G.Skill Falcon II 128GB SSD Review

Manufacturer’s Product Page: Click Here
Part Number: FM-25S2I-128GBF2
TechWiki Info: G.SKILL Falcon II 128GB SSD - Techwiki
Warranty: 2 years
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Buy from: NCIX | BestDirect


Today’s we’re going to be reviewing a refreshed version of one of our old favorites: G.Skill Falcon but this time in its “Part Deux” guise. While the name has connotations of higher performance than its predecessor (after all, a follow-up product is usually better than the first iteration) this is actually a mid-range SSD solution from G. Skill. In other words its competition is not the Vertex nor the Torqx like the original Falcon is, but instead the Falcon II is aimed straight at the OCZ Agility slice of the pie. To us this is great news as not only was the SLC version of the Agility we recently reviewed very impressive but it means that the Solid State Drive market niche has finally grown large enough that there are significant numbers of people wanting to buy SSDs which are more value orientated.

When companies start releasing products that concentrate on price and performance at the same time, a certain market has matured enough to be viable for most consumers. In the world of Solid State Drives the bellwether was OCZ’s Agility line (as it is basically a Vertex with slower NAND) which offered something for everyone and ended up leading in the sales charts as a result. However, OCZ is only one company and while we had an inkling of what was to come it is only now that we can say SSDs are starting to go more mainstream.

Before we begin please do not get us wrong, this drive is NOT a low end / low performance drive. What it makes it hard to classify is the fact that it uses a new Indilinx “eco” controller, so it will be interesting to see if this is “just” G. Skill’s answer to the OCZ Agility or something altogether new.

While it has only been available for a short while you can find the Falcon II in retailers and e-tailers here in Canada. As of the time of this article it commands (approximately) a $335 price and as such it is a slightly more budget friendly solution than the original Falcon.

It certainly is going to be interesting to see how this value-orientated product stacks up against the “best of the best” in not only the performance department but the performance per dollar department as well.