Corsair Neutron 256gb vs Samsung 840 250gb

Currently deciding between these 2 at a price point of $170 each, relatively new to this stuff so a lot of what the review sites are just gibberish to me. I pretty much exclusively play games, no programming or editing etc.........so with that in mind which of these would be the best?

Also if anyone has any other recommendations feel free to shoot but I want to stay under the $185 price point.



THANKS!

 

I consider SSD an investment because it will keep me productive. I would spend a little more and get the Samsung 840pro. ( 5yrs warranty and peace of mind)
If you are in USA then www.tigerdirect.com has Samsung 830 -256gb on sale for $160.00 (limited time)
Samsung 830 has a proven track record.

On second thought if you are just going to use the sdd for gaming why bother upgrading. SDD is not going to give you a quantum leap in gaming performance. Just a thought I am sure you have your reasons.

S-beamed from S3

 

I don't like just telling people what they should buy as it would be my opinion which is not necessarily fulfilling to your needs. I would rather show you how to look for specific performance so you are in a better position to judge for yourself.

The 4 cornerstones of SSD performance are 4kQD1 Random Read, 4kQD1 Random Write, Sequential Read and Sequential Write

4KQD1 Random Read is how fast an SSD can access a 4kb piece of data located at random on the drive with only a single request sent to the drive (hence QD1). I.e. this is a test of the SSD's Read latency as it is determined by the Speed of the Controller and the Latency of the NAND itself. This metric has a direct correlation on Windows 7 boot times (as this mostly involves reading heaps of small files at random) and the snappiness of your Windows interface (e.g. opening and closing windows etc).

4KQD1 Random Write is similar to the read except it tests the latency of the NAND cells. It basically measures the reprogram time of the NAND and the agility of the Controller, however, it is often higher than the Random Read because the data's location can be written anywhere on the SSD whereas the File to be read resides in a specific location which must be found. Fast random write performance is more important if you use the SSD as a scratchdisk for databases or such but isn't a really important metric for consumer usage. However, it is nice to see how swift your NAND cells can be reprogrammed.

Sequential Read, this is simply the metric of reading data as a continuous block in a known location. HDD are quite good at this if the data is not very fragmented but in SSDs, the speed is dependent on the controller and the SATA interface. Fast sequential read speeds directly translate to fast game loading or loading of large files.

Sequential Write is how fast the SSD can write a large continuous block of data. This is partly determined by the controller's raw speed but primarily determined by the reprogram time (or swiftness) of the NAND. The benefit of high sequential write speeds is obvious if you are copying files to the SSD.

There are also more advanced metrics to determine the right SSD for you such as Performance consistency, GC efficiency, Steady state performance, NAND type, Cache size, Controller specifics, write amplification etc but I won't mention too much here lest the information becomes overwhelming.

For gaming you want capacity and lots of it since games these days can take up a lot of space. Secondarily, you want a drive that can sequential read really fast, this will directly impact how fast the game itself and the levels load up. Finally, you want reliability, its extremely annoying to try and piece together your digital life once an SSD dies plus random BSODs are no fun at all.

Specific SSD information in a nutshell

Samsung 840 has probably the fastest sequential read speeds of any mainstream SSD but this comes at a heavy cost of very subpar sequential write speeds. Also, a member tilleroftheearth has found some reports of a stuttering issue plus I myself have read that the garbage collection on this drive isn't very aggressive leading to a reduction in speed with time.

Samsung 840pro has really no real weaknesses other than the fact that its a very jack of all trades for its price. There are specialized ssds that perform either much better at a specific metric or the same at a lower cost. I would make special mention of the particularly good energy efficiency of this drive and the superb Random 4k read performance.

Corsair Neutron/GTX are known to have very good write speeds but their biggest ace is that they have one of the best random 4k write performance consistency of any consumer drive. This means that their write speeds are very predictable and don't vary greatly. Power consumption is a significant weakness of this drive.

Sandforce drives, very affordable considering the top notch sequential performance when handling compressible data (basically anything that isn't music, pictures, videos or WinRAR archives). The major downsides to sandforce drives are the reduced capacity for the price (due to the internal RAID scheme) and weird TRIM behaviour (vendor specific issues).

OCZ Vector is probably the fastest drive on the market at write (even faster than the 840 or 840 pro) operations coupled with killer read speeds too. The vector has competitive but not top notch Random Performance however you'll hear people warning about its performance changing when 50% full. I can assure you this isnt the case, when 50-75% of the NAND on the drive is used, the drive enters a special garbage collection mode during which there is a performance drop but everything goes back to normal after a few minutes. The biggest drawbacks of the vector are the price (partly due to the use of expensive 25nm Intel flash) and the power consumption.

 

Thanks for the explanation, simplified what I need to look for. Ideally I'd get either the vector or pro, but my budget just does not allow for them. Still........making a decision is tough haha

 

In your case, I would think you want a drive with good price/perf and all round performance?, you'd probably be looking at last gen flagship drives, I have 3 suggestions:

-Crucial m4
-Plextor m5s: I have personal experience with this one, basically the same as the M4 (right down to the flash cells) but plextor optimized it for faster Random Reads (i.e. snappier windows) but slower random writes.
-Samsung 830

 

After reading more reviews on SSD's than I care to admit I have decided on going with the Corsair Neutron 256gb. It ended up being $160 shipped so when it came right down to it there wasn't anything else available that could offer better performance at a similar price. The 840's reliability was just too questionable for me, though I was tempted for a bit by the M4 and Samsung. After re-reading the reviews it seem like the M4 is really starting to show it's age when compared to newer SSD's and the Samsung is either sold out or more expensive for what amounts to a slightly slower drive.

I appreciate your guys feedback!

 

Good choice, you won't regret it! I used to have a 256gb Samsung 830 but recently upgraded to a 480gb Corsair Neutron GTX as i wanted more capacity on my thinkpad x220. Overall very happy with it and power consumption is no better or worse than the Samsung. ATTO test results for my Corsair Neutron GTX: