Evil Avatar
09-09-2010, 08:44 AM
Title: Intel X25-M Solid State Drive
Platform: PC
Developer: Intel
Publisher: Intel
MSRP: 160 GB = $424.99 / 80 GB = $229.00
Writer: Philip 'Evil Avatar' Hansen
Intel X25-M Solid State Drive
Intel's Solid State Drives are the flux capacitor that is driving my PC gaming experience into the future!
Intel is back to help boost my PC gaming experience. After pimping out my PC (http://www.evilavatar.com/forums/showthread.php?t=114465) a few months ago with a new CPU, motherboard and RAM, Intel sends along another goodie box including with two new Intel X25-M Solid State Drives. These two 160 GB monsters have no moving parts and are about the size of your wallet the day after you pay all of your bills.
http://www.evilavatar.com/images/previews/intel_ssd/thumb.intel_ssd_001.jpg (http://www.evilavatar.com/images/previews/image.php?image=www.evilavatar.com/images/previews/intel_ssd/intel_ssd_001.jpg) http://www.evilavatar.com/images/previews/intel_ssd/thumb.intel_ssd_002.jpg (http://www.evilavatar.com/images/previews/image.php?image=www.evilavatar.com/images/previews/intel_ssd/intel_ssd_002.jpg)
With help from my Little Buddy, I present for your viewing pleasure a video of us opening the goodie box:
-fJHpx-jYOU
Opening the Intel MX-25 SSD Goodie Box.
Included in the box was the two 160 GB Intel M25-X 160 GB Solid-State Drives (one of the drives in Gold), a stopwatch, a super-small 2 GB USB Key and copies of popular UbiSoft games including Assassin's Creed II, Far Cry 2 and Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas 2. With 320 GB of space to play around with I decided to yank out my two Western Digital 7200 RPM hard drives and do a clean install of Windows 7 Ultimate.
Before that, I did spend time playing around with my new games on my current system and that fancy blue stopwatch to see how long it took my games to boot up to the menu and how long it took to load up a saved game. My system specifications are:
Intel Core i7-875K Processor
Intel DP55SB Extreme Series motherboard
8 GB of Patriot Viper II Sector 5 DDR3 RAM
640 GB Western Digital 7200 RPM 16 MB Cache SATA Hard Drive (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136218)
The first issue you run into when you go to install a hard drive that is approximately the size of a two credit cards is that the inside of your computer case isn't configured to house these drives. I played around with some rails that my case came with for floppy drives and that wasn't working due to the screw holes on the side of the drives not matching up with where the screw holes would be on a floppy drive.
In the end, the drives are so small and so light that they were staying in place supported by two screws and the tension from the power cables.
http://www.evilavatar.com/images/previews/intel_ssd/thumb.intel_ssd_003.jpg (http://www.evilavatar.com/images/previews/image.php?image=www.evilavatar.com/images/previews/intel_ssd/intel_ssd_003.jpg) http://www.evilavatar.com/images/previews/intel_ssd/thumb.intel_ssd_004.jpg (http://www.evilavatar.com/images/previews/image.php?image=www.evilavatar.com/images/previews/intel_ssd/intel_ssd_004.jpg)
My old system took 1 minute and 33 seconds for Windows to boot up from the time you see the Intel Unlocked logo screen until Windows 7 connects to my internet connection. After installing the Intel M25-X SSD that same startup sequence takes 40 seconds.
8xKuoFJaqUs
Boot to Windows 7 Post-Intel SSD Install.
I did not run into any problems installing Windows 7, but if you do run into a driver conflict down the road, knowing that your system will take 40 seconds to boot up instead of a minute and a half makes troubleshooting a breeze.
What would PC gaming be without games?
Thanks to UbiSoft I have several new games to play around with. The first title I tried out was Assassin's Creed 2.
"The world of the assassin is one cloaked in shadow and steeped in danger. Ensnared in a web of revenge and conspiracy, the assassin embraces power at its most elemental, acting as the dividing line between life and death. As an assassin confronted by perilous new challenges and difficult choices, what path will you choose?"
The blue stopwatch provided the following results:
Assassin's Creed 2:
Boot to Menu: 25 seconds
Load from Save: 13 seconds
Assassin's Creed 2 SSD:
Boot to Menu: 22 seconds
Load from Save: 8 seconds
WT4Afs85gfw
Assassin's Creed 2 Post-Intel SSD Install.
Boot times on my old system were not bad due to the killer hardware Intel provided me during their last review/giveaway and the numbers above don't seem to be a huge increase in performance. As you can see from the above video, what doesn't sound like a huge difference translated to being able to almost instantly getting into the game after the intro movies play.
After Assassin's Creed 2 it was time for the open-world shooter gameplay of Far Cry 2.
"Far Cry 2 by Ubisoft is the anticipated sequel to the award-winning original that brings players into the beautiful and hostile world of Africa. Far Cry 2 for Windows Vista/XP features open-ended gameplay that allows you to play the game whichever way you choose, with the choices you make affecting where the game leads you."
The stopwatch goes to work again and tells us:
Far Cry 2:
Boot to Menu: 36 seconds
Load from Save: 26 seconds
Far Cry 2 SSD:
Boot to Menu: 35 seconds
Load from Save: 8 seconds
AyYQWpIGiBQ
Far Cry 2 Post-Intel SSD Install.
With Far Cry 2 you don't see much of a performance increase to load up to the game menu due to the Developer, Publisher and Game Engine videos, but we see a big performance jump when it is time to load up our saved game -- shaving off more than 2/3rds of our loading time. That same performance translates in-game when you are moving to new areas or getting into a big firefight.
In the last of the games from my free goodie box we take on terrorism with Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas 2.
"Return to Sin City in Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas 2. This time, the stakes have been raised. It's your chance to rescue America's wildest city from an escalating terrorist siege. With massively expanded multiplayer, new seamless co-op, and customizable character creation, you have the tools to put an end to the terorist threat for good."
Stopwatch results:
Rainbow Six 2:
Boot to Menu: 38 seconds
Load from Save: 9 seconds
Reload after dying: 5 seconds
Rainbow Six 2 SSD:
Boot to Menu: 34 seconds
Load from Save: 8 seconds
Reload after dying: 1 second
With this older title, it was loading so fast on my old system that the addition of the Solid-State Drive has very little or no performance increase. Where you see the performance increase is when doing a reload after dying. With my regular hard drive it was taking a few seconds to reload, after installing the SSD getting back into the game is almost instantaneous.
I tried to test another great UbiSoft title, Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Conviction.
"Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Conviction is the fifth installment in the wildly popular Splinter Cell series. A stealth-action combat game centered around the continuing adventures of black ops agent Sam Fisher, Splinter Cell: Conviction continues where the storyline of the earlier Splinter Cell: Double Agent left off. Packed with a mix of an engaging story, classic Splinter Cell stealth action, unique co-op gameplay and new gameplay mechanisms that are applicable to both single player and multiplayer modes, it is a worthy addition Splinter Cell catalog of games."
Conviction was a tough title to judge. Due to cut-scenes or in-game cut-scenes (that you can skip) the game was loading in the background resulting in identical load times even after the install of the Solid-State Drive.
Splinter Cell: Conviction:
Boot to Menu: 26 seconds
Load from Save: 15 seconds
Splinter Cell: Conviction SSD:
Boot to Menu: 25 seconds
Load from Save: 15 seconds
After a few days of playing around with UbiSoft titles I felt I had to try out a few games from other publishers including the classic (and currently unavailable) Gears of War for Windows and the new RTS from Blizzard, Starcraft II.
Gears of War:
Boot to Menu: 46 seconds
Load from Save: 10 seconds
Gears of War SSD:
Boot to Menu: 28 seconds
Load from Save: 8 seconds
Starcraft II:
Boot to menu: 28 seconds
To Campaign Screen: 25 seconds
To Game Map: 34 seconds
Starcraft II SSD:
Boot to Menu: 5 seconds
To Campaign Screen: 6 seconds
To Game Map: 7 seconds
As you can see from the above results you do shave off some load times in Gears of War on the Solid-State Drive, but you see an amazing performance jump when running Starcraft II. With SCII you have to first wait for the game to load up to the menu, then log in, then wait for the campaign screen to load up and finally you have to wait for another loading screen to get into the game. With that many loading screens to go through having the ultra-fast Intel M25-X Solid-State Drive changed the entire experience. It was click, click, click and you are into the game instead of wait, wait, wait and get into the game. Check it out for yourself:
k6fIe4Zm6EA
Starcraft II Post-SSD. Zoom! Zoom!
After playing around with these drives for two weeks I have to admit that I love them and I can't see going back to a regular hard drive -- not even a newer 10,000 RPM hard drive. It is an indescribable pleasure to turn on your PC and not have to walk away to grab a snack and know that your PC will still be loading when you come back.
Solid-State Drives have been available in high-end laptops for a while now and Intel is bringing them over to your PC to add the steroids to your gaming experience. Everything loads smoother and faster when running on the Solid-State Drive including web pages and work applications. If you are tired of long load times and you want that critical boost for gaming you owe it to yourself to invest in your hard drive the way you would invest in a new video card or a new CPU.
Intel has added a new tool to your gaming arsenal. As Bruce Campbell might say, "Come get some!"
Score: 5 out of 5
http://evavhost.com/public/5.gif
The Good: Amazing Windows 7 startup speed.
Game load times reduced to seconds.
You can win one yourself here at EvilAvatar.com!
The Bad: Priced to match the performance.
Current PC cases have no SSD drive bay.
The Contest is open Worldwide. You must be 18 or older. No purchase necessary. Void where prohibited.
The Ugly: My Little Buddy stole my stopwatch.
Contest Details:
Here is the part you were waiting for! Five lucky Evil Avatar readers will win a "Get in the Game Faster Kit" from Intel including:
· One 80 GB Intel® X25-M Mainstream SATA Solid-State Drive
· One super-small 2 GB USB Key
http://evilavatar.com/images/thumbs/prize/prize_001.jpg http://evilavatar.com/images/thumbs/prize/prize_002.jpg
To qualify for the giveaway you will need to go Here (http://inte.ly/evssdcontest) and watch three videos featuring Intel's Solid-State Drive and then answer three simple questions.
Question #1: What makes an Intel® Solid-State Drive so rugged?
HINT: Your answer will be 3 words.
Question #2: How much faster (in seconds) does the Intel® X25-M SATA SSD complete the demo vs. (2) 7200 RPM HDDs in RAID 0?
HINT: It’s a number. You’ll have to do some math. Ignore milliseconds.
Question #3: In the test scenario, how much faster did Assassin’s Creed™ 2 load on an Intel® Solid-State Drive vs. a traditional 10,000 RPM drive?
HINT: Watch closely beneath the screen captures. Again, you’ll need to do some math.
After that send an E-mail to giveaway@evilavatar.com with the following information:
Name:
Evil Avatar User ID:
Email:
Country:
Answer #1:
Answer #2:
Answer #3:
Anyone posting the answers to the Evil Avatar.com forums will be disqualified. The winners will be chosen at random on October 1st from all eligible entries.
Good Luck!
Platform: PC
Developer: Intel
Publisher: Intel
MSRP: 160 GB = $424.99 / 80 GB = $229.00
Writer: Philip 'Evil Avatar' Hansen
Intel X25-M Solid State Drive
Intel's Solid State Drives are the flux capacitor that is driving my PC gaming experience into the future!
Intel is back to help boost my PC gaming experience. After pimping out my PC (http://www.evilavatar.com/forums/showthread.php?t=114465) a few months ago with a new CPU, motherboard and RAM, Intel sends along another goodie box including with two new Intel X25-M Solid State Drives. These two 160 GB monsters have no moving parts and are about the size of your wallet the day after you pay all of your bills.
http://www.evilavatar.com/images/previews/intel_ssd/thumb.intel_ssd_001.jpg (http://www.evilavatar.com/images/previews/image.php?image=www.evilavatar.com/images/previews/intel_ssd/intel_ssd_001.jpg) http://www.evilavatar.com/images/previews/intel_ssd/thumb.intel_ssd_002.jpg (http://www.evilavatar.com/images/previews/image.php?image=www.evilavatar.com/images/previews/intel_ssd/intel_ssd_002.jpg)
With help from my Little Buddy, I present for your viewing pleasure a video of us opening the goodie box:
-fJHpx-jYOU
Opening the Intel MX-25 SSD Goodie Box.
Included in the box was the two 160 GB Intel M25-X 160 GB Solid-State Drives (one of the drives in Gold), a stopwatch, a super-small 2 GB USB Key and copies of popular UbiSoft games including Assassin's Creed II, Far Cry 2 and Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas 2. With 320 GB of space to play around with I decided to yank out my two Western Digital 7200 RPM hard drives and do a clean install of Windows 7 Ultimate.
Before that, I did spend time playing around with my new games on my current system and that fancy blue stopwatch to see how long it took my games to boot up to the menu and how long it took to load up a saved game. My system specifications are:
Intel Core i7-875K Processor
Intel DP55SB Extreme Series motherboard
8 GB of Patriot Viper II Sector 5 DDR3 RAM
640 GB Western Digital 7200 RPM 16 MB Cache SATA Hard Drive (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136218)
The first issue you run into when you go to install a hard drive that is approximately the size of a two credit cards is that the inside of your computer case isn't configured to house these drives. I played around with some rails that my case came with for floppy drives and that wasn't working due to the screw holes on the side of the drives not matching up with where the screw holes would be on a floppy drive.
In the end, the drives are so small and so light that they were staying in place supported by two screws and the tension from the power cables.
http://www.evilavatar.com/images/previews/intel_ssd/thumb.intel_ssd_003.jpg (http://www.evilavatar.com/images/previews/image.php?image=www.evilavatar.com/images/previews/intel_ssd/intel_ssd_003.jpg) http://www.evilavatar.com/images/previews/intel_ssd/thumb.intel_ssd_004.jpg (http://www.evilavatar.com/images/previews/image.php?image=www.evilavatar.com/images/previews/intel_ssd/intel_ssd_004.jpg)
My old system took 1 minute and 33 seconds for Windows to boot up from the time you see the Intel Unlocked logo screen until Windows 7 connects to my internet connection. After installing the Intel M25-X SSD that same startup sequence takes 40 seconds.
8xKuoFJaqUs
Boot to Windows 7 Post-Intel SSD Install.
I did not run into any problems installing Windows 7, but if you do run into a driver conflict down the road, knowing that your system will take 40 seconds to boot up instead of a minute and a half makes troubleshooting a breeze.
What would PC gaming be without games?
Thanks to UbiSoft I have several new games to play around with. The first title I tried out was Assassin's Creed 2.
"The world of the assassin is one cloaked in shadow and steeped in danger. Ensnared in a web of revenge and conspiracy, the assassin embraces power at its most elemental, acting as the dividing line between life and death. As an assassin confronted by perilous new challenges and difficult choices, what path will you choose?"
The blue stopwatch provided the following results:
Assassin's Creed 2:
Boot to Menu: 25 seconds
Load from Save: 13 seconds
Assassin's Creed 2 SSD:
Boot to Menu: 22 seconds
Load from Save: 8 seconds
WT4Afs85gfw
Assassin's Creed 2 Post-Intel SSD Install.
Boot times on my old system were not bad due to the killer hardware Intel provided me during their last review/giveaway and the numbers above don't seem to be a huge increase in performance. As you can see from the above video, what doesn't sound like a huge difference translated to being able to almost instantly getting into the game after the intro movies play.
After Assassin's Creed 2 it was time for the open-world shooter gameplay of Far Cry 2.
"Far Cry 2 by Ubisoft is the anticipated sequel to the award-winning original that brings players into the beautiful and hostile world of Africa. Far Cry 2 for Windows Vista/XP features open-ended gameplay that allows you to play the game whichever way you choose, with the choices you make affecting where the game leads you."
The stopwatch goes to work again and tells us:
Far Cry 2:
Boot to Menu: 36 seconds
Load from Save: 26 seconds
Far Cry 2 SSD:
Boot to Menu: 35 seconds
Load from Save: 8 seconds
AyYQWpIGiBQ
Far Cry 2 Post-Intel SSD Install.
With Far Cry 2 you don't see much of a performance increase to load up to the game menu due to the Developer, Publisher and Game Engine videos, but we see a big performance jump when it is time to load up our saved game -- shaving off more than 2/3rds of our loading time. That same performance translates in-game when you are moving to new areas or getting into a big firefight.
In the last of the games from my free goodie box we take on terrorism with Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas 2.
"Return to Sin City in Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas 2. This time, the stakes have been raised. It's your chance to rescue America's wildest city from an escalating terrorist siege. With massively expanded multiplayer, new seamless co-op, and customizable character creation, you have the tools to put an end to the terorist threat for good."
Stopwatch results:
Rainbow Six 2:
Boot to Menu: 38 seconds
Load from Save: 9 seconds
Reload after dying: 5 seconds
Rainbow Six 2 SSD:
Boot to Menu: 34 seconds
Load from Save: 8 seconds
Reload after dying: 1 second
With this older title, it was loading so fast on my old system that the addition of the Solid-State Drive has very little or no performance increase. Where you see the performance increase is when doing a reload after dying. With my regular hard drive it was taking a few seconds to reload, after installing the SSD getting back into the game is almost instantaneous.
I tried to test another great UbiSoft title, Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Conviction.
"Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Conviction is the fifth installment in the wildly popular Splinter Cell series. A stealth-action combat game centered around the continuing adventures of black ops agent Sam Fisher, Splinter Cell: Conviction continues where the storyline of the earlier Splinter Cell: Double Agent left off. Packed with a mix of an engaging story, classic Splinter Cell stealth action, unique co-op gameplay and new gameplay mechanisms that are applicable to both single player and multiplayer modes, it is a worthy addition Splinter Cell catalog of games."
Conviction was a tough title to judge. Due to cut-scenes or in-game cut-scenes (that you can skip) the game was loading in the background resulting in identical load times even after the install of the Solid-State Drive.
Splinter Cell: Conviction:
Boot to Menu: 26 seconds
Load from Save: 15 seconds
Splinter Cell: Conviction SSD:
Boot to Menu: 25 seconds
Load from Save: 15 seconds
After a few days of playing around with UbiSoft titles I felt I had to try out a few games from other publishers including the classic (and currently unavailable) Gears of War for Windows and the new RTS from Blizzard, Starcraft II.
Gears of War:
Boot to Menu: 46 seconds
Load from Save: 10 seconds
Gears of War SSD:
Boot to Menu: 28 seconds
Load from Save: 8 seconds
Starcraft II:
Boot to menu: 28 seconds
To Campaign Screen: 25 seconds
To Game Map: 34 seconds
Starcraft II SSD:
Boot to Menu: 5 seconds
To Campaign Screen: 6 seconds
To Game Map: 7 seconds
As you can see from the above results you do shave off some load times in Gears of War on the Solid-State Drive, but you see an amazing performance jump when running Starcraft II. With SCII you have to first wait for the game to load up to the menu, then log in, then wait for the campaign screen to load up and finally you have to wait for another loading screen to get into the game. With that many loading screens to go through having the ultra-fast Intel M25-X Solid-State Drive changed the entire experience. It was click, click, click and you are into the game instead of wait, wait, wait and get into the game. Check it out for yourself:
k6fIe4Zm6EA
Starcraft II Post-SSD. Zoom! Zoom!
After playing around with these drives for two weeks I have to admit that I love them and I can't see going back to a regular hard drive -- not even a newer 10,000 RPM hard drive. It is an indescribable pleasure to turn on your PC and not have to walk away to grab a snack and know that your PC will still be loading when you come back.
Solid-State Drives have been available in high-end laptops for a while now and Intel is bringing them over to your PC to add the steroids to your gaming experience. Everything loads smoother and faster when running on the Solid-State Drive including web pages and work applications. If you are tired of long load times and you want that critical boost for gaming you owe it to yourself to invest in your hard drive the way you would invest in a new video card or a new CPU.
Intel has added a new tool to your gaming arsenal. As Bruce Campbell might say, "Come get some!"
Score: 5 out of 5
http://evavhost.com/public/5.gif
The Good: Amazing Windows 7 startup speed.
Game load times reduced to seconds.
You can win one yourself here at EvilAvatar.com!
The Bad: Priced to match the performance.
Current PC cases have no SSD drive bay.
The Contest is open Worldwide. You must be 18 or older. No purchase necessary. Void where prohibited.
The Ugly: My Little Buddy stole my stopwatch.
Contest Details:
Here is the part you were waiting for! Five lucky Evil Avatar readers will win a "Get in the Game Faster Kit" from Intel including:
· One 80 GB Intel® X25-M Mainstream SATA Solid-State Drive
· One super-small 2 GB USB Key
http://evilavatar.com/images/thumbs/prize/prize_001.jpg http://evilavatar.com/images/thumbs/prize/prize_002.jpg
To qualify for the giveaway you will need to go Here (http://inte.ly/evssdcontest) and watch three videos featuring Intel's Solid-State Drive and then answer three simple questions.
Question #1: What makes an Intel® Solid-State Drive so rugged?
HINT: Your answer will be 3 words.
Question #2: How much faster (in seconds) does the Intel® X25-M SATA SSD complete the demo vs. (2) 7200 RPM HDDs in RAID 0?
HINT: It’s a number. You’ll have to do some math. Ignore milliseconds.
Question #3: In the test scenario, how much faster did Assassin’s Creed™ 2 load on an Intel® Solid-State Drive vs. a traditional 10,000 RPM drive?
HINT: Watch closely beneath the screen captures. Again, you’ll need to do some math.
After that send an E-mail to giveaway@evilavatar.com with the following information:
Name:
Evil Avatar User ID:
Email:
Country:
Answer #1:
Answer #2:
Answer #3:
Anyone posting the answers to the Evil Avatar.com forums will be disqualified. The winners will be chosen at random on October 1st from all eligible entries.
Good Luck!