Just bought an SSD

[Dhalmel]

Then it's probably you because both my Win7 & Win8 installation keys does it own it's own also.

[Wint]

A bit late to the SSD party but I have two in my gaming comp, one for the windows image, one for my Users folder. I transferred my XI install off the Windows drive and onto the Users drive, didn't take long at all

[ispano]

You don't use an SSD for document/music/media storage- just your most-used programs, the ones that benefit most from the faster data access. You typically keep your old hard drive and use it to store your document/media folders, and perhaps backups.

Win7 does not do this unless my win7 disc is defective or something. The included Samsung SSD Magician software did these things for me.

Windows 7 does indeed do those, if it can tell the device is an SSD of course.

Windows 7 & SSD: defragmentation, SuperFetch, prefetch

[kazaran]

As far as SSD drives to buy, many have come a logn way from early problematic ones. Stability weise, Intel seems strong, as well as Samsung drives.

[Laraul]

Most people agree that SSDs aren't helpful with games. The primary usage is to decrease Windows boot time. Windows does have an efficient disk cache. Once something is loaded it's cached in RAM for much quicker retrieval time. So you don't really see much long term benefit from using an SSD.

[Colino]

I moved over to windows 8 recently (yeah I know, but it's actually not that bad!) and I just can't believe how fast it is with my new SSD, it's actually a bit depressing because I used to turn my pc on then doing something else while it's booting like go to the toilet or something, but now it just boots so quick I have no time to do so.

[Matsume]

I moved over to windows 8 recently (yeah I know, but it's actually not that bad!) and I just can't believe how fast it is with my new SSD, it's actually a bit depressing because I used to turn my pc on then doing something else while it's booting like go to the toilet or something, but now it just boots so quick I have no time to do so.

You'll just have to find yourself one of these bad boys:

[Soukyuu]

I received and installed my ssd today! Much faster than before but still feels a bit slow. Looking at my performance information I see that I have a 4.9 score for processor, ram is 6.2 graphics is 6.7 and gaming graphics is 6.7 and harddrive is 7.3. is the processor a bad choice? Oh I'm using an intel core 2 duo CPU E8600 @3.33GHz

CPU and the fact you probably don't have SATAIII as other have mentioned. Did you do a clean install?

Win7 does not do this unless my win7 disc is defective or something. The included Samsung SSD Magician software did these things for me.

Unless you are using a budget SSD or did not do a clean install, it should have. I admit the way it decides if it's a SSD or not is a bit retarded, basically you have to get a high enough score on the initial WEI test. Not sure about the threshold though, mine is 7.9 anyway.

Also the Windows Experience Index is a very poor choice to use for benchmarking your hardware.

Agree, but it provides a basic test if everything is working as it should. An SSD with a score below 7.9 is usually either a budget one or is being limited by something. Note that 7.9 is the max score in win7, I don't know about win8

[Kirito]

I was thinking about getting an Intel® Desktop Board DZ77SL-50K and an Intel Core i7-3770S Quad-Core Processor 3.1 GHz 8 MB Cache LGA 1155 BX80637I73770S. What do you think? Seems pretty good for about $400. Any cheaper intel processors that can also run well?

[Alhanelem]

Most people agree that SSDs aren't helpful with games. The primary usage is to decrease Windows boot time. Windows does have an efficient disk cache. Once something is loaded it's cached in RAM for much quicker retrieval time. So you don't really see much long term benefit from using an SSD.

No, most people don't agree SSDs aren't helpful with games- But it depends a lot on the games you're playing. Particularly in games where things are dynamically loaded on the fly an SSD basically eliminates any possibility of "hitching" when data is being loaded (Common in some multiplayer games when a player joins the game and their model/other data isn't already loaded). It also helps a lot for games that simply have a lot of data to load and take a noticeable amount of time on a HDD.