The OCZ Core Series delivers the performance and reliability of the latest SSDs at a 50% less price per gigabyte than other high speed offerings currently on the market. For the first time, OCZ is putting SSD technology within reach of the average consumer, and delivering on the promise of SSDs as an alternative to traditional hard drives in consumer targeted mobile and Desktop applications.

"SSDs offer higher performance, reliability, and energy efficiency than conventional HDDs but the cost variance has limited adoption of vastly superior SSD technology, until now," said Ryan Petersen, CEO of OCZ Technology. "It is our mission to deliver the highest performance products to consumers at reasonable prices, and with the release of the Core Series SSDs we have done exactly that."

The drives feature a durable yet lightweight alloy housing, and because OCZ SSDs have no moving parts, the drives are not prone to damage from common mishandling. Designed for ultimate reliability, these SSDs have an excellent 1.5 million hour mean time before failure (MTBF) ensuring peace of mind over the long term. All Core Series SSD drives come backed a two year warranty and OCZ's legendary service and support.

Core series SSD drives are available in capacities of 32GB, 64GB, and 128GB and deliver incredible 120-143Mbs/ 80-93Mbs read/write speeds and seek times of less than 0.35ms, making the Core series up to 10x as fast on a seek-time basis and up to 40% faster on a R/W basis that the best performing 2.5" HDDs on the market, all while consuming 50% less power. MSRPs at time of launch are USD $169, $259 and $479 for 32GB, 64GB and 128GB models respectively.

Test System

-QX9650 @ 4ghz

-XFX 790 Ultra M/B

-Corsair XMS3 DDR3 1600

-Velociraptors Raid 0

-OCZ SSD 128G

-Silverston DA1200w PSU

-GTX280

-Vista 64bit

Benchmarks

HD Tach

OCZ SSD 128G

The OCZ SSD staying above the 100 MB/s throughout the test, not sure about the spikes in the test, I will

have to look into that, as SSD's are known for a much smoother graph. Average Read, cpu usage and

random access times go the the OCZ SSD here.

WD Velociraptor 300G

The Velociraptors starting off well then dipping down to 80 MB/s, the Burst speed is the only area the

Velociraptor wins here.

Velociraptor VS OCZ SSD

HD Tune

OCZ SSD 128G

WD Velociraptor 300G

HD Tune Read/Write

OCZ SSD 128G

WD Velociraptor 300G

Sandra

OCZ SSD 128G

Click for larger image

WD Velociraptor 300G

Click for larger image

I have had the oportunity to run both these hard drives for a few days now, and have been trying a few different things from Photoshop to games loading, I  can't really say I notice a difference between the two. You have to remember I am comparing the Solid State Drive to the Velociraptor which is the fastest Desktop Hard dive on the market today.

Real World Tests.

Windows Load Time

Here we see the OCZ SSD with a slight lead over the Velociraptor but enough to Justify The Upgrade.

COD4 Load Time

Crysis Load Time

In  Gaming load times it is very close, with the OCZ SSD Loading Crysis and COD4 usually 1 sec faster than the Velociraptor which again is nothing to get excited about.

Crysis 1.21 Gameplay CPU Load % Average

running Crysis Benchmark tool.

The only Notacable difference is with CPU utilization, with the OCZ SSD using 5% less on average during Crysis Gameplay.

Conclusion

From early usage I dont find any reason to upgrade to Solid State Drives at the moment, the price difference is too great to even consider it. The only benifit I see from it is having a reliable drive that uses less power and less CPU usage. It also gives you the freedom to mount them any way you want. For me with my PA 120.3 Radiator at the front of the Lian Li Armour Suit it allows me to remove the Hdd rack for better airflow.

I am yet to test the OCZ SSD's in raid 0, as that combination isn't easy on the pocket at $1,300au, but I have ordered it and it will be here next week so stay tuned....

Performance: 9/10

Price: 1/10