to cost an arm and a leg, it's also not going to be useable in any future laptop.

I do agree with you that for the OP's purposes, the money would be better off going towards a new laptop though.

 

A top World of Warcraft guild requires players to have specific computer configuration minimums, which include SSD's.

Not sure how big of a difference it would make, however.

I know an SSD would make a huge difference for games like the latest battlefield. When players start, the guy using a 5400 generally is the last to spawn and by that time, your entire team is near the middle fighting. When I was using a 7200 and tried my friends laptop with an SSD, I was always first to spawn after loads.

We both have an i7, 8gb ram and similar vcards (I have a 460m; he has a 5850). He was always able to spawn before me but I'm too cheap to buy an SSD

 

Errr, I'm not saying that the SSD is the first thing you upgrade when you want higher FPS. What I'm saying is that you WILL get an increase in FPS when it comes to dynamically loading textures... that's a fact. Maybe it's a jump from 60->70 or 120-130. Maybe less. Maybe completely unnoticeable at those rates.

The fact is that it's handled by the HDD and if you have a faster HDD you'll see in increase.


edit: I also think it's important to note that different games might not be able to make use of a SSD. I know a lot of emulated PS2 games might. I know other games might not.

Considering laptops can't easily upgrade any relevant parts to games (depending on the laptop duh) a SSD might be the only thing to make a difference.

 

There actually are benchmarks that show framerate changes with an SSD, for exactly the reason that you mentioned (loading textures mid-game):

From Anandtech's review of the Intel X25-M SSD's:





The only significant difference is in minimum framerates, which may come in to play if you are a person that tends to play a lot of competitive online FPS games, where you may avoid suffering a split-second of lag as your computer tries to catch up and load textures mid-game. The value of avoiding that split-second of lag depends on how serious of a gamer you are.

For most people (me included), buying a $200+ SSD solely to increase game framerates is not worth it. And if you are a person where all you care about is game framerates, then your original recommendation is correct - your money would be much better spent on a totally new laptop, than trying to upgrade an existing laptop.

However, if you are someone who cares about performance outside of gaming, then an SSD wouldn't be a bad choice. It gives you (significant) immediate payoff, and is easily ported over when you do eventually upgrade your laptop.