Jarred! Stop writing such good reviews! Now I want to throw away my Win7-bootcamp MBP13 (June 09) and get a U30Jc. Battery life is paramount, but I still need to be able to run games like TF2 and L4D in a pinch. Getting an upgrade to Arrandale wouldn't be bad either...
The only thing I would miss is my trackpad. I just love this thing!
Just remove the DVD from my U30Jc. The connector is mini SATA. I have a Vertex 30GB, but no SATA to mini ATA adapter. We just need to find somebody who sells a HD caddy the same size as the DVD drive with a SATA to mini- SATA adapter.
Thank you for the great article. I know you have taken a lot of heat the last year or so with your (somewhat justified IMO) stance against SSD's, but you take a very critical look at both sides of the coin in this article. Personally, having now used an 80gig Intel G2 since Jan of this year I could never go back. I constantly turn my computer on and off (check email before going to work, come home check email, maybe game surf the net again at night) so I fit the perfect model of SSD use. I also mutli-task load everything when the computer comes on so no more 30second waiting for firefox to boot up while all my startup programs are slowly loading.
I migrated my 250gig mechanical HDD to serve as a secondary slave for storing anything I don't currently need quick access too. I think most of us (heavy Steam users are one of the few the exceptions) probably only have a handful of games installed at any given time (I tend to have 2-3 max). I just checked and my 80gig G2 drive has ~50gigs free right now. That includes 2 games, Win7 64-bit, OS programs and OpenOffice, a handful of short home movies and some music. Again only things you really need/want to have quick access too. Everything else goes on the secondary.
As you mentioned in the review though, most laptops are limited to a single drive and the need to conserve power relegates them to being powered up/down more frequently then a desktop. You didn't mention in this article but the damage aspect is a SIGNIFICANT boon for SSD-based laptops as I've worked on a handful of dropped systems that ruined the HDD. This is especially important for the business sector where laptops are typically moved around very frequently due to meetings and presentations (and most corporate buildings have tile/hard floors and tables which are very unforgiving with even a little drop).
Other than that though, you did a great job at weighing the pros/cons of an SSD upgrade, especially in light of the high cost in relationship to the laptop itself. But I'll never again own a system without one...
Honestly, I'm not against SSDs. I just want them to get down to a more affordable price point. I wasn't a big proponent of the Raptor line either (loud and only marginally faster in most usage scenarios--and this comes from someone with a RAID 0 150GB Raptor setup).
When I can get a high quality SSD for under $1 per GB (preferably closer to $0.50/GB), I'll be far happier. I don't like spending more than $200 on any single component if I can help it ($300 for the GPU), and I like a decent amount of storage, so 250GB SSD for under $200 will be the inflection point for me. But then, I'm not as high-end as other users, so if you're okay with $500 CPUs and GPUs, $300 mobos, etc. SSDs are a perfect complement to such systems.
Hi Jarred - I just posted my experience of upgrading UJ30C. Used a Seagate Hybrid SSD+HDD drive. Call it a poor man's upgrade, but the results are worth it IMO.
Is it possible you can do a review of this laptop with Hybrid SSD and Win8 Upgrade?
An excellent article Jarred, keep the good work up.
I am personally of the opinion that a CULV with Intel HD graphics/NVIDA Optimus and a cheap SSD (Indilinx or Intel V-series) would represent an excellent balance between performance (except gaming), battery life and price. Hence, a similar test on on of the ASUS UL series of CULV laptops might provide us with some useful insights.
I also find that most laptop makers do not seem very progressive in integrating SSDs. While I understand that for the average user it is expensive, there are enough premium laptops out there with price tags that justify using SSDs. Also those who do (eg. Dell, Apple) do not tell you anything about the SSD, merely stating blandly - 128GB SSD.
However, with the impending 25nm refresh, the Seagate Momentus Hybrid Drive, and the recent LG HyDrive one thing's for certain... SSDs are sure to arrive on laptops with a bang withing the next two years.
Let's just put it this way... I am seriously contemplating removing 1GB of RAM so that it resumes faster from hibernation. This is the most important factor. I cant use sleep because I dont trust M$. (Windows notebooks tend to wake up whenever they want, no matter what you disable.) Hibernate is a great feature that is not really practical without an SSD.
Go ahead and try it, but most tests I have seen only show a difference of a second or two from this change. If this means a shift from 2GB to 1, there is no way I would personally consider that reduction in resume time worthwhile.
An SSD will not give you faster frame rates in games. this is common knowledge. However AN SSD will cut level load times in half! And you should have tested level load times in popular games. overall good review. As you can see an SSD will cut loading times for the OS, games, and applications in half and will make your system more responsive. If you want more frames get a faster video card.
It depends on the game and how fragmented your hard drive happens to be. There's still a lot of internal processing (decompressing levels, textures, etc.) that happens on the CPU. My experience with testing is that the majority of games didn't load twice as fast... perhaps 25 to 33% faster at most. Of course, I don't have real-time virus scanning enabled, which would make a bigger difference.
I agree. It really depends on the game. Some games don't benefit at all, others load 2x as fast. I'd say 30% don't benefit, 40% benefit noticeably and 30% cut loading times in ~half. But yes - really depends....there is also a "cap" after you don't benefit from an even faster SSD anymore. Crysis, for example, takes about the same time to load with a single X25-E as with 3x X25-E in RAID0 on a high performance controller.
OT:
I'm using an SSD in my laptop since over a year now (UltraDrive GX/ME 32GB). The difference in real time performance is huge (Laptop is ~2.5 years old (HP 6910p 2.2Ghz DualCore). I just don't have to wait for applications anymore (well, ofc there is still some loading time). IMHO it was the best investment in years. It makes my laptop MUCH faster. I bought the SSD for ~150€ and my laptop is - in "standard" tasks - faster than the newest notebooks. Hell, I even downclocked my CPU to 800Mhz because I don't need the extra performance....
I see you took my suggestion to do a re-test with SSD from the original article on this laptop. Cudos.
I generally liked how you did the article, but i have a couple of points i'll give critique on: General points: 1. You did not specify if you used IDE or AHCI mode, wich will make a noticable difference. 2. You did not mention that most new SSDs, like x25-M, SF-1200, and C300 will be faster, and at some tasks/usage patterns notably faster. 3. You did not mention the "hurry up and go idle" power savings effect from the SSD and increased productivity on one battery lifespan. Sure the battery life under load and idleing will be about the same since both the HDD and SSD only use 0,1-2W and about 1-5% of total machine power draw. and for gaming: 4. You tested _average_ FPS and not minimum FPS. I would have been OK with doing both, but leaving out minimum FPS means you don't see a big difference when textures are loaded real-time. FPS drops are much more noticable than +- a few average FPS. 5. You did not mention map loading time. wich will get a notable boost in some games.
I'll also note, for Stalker and Empire: Total War, the FPS range meassured will mean a minor difference in average FPS will note be noticable or relevant. I'd also love to see timed World Of Warcraft or Age of Conan load into a major city (f.ex. auction house for WoW) and time to all textures are loaded. But this is a minor thing.
Don't take this critique as "not approved" from me, i would give you a B- for this article ;) That's actually very good compared to a lot of reviews and articles out there, there's still a lot of people doing big mistakes when testing SSD in 2010.
AHCI was enabled, naturally. The other faster SSDs is sort of a given--I mentioned with the Vertex that it's an older SSD and that there are faster models. I figure most people interested in the subject will simply click on our "SSD/HDD" link and find the relevant information. :-)
Regarding power, "hurry up and go idle" should have been more prevalent in the Internet test at least, and yet I got worse battery life there. The idle power was actually the largest difference. But naturally we're just looking at one particular SSD here, and you'd need to look at battery life with a variety of units to see where they do better/worse. (I'd like to try an Intel G2 personally, along with the C300 and SandForce stuff.)
Minimum frame rates were largely the same, mostly because a lot of games will precache the level. Level load times, like game load times, depend a lot on how fragmented the hard drive is. With a defragged hard drive I generally don't notice a huge improvement -- and in multiplayer games it just means you get in the game and sit around waiting for others to show up. LOL. I'm sure titles like WoW and AoC could show a larger benefit -- anything with large areas where data has to be loaded on the fly should do better. But then, we're talking about a G310M here and if you want decent gaming that will be the first thing to upgrade.
Obviously, with a sample size of one SSD on one laptop, there's a lot I didn't/couldn't cover. For general use outside of gaming, though, an SSD is a great upgrade to any system. It costs as much as a good GPU, but then I know lots of people who don't game at all and they would be far better served by putting the money towards an SSD. (You'll note that the original Midrange Guide you disliked so much specifically states that it has a gaming slant, which is why we went with the GPU as opposed to SSD. The Blu-ray is still a case of adding a feature some might want, but it's easy to leave that out.)
Perhaps the best of your homework is your emphasis on what a user's habits are and how that should affect their decision. Good job in detailing out your work.
I plunged in as a relatively early adopter on SSDs for my desktop. Like yourself I'm just waiting now for the tech to mature. From all the webthreads it appears that by the end of the year there will by a dynamic change in the industry; by the end of 2012 you'll get your $1/gig or less wish. Here's hopin'.......
As already mentioned the problem that most laptops only support 1 drive is stupid. Most of them have a useless internal optical drive which wastes a ton of space. That was IMHO a great thing about the HP Envy 15. I 2 HDD's and an optional external optical drive. Now for the envy 14 + 17 the have optical drives again. A step back. I wonder what people do with there drives all the time? An external one is more than enough for installations. I mean you can get a 32 gb usb stick for like 40$ or less.
With vendors adding in APP-Stores and attempting to supress the existence of open-source, All I saw in this review was that the laptop battery life did improve, since SSDs use less power and that there is some faster performance in some areas.
More and more vendors are starting to sell Laptops with access to idiotic App-stores, throwing another charge on top of someone who wants to simply setup a laptop to be used normally.
If you want my best advice for computing for the 99% of people who aren't hardcore laptop gamers do the following:
1) Buy a laptop with an average of 6 - 10 hours on battery life. 2) Make sure that laptop has an Nvidia Graphics Processor (for reason 3) 3) Install Ubuntu Linux 10.04
Congratulations, you now have an OS that comes with most of what you need preinstalled and from a company that is about making an OS that works...
The difference between Apple/Microsoft and Canonical is that when Apple/Microsoft speak of SECURITY, it is 99% about protecting their profits and interests by bloating their OSes in a way to limit the consumer and rehashing their software and treating us like every user is a pirate, while when Canonical speaks of security at each conference, its always about improving things on the user end.
I'm not some blasted biased person as I have all of these OSes and many boxes, and I use freeBSD a lot as well, but Im tired of services existing that syphon money from you every month and idiots coming up with the "you dont have to use it if you don't want to" BS lines..
$ I've spent on laptop = $300 $ I've spent on new programs for the laptop in a five year period without resorting to piracy = $0
Can someone tell me what is happening with Intel i5-450M processor at the moment? There are laptops already shipping with it, but there is no information about it on Intel's site. How can they still be in secret about a processor which is already in finished products?
While I love the SSD on my laptop, I dislike the way Anand "advertised" SSD like a silver bullet for system performance. The fact is that SSD is a very expensive update and should be weighed carefully against the potential benefits. Thanks for the thourough work :)
One item that has me looking at SSD's as a use in my laptop is cutting down on heat. My current laptop has a 7200rpm SATA drive in it and if I am doing things that keep the drive active, you can definitely tell things get warm. Even at idle there is heat. I figure that in a packed chassis like a laptop, if you can cut down on heat, you just might increase the life of the whole machine. In which case, if I can get 7200rpm laptop drive performance (newer SSD's than you tested) in a more temperature friendly package, I might be sold.
Power draw = heat output. SSDs draw about 0,1-0,5W idle, and 1-3W active HDDs draw about 0,5-1W idle and 2-3W active Because SSDs have higher performance, they spend most of their time in idle or low activity streaming given the same number of tasks, consuming less power on average, but still a small amount compared to the entire system. The total system power delta between SSD and HDD can be low single digit percents. For ultra low power setups, the storage power draw (and heat) makes a bigger impact. Since the HDD bays are designed to be low thermal activity zones, they generally are cooled through the chassis and no active airflow, because of this, you can feel the heat output under the laptop.
You'll note that the 5400 RPM laptop drive is only .3W more than the Intel G2 at idle, and actually slightly lower at load. Your best bet for a power friendly SSD is going to be the SandForce stuff it looks like. That said, the U30Jc didn't get particularly warm with or without the SSD... the CPU/GPU and even RAM (under load) are going to put out far more heat than the storage devices.
If someone could do a review on the laptop that I
currently suspect is the best "bang for your buck" out
there. It's made by compal, and available on Cyberpower.com who's
machines you've reviewed before.
If you'd like it configured like I did, which I think is the best bang
for buck, do this:
Go to the website.
mouse over 15.6" Laptops and click on the $999 Xplorer X6-8500. It has a 1080p screen.
(I'm not sure why the people who run this site do this, but even though the other
configurations use the same chassis when personalized they
come out to cost more than this one; annoying since it makes me configure all 3
or 4 machines built on the same base chassis to figure out which one is
cheapest/best for me.)
Then I configured
it with the Core i7-620M CPU. (to get it over 1K so I can take advantage of the 5%
off.) 4GB 0DDR3-1333, hopefully 7-7-7-21, probably not, but
hopefully.
ATI MR HD5650 1GB GDDR3
320GB 7200rpm HDD (I did this cause I'm gonna take that HDD out
and use the Seagate Momentus XT 500GB, thanks for that
review!!)
Everything else on that page I left untouched.
The only thing I did on page 2 was switch to Intel wifi with bluetooth;
Though I'm curious if the MSI option is
equal/better; 17 bucks isn't nothing.
It has HDMI out and a fingerprint reader. This page says 3 USB ports,
the specs sheet says 4USB ports; not sure which is true. (I do wish
they were USB 3.0 ports, but I was hoping you guys would test some stuff and
tell me if that even matters for use with an external hard drive, mechanical
disk 7200rpm. Transferring large files like movies and games mostly.)
On page 3 I select "none, format only" for
the OS. And select "LCD perfect assurance" cause even 1 dead pixel is
unacceptable to me.
This brings the total to $1008.90 after 5% off, or $992.75 if
you get the MSI network card.
So yeah, I really hope you guys can get a hold of one of these
for review; as a loner or given as a review unit or maybe
someone will just buy one and review it cause it's really tempting me right now...
like a lot!
If you're review is good I'm gonna start
saving up and hopefully be able to buy it around Christmas. Thanks
guys! A loyal reader. - Brian
We can ask around...
Anyway, I want to do a comment system test, so I'm doing it here. The following is a list of items that should be on separate lines:
1) Line one
2) Another line
3) And the third line.
I'm pretty sure the system isn't giving anyone <br> tags now.
I have used SSDs on my notebooks for 3 years and can't go back.
Benchmarks just do not reflect how well these improve my everyday computing.
Like getting a larger monitor, its cool for a while, then you get used to it and its not big deal, then when you use a computer with a smaller monitor (or mechanical hard drive) its excruciating - if its well tuned you might need to use it for 5 minutes before you start realizing its a hard drive, but it will happen, and the enabling of fans and even the slightest noise is grinding and foreign.
It is *very* hard dealing with the storage issues on a notebook. I shove all of my media off onto a Synology NAS, and have moved all of my mail and office apps onto web services.
This last bit was one of the best things I have ever done for my productivity. I used to have outlooks and entourages running all over the place, plus syncing and duplicates and all that nonsense - no more.
Everything is on Google, and my iPhone has Google Sync (which is actually Exchange, so its push and there are never conversion issues like duplicates).
Thanks for the good article Jarred. A revisit review of a product is awesome and something not done normally. But such reviews help in giving mid life boost to slightly older products and save some $$ in the process. I would like to add 3 things I did to my Asus UJ30C over the last 1 week and it now is like a completely different animal. Between the iPads, tablets, my office laptop etc, UJ30C was somewhat getting neglected. But recently taking advantage of some good pricies of components I decided to upgrade the UJ30C. Three upgrades were done 1. Upgrade RAM from 4GB to 8 GB (PNY 2x4GB) - $31 2. Upgrade the OEM WD Blue 5400RMP 500GB HDD to Seagate Momentus Hybrid 7200 RPM 750GB Drive - $125 (Used Acronis cloning SW - Trial version) 3. Upgrade to Windows 8 Pro ($39) Total cost - $195 plus 4 hours of weekend time.(cloning takes the maximum time here) Result: System is screaming fast - take 15 secs to boot up from cold to get to Windows 8 Metro screen. (prior to that it took full 3 minutes for the laptop to boot on Win 7, Upgrading the RAM and SSD cut it down to 30 Seconds, Win 8 reduced it further)
Issues so far: 1. WiDi is broke after the upgrade. Major dampener. Reasons I got here was googling for a fix and came across this review. Sharing this for others who may benefit and be aware of the WiDi issue on Win8.
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ImSpartacus - Tuesday, June 1, 2010 - link
Jarred! Stop writing such good reviews! Now I want to throw away my Win7-bootcamp MBP13 (June 09) and get a U30Jc. Battery life is paramount, but I still need to be able to run games like TF2 and L4D in a pinch. Getting an upgrade to Arrandale wouldn't be bad either...The only thing I would miss is my trackpad. I just love this thing!
mfenn - Tuesday, June 1, 2010 - link
Instead of throwing it away, send it to me please. I'll even pay shipping!Souka - Tuesday, June 1, 2010 - link
I'll pay shipping plus a $1 :)Wife's T30 Thinkpad (P4m CPU) is showng its age.....
ViperV990 - Tuesday, June 1, 2010 - link
Has anyone considered (or maybe even tried) replacing the internal optical drive with an HDD?altarity - Tuesday, June 1, 2010 - link
Just remove the DVD from my U30Jc. The connector is mini SATA. I have a Vertex 30GB, but no SATA to mini ATA adapter. We just need to find somebody who sells a HD caddy the same size as the DVD drive with a SATA to mini- SATA adapter.altarity - Tuesday, June 1, 2010 - link
Ok I just found a 12.7 mm SATA HD caddy on Ebay for $11. I'm going to give it a shot.icrf - Tuesday, June 1, 2010 - link
Seen the HyDrive? It does both optical and SSD.http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/31/hitachi-lg-goes...
Nomgle - Friday, June 4, 2010 - link
Absolutely - grab a caddy from http://www.newmodeus.com/ and away you go.7Enigma - Tuesday, June 1, 2010 - link
Jarred,Thank you for the great article. I know you have taken a lot of heat the last year or so with your (somewhat justified IMO) stance against SSD's, but you take a very critical look at both sides of the coin in this article. Personally, having now used an 80gig Intel G2 since Jan of this year I could never go back. I constantly turn my computer on and off (check email before going to work, come home check email, maybe game surf the net again at night) so I fit the perfect model of SSD use. I also mutli-task load everything when the computer comes on so no more 30second waiting for firefox to boot up while all my startup programs are slowly loading.
I migrated my 250gig mechanical HDD to serve as a secondary slave for storing anything I don't currently need quick access too. I think most of us (heavy Steam users are one of the few the exceptions) probably only have a handful of games installed at any given time (I tend to have 2-3 max). I just checked and my 80gig G2 drive has ~50gigs free right now. That includes 2 games, Win7 64-bit, OS programs and OpenOffice, a handful of short home movies and some music. Again only things you really need/want to have quick access too. Everything else goes on the secondary.
As you mentioned in the review though, most laptops are limited to a single drive and the need to conserve power relegates them to being powered up/down more frequently then a desktop. You didn't mention in this article but the damage aspect is a SIGNIFICANT boon for SSD-based laptops as I've worked on a handful of dropped systems that ruined the HDD. This is especially important for the business sector where laptops are typically moved around very frequently due to meetings and presentations (and most corporate buildings have tile/hard floors and tables which are very unforgiving with even a little drop).
Other than that though, you did a great job at weighing the pros/cons of an SSD upgrade, especially in light of the high cost in relationship to the laptop itself. But I'll never again own a system without one...
JarredWalton - Tuesday, June 1, 2010 - link
Honestly, I'm not against SSDs. I just want them to get down to a more affordable price point. I wasn't a big proponent of the Raptor line either (loud and only marginally faster in most usage scenarios--and this comes from someone with a RAID 0 150GB Raptor setup).When I can get a high quality SSD for under $1 per GB (preferably closer to $0.50/GB), I'll be far happier. I don't like spending more than $200 on any single component if I can help it ($300 for the GPU), and I like a decent amount of storage, so 250GB SSD for under $200 will be the inflection point for me. But then, I'm not as high-end as other users, so if you're okay with $500 CPUs and GPUs, $300 mobos, etc. SSDs are a perfect complement to such systems.
Amazing Sathu - Monday, January 21, 2013 - link
Hi Jarred - I just posted my experience of upgrading UJ30C. Used a Seagate Hybrid SSD+HDD drive. Call it a poor man's upgrade, but the results are worth it IMO.Is it possible you can do a review of this laptop with Hybrid SSD and Win8 Upgrade?
bmgoodman - Tuesday, June 1, 2010 - link
Would love to see a test done on a low-end netbook, comparing the OEM hard drive to one of the new Seagate hybrid hard drives!!harshaflibbertigibbet - Tuesday, June 1, 2010 - link
An excellent article Jarred, keep the good work up.I am personally of the opinion that a CULV with Intel HD graphics/NVIDA Optimus and a cheap SSD (Indilinx or Intel V-series) would represent an excellent balance between performance (except gaming), battery life and price. Hence, a similar test on on of the ASUS UL series of CULV laptops might provide us with some useful insights.
I also find that most laptop makers do not seem very progressive in integrating SSDs. While I understand that for the average user it is expensive, there are enough premium laptops out there with price tags that justify using SSDs. Also those who do (eg. Dell, Apple) do not tell you anything about the SSD, merely stating blandly - 128GB SSD.
However, with the impending 25nm refresh, the Seagate Momentus Hybrid Drive, and the recent LG HyDrive one thing's for certain... SSDs are sure to arrive on laptops with a bang withing the next two years.
Shadowmaster625 - Tuesday, June 1, 2010 - link
Let's just put it this way... I am seriously contemplating removing 1GB of RAM so that it resumes faster from hibernation. This is the most important factor. I cant use sleep because I dont trust M$. (Windows notebooks tend to wake up whenever they want, no matter what you disable.) Hibernate is a great feature that is not really practical without an SSD.strikeback03 - Friday, June 4, 2010 - link
Go ahead and try it, but most tests I have seen only show a difference of a second or two from this change. If this means a shift from 2GB to 1, there is no way I would personally consider that reduction in resume time worthwhile.adonn78 - Tuesday, June 1, 2010 - link
An SSD will not give you faster frame rates in games. this is common knowledge. However AN SSD will cut level load times in half! And you should have tested level load times in popular games. overall good review. As you can see an SSD will cut loading times for the OS, games, and applications in half and will make your system more responsive. If you want more frames get a faster video card.JarredWalton - Tuesday, June 1, 2010 - link
It depends on the game and how fragmented your hard drive happens to be. There's still a lot of internal processing (decompressing levels, textures, etc.) that happens on the CPU. My experience with testing is that the majority of games didn't load twice as fast... perhaps 25 to 33% faster at most. Of course, I don't have real-time virus scanning enabled, which would make a bigger difference.Chloiber - Tuesday, June 1, 2010 - link
I agree.It really depends on the game. Some games don't benefit at all, others load 2x as fast. I'd say 30% don't benefit, 40% benefit noticeably and 30% cut loading times in ~half.
But yes - really depends....there is also a "cap" after you don't benefit from an even faster SSD anymore. Crysis, for example, takes about the same time to load with a single X25-E as with 3x X25-E in RAID0 on a high performance controller.
OT:
I'm using an SSD in my laptop since over a year now (UltraDrive GX/ME 32GB). The difference in real time performance is huge (Laptop is ~2.5 years old (HP 6910p 2.2Ghz DualCore). I just don't have to wait for applications anymore (well, ofc there is still some loading time).
IMHO it was the best investment in years. It makes my laptop MUCH faster. I bought the SSD for ~150€ and my laptop is - in "standard" tasks - faster than the newest notebooks. Hell, I even downclocked my CPU to 800Mhz because I don't need the extra performance....
GullLars - Tuesday, June 1, 2010 - link
Jarred,I see you took my suggestion to do a re-test with SSD from the original article on this laptop. Cudos.
I generally liked how you did the article, but i have a couple of points i'll give critique on:
General points:
1. You did not specify if you used IDE or AHCI mode, wich will make a noticable difference.
2. You did not mention that most new SSDs, like x25-M, SF-1200, and C300 will be faster, and at some tasks/usage patterns notably faster.
3. You did not mention the "hurry up and go idle" power savings effect from the SSD and increased productivity on one battery lifespan. Sure the battery life under load and idleing will be about the same since both the HDD and SSD only use 0,1-2W and about 1-5% of total machine power draw.
and for gaming:
4. You tested _average_ FPS and not minimum FPS. I would have been OK with doing both, but leaving out minimum FPS means you don't see a big difference when textures are loaded real-time. FPS drops are much more noticable than +- a few average FPS.
5. You did not mention map loading time. wich will get a notable boost in some games.
I'll also note, for Stalker and Empire: Total War, the FPS range meassured will mean a minor difference in average FPS will note be noticable or relevant.
I'd also love to see timed World Of Warcraft or Age of Conan load into a major city (f.ex. auction house for WoW) and time to all textures are loaded. But this is a minor thing.
Don't take this critique as "not approved" from me, i would give you a B- for this article ;)
That's actually very good compared to a lot of reviews and articles out there, there's still a lot of people doing big mistakes when testing SSD in 2010.
JarredWalton - Tuesday, June 1, 2010 - link
AHCI was enabled, naturally. The other faster SSDs is sort of a given--I mentioned with the Vertex that it's an older SSD and that there are faster models. I figure most people interested in the subject will simply click on our "SSD/HDD" link and find the relevant information. :-)Regarding power, "hurry up and go idle" should have been more prevalent in the Internet test at least, and yet I got worse battery life there. The idle power was actually the largest difference. But naturally we're just looking at one particular SSD here, and you'd need to look at battery life with a variety of units to see where they do better/worse. (I'd like to try an Intel G2 personally, along with the C300 and SandForce stuff.)
Minimum frame rates were largely the same, mostly because a lot of games will precache the level. Level load times, like game load times, depend a lot on how fragmented the hard drive is. With a defragged hard drive I generally don't notice a huge improvement -- and in multiplayer games it just means you get in the game and sit around waiting for others to show up. LOL. I'm sure titles like WoW and AoC could show a larger benefit -- anything with large areas where data has to be loaded on the fly should do better. But then, we're talking about a G310M here and if you want decent gaming that will be the first thing to upgrade.
Obviously, with a sample size of one SSD on one laptop, there's a lot I didn't/couldn't cover. For general use outside of gaming, though, an SSD is a great upgrade to any system. It costs as much as a good GPU, but then I know lots of people who don't game at all and they would be far better served by putting the money towards an SSD. (You'll note that the original Midrange Guide you disliked so much specifically states that it has a gaming slant, which is why we went with the GPU as opposed to SSD. The Blu-ray is still a case of adding a feature some might want, but it's easy to leave that out.)
robert19 - Tuesday, June 1, 2010 - link
Perhaps the best of your homework is your emphasis on what a user's habits are and how that should affect their decision. Good job in detailing out your work.I plunged in as a relatively early adopter on SSDs for my desktop. Like yourself I'm just waiting now for the tech to mature. From all the webthreads it appears that by the end of the year there will by a dynamic change in the industry; by the end of 2012 you'll get your $1/gig or less wish. Here's hopin'.......
beginner99 - Wednesday, June 2, 2010 - link
As already mentioned the problem that most laptops only support 1 drive is stupid. Most of them have a useless internal optical drive which wastes a ton of space. That was IMHO a great thing about the HP Envy 15. I 2 HDD's and an optional external optical drive. Now for the envy 14 + 17 the have optical drives again. A step back. I wonder what people do with there drives all the time? An external one is more than enough for installations. I mean you can get a 32 gb usb stick for like 40$ or less.Nomgle - Friday, June 4, 2010 - link
As already mentioned, just buy a cheap caddy - http://www.newmodeus.com/ - and replace your internal Optical drive with a Hard Drive.citrus - Wednesday, June 9, 2010 - link
Hi, can you tell me exactly which product on this website is the one to support a second drive in the u30jc please? Thank YouSetsunayaki - Wednesday, June 2, 2010 - link
With vendors adding in APP-Stores and attempting to supress the existence of open-source, All I saw in this review was that the laptop battery life did improve, since SSDs use less power and that there is some faster performance in some areas.More and more vendors are starting to sell Laptops with access to idiotic App-stores, throwing another charge on top of someone who wants to simply setup a laptop to be used normally.
If you want my best advice for computing for the 99% of people who aren't hardcore laptop gamers do the following:
1) Buy a laptop with an average of 6 - 10 hours on battery life.
2) Make sure that laptop has an Nvidia Graphics Processor (for reason 3)
3) Install Ubuntu Linux 10.04
Congratulations, you now have an OS that comes with most of what you need preinstalled and from a company that is about making an OS that works...
The difference between Apple/Microsoft and Canonical is that when Apple/Microsoft speak of SECURITY, it is 99% about protecting their profits and interests by bloating their OSes in a way to limit the consumer and rehashing their software and treating us like every user is a pirate, while when Canonical speaks of security at each conference, its always about improving things on the user end.
I'm not some blasted biased person as I have all of these OSes and many boxes, and I use freeBSD a lot as well, but Im tired of services existing that syphon money from you every month and idiots coming up with the "you dont have to use it if you don't want to" BS lines..
$ I've spent on laptop = $300
$ I've spent on new programs for the laptop in a five year period without resorting to piracy = $0
Enough said.
zsero - Wednesday, June 2, 2010 - link
Can someone tell me what is happening with Intel i5-450M processor at the moment? There are laptops already shipping with it, but there is no information about it on Intel's site. How can they still be in secret about a processor which is already in finished products?Teemax - Wednesday, June 2, 2010 - link
Excellent analysis!While I love the SSD on my laptop, I dislike the way Anand "advertised" SSD like a silver bullet for system performance.
The fact is that SSD is a very expensive update and should be weighed carefully against the potential benefits. Thanks for the thourough work :)
mike8675309 - Wednesday, June 2, 2010 - link
One item that has me looking at SSD's as a use in my laptop is cutting down on heat. My current laptop has a 7200rpm SATA drive in it and if I am doing things that keep the drive active, you can definitely tell things get warm. Even at idle there is heat. I figure that in a packed chassis like a laptop, if you can cut down on heat, you just might increase the life of the whole machine. In which case, if I can get 7200rpm laptop drive performance (newer SSD's than you tested) in a more temperature friendly package, I might be sold.Any feedback on the temp these SSD drives run at?
GullLars - Wednesday, June 2, 2010 - link
Power draw = heat output.SSDs draw about 0,1-0,5W idle, and 1-3W active
HDDs draw about 0,5-1W idle and 2-3W active
Because SSDs have higher performance, they spend most of their time in idle or low activity streaming given the same number of tasks, consuming less power on average, but still a small amount compared to the entire system. The total system power delta between SSD and HDD can be low single digit percents. For ultra low power setups, the storage power draw (and heat) makes a bigger impact.
Since the HDD bays are designed to be low thermal activity zones, they generally are cooled through the chassis and no active airflow, because of this, you can feel the heat output under the laptop.
JarredWalton - Wednesday, June 2, 2010 - link
Your best bet will be to look at our SSD reviews where Anand is specifically testing power draw. Here's the latest article with a few items in it:http://www.anandtech.com/show/3734/seagates-moment...
You'll note that the 5400 RPM laptop drive is only .3W more than the Intel G2 at idle, and actually slightly lower at load. Your best bet for a power friendly SSD is going to be the SandForce stuff it looks like. That said, the U30Jc didn't get particularly warm with or without the SSD... the CPU/GPU and even RAM (under load) are going to put out far more heat than the storage devices.
Hrel - Monday, June 7, 2010 - link
If someone could do a review on the laptop that I currently suspect is the best "bang for your buck" out there. It's made by compal, and available on Cyberpower.com who's machines you've reviewed before. If you'd like it configured like I did, which I think is the best bang for buck, do this: Go to the website. mouse over 15.6" Laptops and click on the $999 Xplorer X6-8500. It has a 1080p screen. (I'm not sure why the people who run this site do this, but even though the other configurations use the same chassis when personalized they come out to cost more than this one; annoying since it makes me configure all 3 or 4 machines built on the same base chassis to figure out which one is cheapest/best for me.) Then I configured it with the Core i7-620M CPU. (to get it over 1K so I can take advantage of the 5% off.) 4GB 0DDR3-1333, hopefully 7-7-7-21, probably not, but hopefully. ATI MR HD5650 1GB GDDR3 320GB 7200rpm HDD (I did this cause I'm gonna take that HDD out and use the Seagate Momentus XT 500GB, thanks for that review!!) Everything else on that page I left untouched. The only thing I did on page 2 was switch to Intel wifi with bluetooth; Though I'm curious if the MSI option is equal/better; 17 bucks isn't nothing. It has HDMI out and a fingerprint reader. This page says 3 USB ports, the specs sheet says 4USB ports; not sure which is true. (I do wish they were USB 3.0 ports, but I was hoping you guys would test some stuff and tell me if that even matters for use with an external hard drive, mechanical disk 7200rpm. Transferring large files like movies and games mostly.) On page 3 I select "none, format only" for the OS. And select "LCD perfect assurance" cause even 1 dead pixel is unacceptable to me. This brings the total to $1008.90 after 5% off, or $992.75 if you get the MSI network card. So yeah, I really hope you guys can get a hold of one of these for review; as a loner or given as a review unit or maybe someone will just buy one and review it cause it's really tempting me right now... like a lot! If you're review is good I'm gonna start saving up and hopefully be able to buy it around Christmas. Thanks guys! A loyal reader. - BrianJarredWalton - Monday, June 7, 2010 - link
We can ask around... Anyway, I want to do a comment system test, so I'm doing it here. The following is a list of items that should be on separate lines: 1) Line one 2) Another line 3) And the third line. I'm pretty sure the system isn't giving anyone <br> tags now.JohnNyceis - Monday, June 7, 2010 - link
this is a testline breaks should be working now
John
brundlefly - Friday, June 25, 2010 - link
I have used SSDs on my notebooks for 3 years and can't go back.Benchmarks just do not reflect how well these improve my everyday computing.
Like getting a larger monitor, its cool for a while, then you get used to it and its not big deal, then when you use a computer with a smaller monitor (or mechanical hard drive) its excruciating - if its well tuned you might need to use it for 5 minutes before you start realizing its a hard drive, but it will happen, and the enabling of fans and even the slightest noise is grinding and foreign.
It is *very* hard dealing with the storage issues on a notebook. I shove all of my media off onto a Synology NAS, and have moved all of my mail and office apps onto web services.
This last bit was one of the best things I have ever done for my productivity. I used to have outlooks and entourages running all over the place, plus syncing and duplicates and all that nonsense - no more.
Everything is on Google, and my iPhone has Google Sync (which is actually Exchange, so its push and there are never conversion issues like duplicates).
Amazing Sathu - Monday, January 21, 2013 - link
Thanks for the good article Jarred. A revisit review of a product is awesome and something not done normally. But such reviews help in giving mid life boost to slightly older products and save some $$ in the process. I would like to add 3 things I did to my Asus UJ30C over the last 1 week and it now is like a completely different animal. Between the iPads, tablets, my office laptop etc, UJ30C was somewhat getting neglected. But recently taking advantage of some good pricies of components I decided to upgrade the UJ30C. Three upgrades were done1. Upgrade RAM from 4GB to 8 GB (PNY 2x4GB) - $31
2. Upgrade the OEM WD Blue 5400RMP 500GB HDD to Seagate Momentus Hybrid 7200 RPM 750GB Drive - $125 (Used Acronis cloning SW - Trial version)
3. Upgrade to Windows 8 Pro ($39)
Total cost - $195 plus 4 hours of weekend time.(cloning takes the maximum time here)
Result: System is screaming fast - take 15 secs to boot up from cold to get to Windows 8 Metro screen. (prior to that it took full 3 minutes for the laptop to boot on Win 7, Upgrading the RAM and SSD cut it down to 30 Seconds, Win 8 reduced it further)
Issues so far:
1. WiDi is broke after the upgrade. Major dampener. Reasons I got here was googling for a fix and came across this review. Sharing this for others who may benefit and be aware of the WiDi issue on Win8.
Thanks all for reading. Comments are welcome.