PCMark7

Website: PCMark 7

PCMark 7's storage benchmark uses SATA traces to emulate specific workloads and apply them to each SSD on test. We've selected the Gaming and Application load tests to highlight here. As some PCMark tests generate the same result regardless of SSD, as we feel these speeds are more relevant than PCMark's overall score.


In PC Mark’s application load test, the SSD 840 Pro came out a convincing winner thanks to a speed of 67MB/sec, 11 per cent quicker than any other SSD on test. The OCZ Vector’s speed of 58MB/sec was a notable increase over its Vertex predecessors, but couldn’t surpass either SSD 840, while the Neutron GTX was a little disappointing thanks to a speed of 51MB/sec.


In PCMark 7’s storage gaming load test, the margins between drives are small, but again the SSD 840 pro came out on top with a speed of 17.53MB/sec and the SSD 840 just behind with a speed of 17.11MB/sec. The OCZ Vector was only marginally behind, with a speed of 16.92MB/sec, while the Corsair Neutron again seemed off the pace with a speed of 15.82MB/sec, ten per cent slower than the SSD 840 Pro.

BootRacer

Website: BootRacer

We've wanted to include more real-world tests for our SSD reviews, and BootRacer allows us to accuratly time Windows 7 64-bit reboot times down to hundredths of a second. We run the test on a fresh install of Windows 7 64-bit on the relevant SSD, first allowing five restarts to allow Windows 7 to get it's caching together, before taking the average of the five subsequent reboot times as our result.


Windows 7 boot-times, as measured by BootRacer are similarly very close between high-end SSDs, but the OCZ Vector shone here, booting our system to desktop in an average of 9.14 seconds. The SSD 840 Pro managed a time of 9.98 seconds, while the Neutron GTX booted in 10.22 seconds and the SSD 840 in 10.67 seconds, 16 percent slower than the Vector.