Legit Reviews

OCZ Apex - (supposedly) shipped from OCZ today. Basically same as Core V2 series but with internal RAID 0 built in. Positioned between the Core V2 and Vertex in price/performance.

OCZ Vertex - ETA - Jan 30 2009 - Brand new (yet unrevealed) controller. I'm anxious to get my hands on one. Should be on par or better than the Intel SLC drives.

G.Skill Titan Supposedly, Newegg had these in stock, shows back order now. Pretty much the same as the OCZ Apex drives from what anyone can tell at this point. Received a pretty good preliminary review

I can't wait to see a review for the vertex. are they going to be on par to the intel ssd? that would be great, i,d be getting a 30GB and a 120GB for sure.

looked at the G-skill titan review but that was disappointing but it does not have nearly as much onboard cache as the vertex

Col-P-Todd wrote: looked at the G-skill titan review but that was disappointing but it does not have nearly as much onboard cache as the vertex

That's because it is in RAID 0 configuration and is more like the Apex (maybe exactly). The vertex is a whole different design.

Ow ok sorry i thought it was similar to the vertex.

I've been "e-stalking" OCZ Vertex for way over a month now, ever since OCZ paper launched the drive sometime in December. But I haven't yet seen any reviews nor previews, let alone retail availability. Anyone heard a peep of them?

According to Ryder @ OCZ, the Vertex were shipping by Monday. Supposedly the delay is due to some last minute firmware updates. However, the Apex drives shipped several weeks ago and really haven't shown up in stores yet so it may still be a few weeks before the Vertex appear. Hard to wait, i know.

Hmm, any idea on random write performance on these yet? I've seen one or two reviews of the Apex units but no thorough or explicit random write performance tests.

The Vertex model has DRAM cache, correct? I at least know the Apex models have no cache... kind of strange that the slower model is named Apex while the higher-end is Vertex.

OCZ has posted performance numbers on their forums.

BTW - the Apex drives are available at Newegg now. Prolly won't stay in stock for long.

I'm not sure these drives are worth it after that last batch of price cuts?

OCA Apex 60GB $220
Intel X25-M 80GB $369

The Intel drive should last much longer thanks to their proprietary leveling firmware, and the performance is better and more consistent across the board. It might cost more, but it is also 20GB larger.

I believe the Apex will provide about the same performance though.

Dunno, need some real world application tests and not something synthetic in my opinion.

Here was why I think the Apex isn't quite as good as the X25-M though... the Yapt test looked to be the most informative as it tests exclusively random writes, something the JMicron controllers still have trouble with but the Intel drive doesn't. http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=66 ... pert&pid=1

Edit: Also while I am less confident of the review, I did spot this image of HD Tach on an Apex drive. If it is correct then I assume that indicates the stuttering still exists. http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?o ... mitstart=8

Hopefully we'll have one to find out soon. I think if the OCZ tweaks are employed, there will be no stuttering (the simple tweaks such as changing a few settings). I will say that I may be seeing stuttering with the GSkill Titan drive I have (which is comparable to the Apex) but since I upgraded to V64 at the same time as I installed the SSD, I can't pinpoint what is causing the behavior. I haven't spent much time dwelling on it though.

As far as real world performance goes, unless you are doing a lot of large file writes and maybe some video editing or something the avergae user isn't really going to notice the difference. Honestly, coming from a velociraptor, I only notice it on startup and when loading a few apps but other than that the difference is negligible. I think people are getting a little over-hyped about them. Some people are buying 2 or more of these $300+ drives plus a $500+ RAID card which, other than for getting the best benches, is a complete waste of $ IMO.

I've heard the G.Skill drives do still have the problem, but not nearly as bad as the original JMicron controllers did. If the tweaks help fix the stuttering for JMciron controllers, then what do they do for the Intel drives? Might it boost performance, or is Intel's controller just that advanced it doesn't make a difference?

After seeing a one site test a top-of-the-line RAID controller (1.2Ghz Dualcore low latency with 256mb cache) I wasn't that impressed with the performance. The performance of four X25 drives in RAID 0 more often was only 2-3x, meaning they may as well have only bought three drives. Was curious where the bottleneck was but again I agree its just a waste of money.

I'm impressed enough that Windows 7 64 is just as or more responsive on a single 750GB drive than Vista 64 was on a RAID 10 array. And I've endured enough problems with Vista and Intel's RAID to last a lifetime... Going to stick to a single good quality SSD once Windows 7 does come out.

I don't think the jMicron stutter workaround would do anything for Intel drives since it is meant to compensate JMF602's absence of cache by creating a virtual cache (much slower than SDRAM), while Intel's chip has more than enough of it. It might actually slow down Intel SSDs.

largon wrote:I don't think the jMicron stutter workaround would do anything for Intel drives since it is meant to compensate JMF602's absence of cache by creating a virtual cache (much slower than SDRAM), while Intel's chip has more than enough of it. It might actually slow down Intel SSDs.

Some SSDs that use JMicron controllers come with cache, and some do not. Are you referring to DRAM cache, or a completely different level of cache inside the JMicron controller?? As far as I could tell the presence of DRAM cache didn't fix the stuttering problem, it only helped obscure it from the end user.

Which drives have DRAM cache with a jMicron controller?

Bit-tech just put out a review pitting the Apex against a Titan. http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/storag ... d-review/1

Looks like the Titan gets a slight nod, but both drives share similar problems. Those Intel drives may not offer nearly the same maximum write throughput but their real-world performance certainly doesn't suffer any caveats whatsoever.

largon wrote:Which drives have DRAM cache with a jMicron controller?

OCZ's Vertex model SSD... oh, wait a minute those don't use JMIcron chips anymore. Hmm, I'm no longer sure and may have been wrong. Samsung uses their own controllers with cache, Intel uses their own controller with cache, and OCZ's Vertex won't use JMicron controllers anymore but will use cache, which I presume was Samsung since they are now selling several Samsung rebadges... I can't find anyone with a JMicron controller with cache onboard. Looks like I was wrong.

I wonder what they says about JMicron controllers if the drives aren't even worth putting cache onboard though. That also makes me ask... do they just keep an active file with wear leveling information open in the drive itself while it is operating, constantly reading/writing wear leveling data to the disk?

-=o i tihnk im gonna go with the titan now for a upcoming build !

I have a Titan going into my new rig. I'll let you know how it turns out.

I just did a review of the Apex and compared it to the Titan.
http://www.legitreviews.com/article/907/1/