Frame rate performance charts: HDD vs SSD

[snowstorm]

These tests were performed back in February-March, before and after my SSD upgrade. Being a "silent PC" enthusiast, my main pre-SSD drive was a WD Green, and for the purposes of this comparison I'd have preferred to have had a 7200 RPM performance-class drive, as that's probably more typical for an OS & applications drive. The results from a 7200 RPM desktop HDD would be expected to be somewhere in between those shown here.

The traditional measure of game performance - average FPS - shows little difference in TS2012 performance on the two drives. The scatter graphs and frametimes logs tell a different story - playing TS2012 on the mechanical drive is a much more stuttery experience. Hardware workarounds for RW's stuttering issues have long been a subject of discussion. These results demonstrate that a large proportion of the issue, particularly the worst of it (>100ms pauses), can be dependent on drive performance.

A brief explanation of the frametimes figures for those who aren't familiar with it. The "frametimes" here refer to the gap in time between one frame being rendered and the next. A gap of 400ms is just under one second, and if the >400ms frametimes figure is 10, that basically means the display froze for roughly half a second or longer on 10 occasions throughout the benchmark period (which was 25 minutes for each scenario).


Scenario load times



Note: results are average of two tests, with reboot in between each load.



Horseshoe Curve The Champion frame rate

WD Green 2TB


Crucial m4 128GB




Northeast Corridor Early Clocker frame rate

WD Green 2TB


Crucial m4 128GB




Oxford-Paddington Rush Hour Run frame rate

WD Green 2TB


Crucial m4 128GB




Test configuration

Note: The OS partition, which included the TS2012 folder, was cloned from the HDD to the SSD, so there is no 'fresh installation' variable in the tests. Partition alignment was confirmed and TRIM enabled.

SYSTEM CONFIGURATION
Hardware: Intel DH67BL, Core i5-2500K, 8 GB (2 x 4 GB) Kingston DDR3-1333, MSI HD 6850 Cyclone PE OC, primary drive on SATA 6 Gb/s port (WD20EARX or Crucial m4 128GB)
Software: Windows 7 64-bit, latest DH67BL motherboard BIOS & drivers (at 10 Feb 2012), Catalyst 12.1, FRAPS 3.4.7
Catalyst: default 3D Application Settings, manual fan control enabled and set to 100%
BIOS: CPU and inlet/outlet fan speeds fixed to 100%
disabled Microsoft Security Essentials Real-Time Protection
disabled startup of unncessary progams
switched off/unplugged unnecessary peripherals: network cable, printer, USB sticks
each test performed after a fresh boot

TS2012 CONFIGURATION
Launch window: TSX enabled, basic settings radio button set to Low then Custom to enable 8x AF only (no AA enabled), 1920x1200 full screen, 1x1 monitor, no command line or audio options checked
In-game options: graphical detail set to High, Depth of Field unchecked, Adaptive Bloom unchecked

[Kali]

Yep, that bears out my experience: no difference in overall FPS ( as you'd expect, it's a disk drive ) but much faster loading and so a much smoother experience. I have a pair of WD Caviar blacks as HDDs, they are a little better but still nothing like a SSD.

[dazzharvey]

very handy for reference, I am currently running a 2tb wd green drive and i'm finally gonna bite the bullet and get a ssd very soon, the one i was looking at is a mushkin one http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Storage/ ... 34&rqcRate[rating]=1&rqcRate[itemId]=258832&rqcType=r&page=1#rqc

It's not a bad price either in my mind, however if its a bad drive then I hope someone lets me know before the end of the month :)

[Kali]

I wouldn't know :) from what I've read they're all much of a muchness at the moment. The technology is changing so fast ( have you seen the PCI-E drives? ) that I'm not terribly concerned if mine falls apart in a year now - it's already half the speed of similar drives and it's only a year old.

[imnew]

Thanks snowstorm, for doing these tests.

[PapaXpress]

Just for reference:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd ... ,3237.html

[dazzharvey]

I'm still thinking the Mushkin, im so so tempted to get one but might wait a couple more weeks incase things change :)

[snowstorm]

If anyone who does go ahead with an SSD upgrade could do a before/after benchmark, that'd be great - even just 15 minutes of one scenario would be better than nothing. Instructions here.