Mach Xtreme DS Turbo 120GB SSD review - Final words and conclusion

Final words and conclusion

The DX Turbo series SSD from Mach Extreme is again a product that will offer some serious performance for hopefully a slightly more acceptable amount of money. Comparing apples to apples, SATA3 SSDs like Corsairs Force series, the OCZ Agility 3 and Vertex 3, Patriots WildFire and so on are neck and neck with each other. Overall IOPS performance is where they rock alright thanks to the SandForce controller. Whether or not you'd ever physically notice or need so much IOPS performance is what we slowly start to doubt though.

The overall performance to previously tested SSD units for the DS Turbo is good, admittedly here and there lacks shows some offsets in write performance compared to that oh so tough competition. We do have to state that we ran the SSD with a BETA Firmware, but that last beta definitely is very promising.

The sheer peak performance, and then the sustained performance throughout of the SSD is ridiculously fast. If you put a drive like this into your SATA 3 compatible laptop or SATA 3 compatible PC, you'll have no idea what is about to hit you.

That SandForce 2200 series Firmware bug? Initial batches of SSDs based on this controller had issues for a lot of people. Over the past few months there have been a lot of fixes and firmware updates for all board partners. Things seems to have stabilized with the latest firmware releases, the DS Turbo will obviously get the latest revision version in it. Should you want to check out if you have the latest firmware or want to update prior to installation, click here. 

As a policy these days we've been running the DS Turbo for a full week now in one of the test systems without any issues.

Ehm, some recommendations then. Should you opt a SATA3 SSD then we have a couple of hints though, we absolutely prefer the performance of the Intel Series 6 (H67/P67/Z68) integrated SATA 6G controller over anything else available in the market. If you run an AMD chipset with the added Marvell 6G controller for example, you will see lower performance, make no mistake about that. Also make sure you run your drive in AHCI mode, it does make a difference. Read our recommendation on that to be able to solve and bypass the BSOD when going from SATA to AHCI.

Prices HDD versus SSD -- well my advice is simple and I'll keep repeating this; you probably should stop looking at the Solid State Disk technology as if it were an HDD. We all will be old and grey before the two reach the same prices or top the multiple TB volume storage the HDD offers for less money. Comparing an SSD with an HDD is making a comparison in-between an integrated IGP or a dedicated graphics card, that last one will cost you a heck of a lot more yet you gain incredible overall performance. It is the very same with an SSD, use it as boot drive on Windows and applications and you instantly have removed a huge bottleneck, load and acces times. It is a difference in-between night and day (in a proper system). For massive storage like movies, MP3 files and bulky data you do not access on a regular basis, sure that's where the HDD remains the winner.

The magic simply is finding a good combination in-between the two. And that's where the magic happens. I kid you not, all my test systems and work systems run on SSDs, not once did an SSD fail on me, not once have I considered going back to HDDs. The benefits of a good SSD are simply grand. But that doesn't mean i do not understand the budget and cost dilemma that many of you are facing though.

The 25nm NAND Flash memory versus SSD lifespan, well the verdict isn't in just yet, but if you do the math based on very heavy consumer usage, it should not be worrying. That hypothesis flips around if you'd be planning to use it in a high traffic server or something. But even then it would probably last years. Admittedly, I still like the previous generation NAND FLASH ICs better though as the life-cycle of the NAND flash simply was double of what it is now, and what people seek is reliability, not cost effective methods that can shorten lifespan.

So there you have it, if you are seeking massive performance in the storage segment then the DS Turbo series offers just that, really good performance. Hopefully you can find it for a price that is acceptable for you. The product is fairly similar to OCZ, Patriot and Corsair's latest SSDs with that SandForce 2281 Controller based products so ultimately I'd go for the best price versus warranty if I where you, MX offers three years of it.

We end this article with the words we always say, an SSD is the best upgrade a modern PC can use, your operating system flies, there are no waits which you normally have with an HDD, there's no noise and hardly any power consumption, it is the best upgrade any modern age PC can use. If you have a proper PC with a SATA3 controller, the MX DS Turbo definitely is a likable and product. If you are still on a SATA2 platform and have no urge to upgrade, obviously we'd recommend a SATA2 SSD and safe yourself some money.

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