Intel Core2 Quad Q6600
2x VisionTek Radeon HD3870 in Crossfire
OCZ Gold 3x2GB PC3-10666 9-9-9-20
PC Power & Cooling Silencer Quad 750W Crossfire Edition
Lite-On 20x DVD±R/W SATA
NZXT Beta Case
Windows Vista Ultimate x64
OCZ Agility 120GB SSD
OCZ Apex 120GB SSD
Western Digital Raptor 74GB 10,000RPM 16MB HDD
ATTO Disk Benchmark v2.34
HD Tune 2.55
SiSoft Sandra Physical Disks Benchmark 2009.5.15.99
To test the OCZ Agility 120GB SSD, I performed the above battery of benchmarks on a set of three drives. The Apex, being the Agility's predecessor as OCZ's mainstream SSD offering, should give us a good look into how the Agility compares to its competition. The Apex used for testing is by no means new, as it has endured review testing and general use since Shawn's review last May. Meanwhile, the Raptor provides a comparison to a now decently performing conventional HDD. All drives were freshly formatted with NTFS prior to testing. The test rig was equipped with a fresh, fully updated installation of Windows Vista Ultimate x64 SP2. All results are posted, from left to right: Agility, Apex, then Raptor.
Here we have results from the ATTO Disk Benchmark. The Agility consistently scored slightly faster than the Apex in reads, usually scoring about 230 MB/s on decently sized packets, as compared to the Apex's 210-220 MB/s. The Apex, however, slightly outperformed the Agility in write speeds. Both SSDs crushed the Raptor's ~80 MB/s read and write speeds, as expected.
Above are results from CrystalDiskMark. Here, the sequential writes were the same story as with ATTO Disk Benchmark, where the Agility slightly outperformed the Apex in read, but not in write. In random access, however, the Agility soars passed the Apex in all but 512KB reads, where the Apex edges out a 30 MB/s margin. This wide gap could likely be attributed to the Apex's age and use over the past four months. Both SSDs, again, vastly outperform the Raptor.
The trend continues with the HD Tune benchmark, where the Agility consistently outperforms the Apex. The Apex experienced a curious sharp drop in performance around 60% of the way through the media, which may be an artifact of poor wear-leveling or use over the past few months. HD Tune provides a really nice visual for how much faster random access is on an SSD than a conventional HDD such as the Raptor: you can hardly see the random access plot points for either SSD.
Finally, we have our SiSoft Sandra Physical Disks Benchmark, which further reinforces our findings that the Agility outruns the Apex with a nice ~30 MB/s gap in transfer rates.
The Agility seems to outperform the Apex in almost all scenarios, and both drives of course dominate the Raptor in transfer speeds and random access times. Continue on as we wrap up this review in the conclusions section on the next page.