OCZ Vertex 2 160GB 25nm SSD Review

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Description: A few weeks ago, my main desktop computer decided cash in on me. And before you ask, yes, as the Editor-in-Chief here at APH Networks, I do have tons of replacement components readily available on hand. The thing is, I am not about to reinstall Windows when I will have to do so again shortly anyway — thanks to a collection of vastly superior equipment coming my way in the next week or so. So I decided to wait it out, and during this time, I took my spare computer upstairs and connected everything in. Now my “spare” computer probably isn’t as bad as you think it is. In short, it consists of an Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9650, ASUS Striker II NSE, a mix of OCZ Platinum XTE 2x2GB and Patriot Viper II Sector 5 2x2GB for a total of 8GB RAM, plus a Gigabyte Radeon HD 4850 1GB to boot. Pretty good, right? Well, I will have to tell you this: My spare computer drives me absolutely nuts. It is not because the processor is slow, or it has a lack of memory; it is because all my fast SATA hard drives are in use somewhere else, so I simply shoved an old school Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 160GB PATA drive in there. Back in 2005, it was probably a pretty decent drive. But fast forward to 2011, putting Windows 7 Professional on it simply ends up in an endless cycle of disk activity. Windows takes forever to boot. Programs take forever to load. What I am trying to say is, even if you have great hardware, a slow hard drive will ruin it all. This is why I want you to meet my new friend, the OCZ Vertex 2 160GB. Wait a second. What happened to our old friend, the OCZ Vertex 2 60GB? Other than the obvious of the new kid having bigger storage capacity, the last Vertex 2 we have reviewed back in November has 34nm flash ICs, whereas the one we are reviewing today is from a new batch consisting of 25nm chips. This is where all the controversy started. People were complaining about OCZ silently swapping to 25nm, resulting in degraded performance and lower usable capacity. But with all the controversy around lower capacity units like the 120GB version, how is the slightly more expensive 160GB unit? So we stacked up some benchmarks and put them in to the ring for a nice boxing match. OCZ Vertex 2 34nm vs. OCZ Vertex 2 25nm. Is it really as bad as you think? Read on to find out!