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  • numberoneoppa - Wednesday, May 12, 2010 - link

    This is great for Mushkin, and if they perform as well as other SF-1200 SSDs, also great for consumers. =)
  • numberoneoppa - Wednesday, May 12, 2010 - link

    Also, these are the same sequential speeds advertised by the Vertex 2 which is also on the SF-1200 controller (albeit modified, but not relevantly). Hence, I don' t think there's any extra special sauce in these giving them the speeds advertised. Price - These seem to be in line with the other SandForce drives on the market, if not cheaper.

    :)
  • KaarlisK - Wednesday, May 12, 2010 - link

    In the article about the new AMD CPUs, it was explained that unsubstiated/potentially wrong speculation would be a very serious mistake, hence the reprints of press releases.

    So why the completely unsubstantiated mention of possible internal RAID? Not to mention that, as the other poster said, speeds are the same as for Vertex 2. And it would take less than a MINUTE to check that.

    This is Anandtech. Please keep the serious mistakes at bay, and please add some content of your own. Otherwise, there are a dozen other sites your readers could visit (and already do, and they are better at this kind of articles, while their long-and-analytical articles are usually sub-par).
  • tejas84 - Wednesday, May 12, 2010 - link

    @Kaarlisk

    Wow you have some massive personal vendetta against Ian Cutress. Give the guy some slack he is new and doing a fine job.

    You on the other hand are acting like a jilted douchebag...
  • KaarlisK - Wednesday, May 12, 2010 - link

    It's not personal, it's against the type of articles that are appearing here much too often.

    There's no doubt that Anandtech could use more articles, but those articles should be Anandtech-like - deep, careful, loving, detailed and interesting research, instead of simply interesting news.

    And yes, I am a douchebag. I just am not good at explaining my thoughts in a PC manner, but I don't feel that I could stay quiet in this case, either :D
  • Ben90 - Thursday, May 13, 2010 - link

    I completely agree, these news articles are pointless and are starting to get annoying. Do we need an article on every little thing that gets released or could be released? I have nothing against Ian, but if we took out all of his articles the front page of Anandtech would be a lot more informative.
  • ClagMaster - Wednesday, May 12, 2010 - link

    @Ian

    Who manufactured these drives?

    Certainly not Mushkin. Mushkin is a middle-man.

    These are way too expensive and I could do much better with OCZ or Intel
  • numberoneoppa - Wednesday, May 12, 2010 - link

    Yes, they're a bit more expensive than the almost-guaranteed-to-perform-the-same OCZ Agility 2 per unit space, but not by a ridiculous amount. $3.84/GB for the 50GB OCZ and $4.02/GB from Mushkin, and I have always been very happy w/ my products from Mushkin in the past. Good (albeit unorthodox) support, too.
  • ClagMaster - Thursday, May 13, 2010 - link

    So OCZ manufactures these drives without their exclusive SandForce Firmware ?
  • numberoneoppa - Friday, May 14, 2010 - link

    Unless I'm mistaken, Agility 2 comes with the mass production Sandforce firmware and the Vertex 2 comes with the "special sauce" pre-production firmware. See Anand's last SSD article for more on this.
  • ClagMaster - Saturday, May 15, 2010 - link

    Thank you.
  • Indigo64 - Wednesday, May 12, 2010 - link

    The intro to this article puts Mushkin at some kind of "has been" in the market. Living not more than 100 miles away from their corporate HQ, I can tell you from my own experience that they have been around long enough that they don't need to be in the limelight all the time like OCZ or anyone else. Mushkin is an established brand, and one that I am proud to have been using for years as a local Coloradoian. The intro to this article makes them seem geriatric. Whether or not they are the producers of these drives, or a VAR, they deserve more attention / reverence than this article started out with.
  • Makaveli - Thursday, May 13, 2010 - link

    Have to agree with Indigo64.

    I'm using Muskin Ram in my i7 known about them for along time.
  • larson0699 - Thursday, May 13, 2010 - link

    Agreed. Mushkin's actually expanded in recent years with a line of power supplies and other non-memory products. And while I gaze upon a G.SKILL-saturated RAM market (and that many users complaining about mismatched timings and/or platform incompatibility) my own experience with personal picks Mushkin & Corsair has been unquestionably pleasant. Mushkin may not be the household name, but for the longest time, neither were others such as MSI and PC Power & Cooling which I believe were as good as, if not in some respects superior to, their mainstream competitors. I kind of miss the "red" MSI, though :-(

    But to suggest that Mushkin's fallen underneath the radar is to be ignorant of their continued prominence in an unseasonably-healthy market. Long before Mushkin comes to mind do I recall real demises such as SOYO and EPoX. I swear, in '02 everyone and his cousin was in the game of AMD boards, and product launches / CE showcases were actually a sight to see, as opposed to today where redundancy makes news and most new "features" are more marketing hype than functional enhancements.
  • ClagMaster - Thursday, May 13, 2010 - link

    I agree.

    Mushkin is a memory manufacturer I have very good experiences with for years. They might be “has-been” perhaps to the hard-core enthusiast community but there are many matured enthusiasts (which I am a member) who continue to respect their products. Mushkin manufactures good memory and offer very good rebates. I still buy their “Essential” line of memory for my household PC’s.

    Mushkin has diversified into power supplies and digital storage so they can continue to survive a very competitive memory market.
  • IanCutress - Friday, May 14, 2010 - link

    Hi Indigo64, Makaveli, larson0699, ClagMaster

    The editor and I did converse about the initial wording, and came to the decision that either way we worded it, someone would say something to the contrary (i.e. if we said they were known/well known, someone would post up saying they'd never heard of them, especially where they don't sell DDR2/3 products). So we decided to err on the side of caution, and relate Mushkin's popularity purely to high performance products, where DDR1 was the last time they truly shined beyond the norm with their BH-5 kits (I still run a set in a old machine for overclocking).

    All the best,
    Ian
  • larson0699 - Friday, May 14, 2010 - link

    I'm going to disagree here. Look at your audience. Everyone knows about Mushkin, and IMO the risk of backlash against a fairer statement would've been more worth your while.

    And what's this about them not selling DDR2/DDR3? I don't know if you're referring to retail outlets or the market as a whole, but either your wording is once again misleading or you've missed the boat by a few lengths. Mushkin is a current presence, I buy them, and with their generally-low voltages, I overclock them with great success. That they're not the name on that 2400MHz kit doesn't cement them as an inferior brand.

    I, for one, believe you should err on the side of neutrality next round rather than decide your stance on a game of rock-paper-scissors with your peers. The credibility of this site is surely coming into question as of late...
  • ClagMaster - Saturday, May 15, 2010 - link

    I ditto that.

    You are right that Mushkin was a big player with DDR memory eight years ago. But today Mushkin continues to manufacture quality high performance memory. And they still command a presence in the mature enthusiast community. I have DDR2 and DDR3 Essential Line memory in my household computers which is surprisingly overclockable for bare sticks (though I operate this memory at standard frequencies and setting during normal usage).
  • Snowstorms - Wednesday, May 12, 2010 - link

    The price point is really disappointing. Well over 200$ when Intel's V series is slightly slower but costs less than half of these Sandforce drives.
  • larson0699 - Thursday, May 13, 2010 - link

    I'm certain the investment begins to show its worth as both drives degrade. To me, it makes no sense whatsoever to buy SSD if I'm settling on the economy drive with an inferior controller and such tight capacity for a system drive. The V may still throw orders of magnitude more IOPS than a VelociRaptor, for instance, but that's a tradeoff I could live with when I have the elbow room and constant performance in the meantime that I'm still setting aside for the worthy SSD. It'll be interesting to watch the technology improve still better than what SandForce has already laid out for us.
  • hybrid2d4x4 - Wednesday, May 12, 2010 - link

    "highly competitive arena" or highly lucrative? It seems that more and more companies keep hopping onto this bandwagon releasing essentially the exact same product but prices don't seem to go down despite the saturation...
  • larson0699 - Thursday, May 13, 2010 - link

    But is it the quick saturation of the market or the gradual adoption of the technology that brings prices to more comfortable thresholds?
  • Zok - Wednesday, May 12, 2010 - link

    I very rarely critique the grammar of others, but these titles are driving me insane.

    "Gigabyte announce their new flagship motherboard: The X58A-UD9"
    "Sparkle announce $200-$250 1000W-1250W power supplies"
    "Mushkin release Callisto SSD Series, featuring Sandforce"

    It's "announces" and "releases." I can't help but assume that English isn't Ian's first language, so no biggie, but PLEASE take care of it next time.
  • IanCutress - Friday, May 14, 2010 - link

    Hi Zok,

    Yes, I'm British. I'm usually quite fastidious regarding my spelling, grammar, and so forth, and I have been trying to conform to all US standards (serial commas, -ize over -ise, etc). I had not known about this difference, otherwise I would have used it from the start. Also, a short email to one of the team here would have made it to me, and been a lot friendlier than ranting on the comments section - article writers are people too. I like writing to the best of my ability for AT, improving my current knowledge of various product areas and so forth, but this sort of online negative backlash 'sans' email isn't good for boosting ones enthusiasm for writing top articles.

    All the best,
    Ian
  • larson0699 - Friday, May 14, 2010 - link

    If you're really so bothered about a missing letter (when either form is correct, mind you) then paste the article into FrontPage and add the "s"'s yourself. No one else but you is bothered by the use of singular nouns as plurals (similar to how band names are so often used in sentences/headlines, e.g., "Papa Roach embark on worldwide tour") when clearly we speak the most sparse of languages and there is no one correct way to satisfy all interpretations of it. I am American but I am well aware of (and no less content to read) British words such as "realise" and "colour". It's English.

    Besides, grammar is possibly the least of Ian's concerns as an editor...
  • chemist1 - Thursday, May 13, 2010 - link

    Not so fast on criticizing Ian's grammar -- it may be that he is British. In British English, "nouns of multitude" (e.g., company names) are treated as plural.
  • chemist1 - Thursday, May 13, 2010 - link

    . . . however: I would add that, when writing for any publication, one should probably adhere to the grammatical standards of that publication's country of origin.
  • Zok - Thursday, May 13, 2010 - link

    My mistake. I didn't realize that. Although the above poster does have a point. This isn't anandtech.co.uk.
  • Zok - Thursday, May 13, 2010 - link

    Which is you! I need sleep...
  • Murloc - Thursday, May 13, 2010 - link

    I think that anandtech should keep writing deep articles about stuff, like reviews, product comparison and market analysis and nice guides.

    There are way too many sites just posting short news about new products and their price, deep articles is what sets anandtech apart, and makes it actually interesting to read.

    In the right we already have the latest dailytech news, we can read that if we want to read biased and unproven assumptions and knowing every product that will be coming out.

    Anandtech should keep doing what it does best.
  • chemist1 - Thursday, May 13, 2010 - link

    I agree that the in-depth articles are their strength, and what separates them from the rest of the pack. However, they apparently want to add release news to make the site more commercial. Nothing wrong with that from a content perspective, since the in-depth articles continue to appear. However, from a presentation perspective (and particularly because the in-depth articles are their signature) the two should be distinguished. I.e., when scrolling through the home page, it should be easy to tell which pieces are release news, and which are in-depth (say, by color-coding the background around the text). Currently, I don't see any way to distinguish them except by opening the links.

    Or, to put it more simply: since the in-depth articles are their strength (and take much more of their resources than the release news), they should be highlighted in some way.
  • KaarlisK - Thursday, May 13, 2010 - link

    Besides which, Anandtech could distinguish itsellf by making those release news articles just a TINY bit more analytical - just spend 10 more minutes on them. Then there'd be both a reason to come to Anandtech for release news articles (when compared to other sites), and Anandtech would be able to keep even the short articles "Anandtechy".
  • numberoneoppa - Thursday, May 13, 2010 - link

    Yes, I agree. If the release/news articles could be a bit more as you described, that would be quite nice.
  • capeconsultant - Thursday, May 13, 2010 - link

    Yes, also agreed on the just a bit more detail would be valuable.
  • chemist1 - Friday, May 14, 2010 - link

    Agreed as well!
    Gee, this is so . . . pleasant!
  • IanCutress - Friday, May 14, 2010 - link

    Hi all,

    We are currently looking into changing the way news and main articles are displayed so make them easier to differentiate. One way this is already been done is that only main articles get displayed in the top carousel on the front page, but we are looking into other changes.

    With regards this news in particular, SSDs aren't a top strong point on most of the team apart from Anand, who is currently unavailable. But rather than keep you guys out of the loop, we had to post something to the best of our ability. Given the reponse here, all future SSD news will surely go through Anand until either I or other team members get up to full speed, and as such SSD news won't be posted until Anand gets back.

    We do thorough research on our news items, which actually does increase time to post exponentially, and in such a cut and thrust news market, having that knowledge at hand already really does help, whereas spending two hours on a 4 paragraph news item isn't cost effective for either AT or the readers.

    To answer the question of news on AT vs. DailyTech, the focus of news on AT is purely at the hardware level, in terms of product announcements, releases, and dissection of that information to help you make a more informed choice. To some extent, it also helps us get the products in to test for you if there is a strong enough response.

    We're here to help, so if you've seen any information we've missed on news or main articles, let us know so we can update everyone on recent developments. We try and have a thorough understanding of the market before any post, but personally trying to know and keep up to date with almost a dozen PC hardware market segments can take its toll, alongside a full time job and writing AT news :)

    All the best,
    Ian
  • chemist1 - Saturday, May 15, 2010 - link

    Hi Ian,

    I'd like to offer some additional feedback on the current display format:
    I don't care for the carousel feature; I don't like the fact that you need to cycle through it to see all the recent in-depth articles (as opposed to seeing them all listed at once); further once you start cycling, you lose track of the chronology (though I suppose this could be addressed by having a bright red vertical bar [or vertically stretched triangle] to the left of the most recent article -- or just list the dates!).

    Instead, I'd like to see a format that enables the reader to see what articles are available as easily as possible. [I.e., to be able to take it all in with a glance.] To that end, I'd suggest a 2.5 column format: list the in-depth articles chronologically in the first (left) column, the new releases in the second column, and the DailyTech stuff in the third (half-width) column. Then your readers could quickly scroll down the page and easily see what's available. Given that most modern displays have a wide-screen format (and are thus generous horizontally), I think this format would work. Related to this, another good reason to eliminate the carousel (or at least make it much thinner) is that modern displays have limited vertical real estate.
  • chemist1 - Saturday, May 15, 2010 - link

    I.e., comparing the new version of the site to the old, I'd say it's more visually appealing, but less functional for your readers.
  • Memory Man - Thursday, May 13, 2010 - link

    240GB is selling at $666.49 on Mushkin's website
    120GB @ $369.99
    60GB @ $218.49

    and EVEN CHEAPER on NEWEGG! "Mush" better deal :)

    http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Sub...
  • numberoneoppa - Friday, May 14, 2010 - link

    Holy Crap, for $215 this is a bitching drive! If you can go w/ 60GB instead of 80GB, this could be a better buy than the Intel x25M G2.

    Thanks for the tip. :)
  • ClagMaster - Saturday, May 15, 2010 - link

    You are right.

    The Mushkin drive for $215 offers by far the best performace:price ratio than the other 60GB offerings on the NewEgg site.

    Comparatively speaking, its the best performance for the buck. And at 60GB would be fine for a boot drive for 32-bit Windows XP or Vista.

    Does this drive come with garbage collection utilities usable on Windows XP?

    Absolutely speaking, at $3.58 USD/GB its a terrible deal compared to $0.08 USD/GB for a Western Digital WD10EALS ($85 on NewEgg)
  • DesktopMan - Saturday, May 15, 2010 - link

    I assume the 60GB version has the same amount of actual flash as the 50GB models from other manufacturers, just less set aside for wear leveling?
  • Ben90 - Saturday, May 15, 2010 - link

    Correct, You can search for an article that got eaten up by these news tidbits flooding the site that describes the performance impacts for not having that spare area.
  • theangryintern - Tuesday, May 25, 2010 - link

    looks like they're already up on newegg for about $20 less than MSRP

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