G.Skill Phoenix 100GB Solid State Drive Review

XP Start Up

When it comes to hard drive performance there is one area that even the most oblivious user notices: how long it takes to load the Operating System. For our tests the clock starts as soon as the system “beeps!” and stops when our Anti-Virus splash screen disappears. While all the other tests were run with a streamlined XP image this particular image is the test bed's “day to day” OS and it has accumulated a lot of crud over the months from installs and removals. We chose the Anti-Virus splash screen as our finish line as it is the last program to be loaded on start up.

Just as we saw in the Vertex 2 review, a SandForce drive is a forced to be reckoned with when it comes to boot times. They simply are great at this kind of task. It also nice to note that it appears the synthetic tests were spot on with the Phoenix. It certainly is not any slower then the Vertex 2 or F100 even though the Phoenix is has the slower firmware of the three. The other side of that equation is it is not noticeably faster then the Vertex 2 which it would be IF both came with the same custom firmware.

ADOBE CS3 LOAD TIME

Photoshop is a notoriously slow loading program under the best of circumstances, but when you add in a bunch of extra brushes and the such you get a really great torture test which can bring even the best of the best to their knees. Let’s see how our review unit faired in the Adobe crucible!

Interestingly enough, the Phoenix was able to pull slightly ahead of the Vertex 2 and F100 when it came to Adobe load times. The difference is minor and is well within tolerances for this test, but it is nice to see nonetheless.