New build in progress.. SSD worth it?

[Buch0]

Hey guys got a question that I am sure some of you will be able to answer for me. I am just about to complete building the following system:

Intel Core i7-920
Gigabyte GA-EX58-DS4
Geil DDR3 Ram 6GB Kit (3x2048MB) PC10666 1333MHz
Either the 4870x2 2GB or wait for the 295, not sure how long it will be until its available for purchase?
Antec 1200 case
Corsair TX-750 750W PSU

I was after some information on the SSD drives and whether or not it would be worth the money to install Vista 64 and apps on a 30 gig SSD and store everything else on a normal HDD? Is there a considerable amount of improvement from a normal HDD and would 30gig be enough (pagefile etc)? Any opinions would be much appreciated, cheers.

 

[Nukem]

There would be some improvement, but I don't think it's worth the money, regardless of size... I would get a 74GB Raptor myself if I was that worried about a few precious mili-seconds... Which I'm not, but you may be...
30GB SSD
Newegg.com - OCZ Solid Series OCZSSD2-1SLD30G 2.5" 30GB SATA II Solid State Disk (SSD) - Solid State Disks
74GB Raptor
Newegg.com - Western Digital Raptor WD740ADFD 74GB 10000 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 1.5Gb/s Hard Drive - Internal Hard Drives

more money, but that is worth it for the extra space... then you could buy a decent 250-320GB 7200rpm drive for all your apps.

 

[Nagasama]

30gb is not enough for OS and apps (well...depending on how many applications you have...i have WAY more than 30gb worth).
also, you DO NOT want to run your pagefile from the SSD, it suffers greatly in the write department.
the only real need i can see for an SSD is an OS ONLY drive.
as far as improvement yes there would be a significant improvement in boot/read time.

 

[Buch0]

Yer well I guess the best option would be to use the SSD for the OS only, and purchase a decent 7200rpm for the games/apps. Nagasama do you suggest I change the location of the page file to the normal HDD seeing as it writes faster?

 

[Nagasama]

oh yes. yes indeed. it writes MUCH faster. you will have worse performance than 7200rpm drives if you try to page off the SSD.

 

[Buch0]

Will do ._. Thats a shame though, I wonder how long it will take for the SSD's write speeds to catch up to normal HDDs ?

 

[Nagasama]

i think some of them do...but they are the VERY expensive ones.

 

[Puddle Jumper]

If you plan on overcloking I would consider changing the motherboard to a Biostar x58. It was able to take a i7 920 to 4.5ghz on air cooling.

Newegg.com - BIOSTAR TpowerX58 LGA 1366 Intel X58 ATX Intel Motherboard - Intel Motherboards

 

[meat_helmet]

oh yes. yes indeed. it writes MUCH faster. you will have worse performance than 7200rpm drives if you try to page off the SSD.

Although with 6GBs of ram, you can easily turn the page file off completely. Although some games and apps dont like you doing this sometimes. Normally if its just a gaming build this is ok though.

 

[Buch0]

If you plan on overcloking I would consider changing the motherboard to a Biostar x58. It was able to take a i7 920 to 4.5ghz on air cooling.

Newegg.com - BIOSTAR TpowerX58 LGA 1366 Intel X58 ATX Intel Motherboard - Intel Motherboards

I am not really into the overclocking business at this point although I will look at squeezing the most out of this mobo possible.. With all that I want it for (gaming) I don't know if the upgrade would be worth the cost

Although with 6GBs of ram, you can easily turn the page file off completely. Although some games and apps dont like you doing this sometimes. Normally if its just a gaming build this is ok though.

I dont know too much about the page file, what would be the result if I were to disable it? Will the HDD work any quicker or will it just save disk and memory space?