What is the most important feature of a SSD for gaming?

[idata]

What is the most important feature of a SSD for gaming? Read speed? Write speed? Random 4 KB (IOPS)? I heard read speed is.

By my own experience game-load time is really the only significant improvement (& a smoother feel during gameplay). I'm trying to figure out if there'd be any other real improvement by buying an OCZ Vertex 2 (read speed 285 MB/s).

I currently have an Intel X25-M G2 160GB (specifications below)

Sustained Sequential Read: up to 250 MB/s

Sustained Sequential Write: up to 100 MB/s

Random 4 KB Reads: up to 35,000 IOPS

Random 4 KB Writes: up to 8,600 IOPS

I loaded Crysis on the Intel & was very impressed. OCZ Vertex's read speed is only slightly faster, so I wonder.

My other question is even though we have TRIM, will regularly uninstalling old games/installing new games increase performance degradation over time? Thank you for any advice.

[idata]

It varies between MP & SP but the sequential read speed is the main factor. I got the results below from HAB v0.7a. http://testmem.tz.ru/soft.htm# HAB http://testmem.tz.ru/soft.htm# HAB

Click the > and it will show you statistics.

If I look at a trace of reads/ writes playing MW2 SP for 21 minutes I get this:

Read < 1MB/s – 271MB – Over 19.15s

Read > 1MB/s – 2.2GB – Over 1.40s

Write < 1MB/s – 9.6MB – Over 19.58s

Write > 1MB/s –10MB – Over 4s

If I look at a trace of reads/ writes playing MW2 MP for 31 minutes I get this:

Read < 1MB/s – 244MB – Over 29.48s

Read > 1MB/s – 1.2GB – Over 1.20s Write < 1MB/s – 26MB – Over 30.43s Write > 1MB/s –4.2MB – Over 2s

The quoted OCZ Vertex 2 speeds are best case scenarios with compressible data. If the data is not compressible the read and write speeds will drop considerably, so I don't think you would see any real life performance difference.

When HDD fragments it increases the already horrifically slow access time to find the data. Access time on SSD is so fast that it makes little difference.

[idata]

The game load times are quicker. Why don't you wait until the new Intel SSD drives are released. If I was you I'd not want two different types of SSD in my computer. It would be a whole lot easier to manage with Intel Toolbox and Rapid Storage Technology programs giving good support and maintenance. I doubt OCZ have as good support as Intel offer.