OCZ Vertex TURBO SSD review test - Introduction

A new week, a new SSD review (!) Aah yes, the fine folks from OCZ are at it again. See, as if their top of the line high-end SSD storage units are not fast enough OCZ decided to 'upgrade' their fastest Vertex series SSD disks .. with an even faster model. Now granted, this product is not groundbreakingly faster than the 'old' Vertex, nor does it harbor top-secret classified material. No, Sir.

What OCZ did with the Vertex TURBO (that's what it's called) is what can be considered tweaking the product to squeeze some extra performance out of it. The Vertex Turbo Series has an increased host clock-speed and the SDR DRAM Cache clock frequency are now running steady and gentle at at 180MHz (which is 166MHz on the original Vertex series). Heck, we are Guru3D .. and we crave a weird almost fetish need for the hottest and fastest products, we like that.

So, though nearly identical to the trendy OCZ Vertex SSD in every aspect except NAND selection, the Vertex Turbo SSD series offers the same Indilinx 'Barefoot' controller and 64MB of DRAM buffer, but now boasts ultra-fast 270/200 MBps read and write speed. Um, yeah you heard that right ... that's 270 MB/sec (!), crazy fast huh ? It is getting dangerously close to the bandwidth limitations of the SATA2 controller, which maxes out at 300 MB/sec.

So anyway, the faster 180 Mhz clocks would theoretically bring you guys a gain of 5 to 10% in overall performance, especially measurable in the write speeds. The Vertex Turbo will be launched in 30GB, 60GB, 120GB and 250GB capacities.

My fellow Guru's -- does the additional 10% price tag justify the 10% extra performance ? Well, let's find out dude !