OCZ Agility 3 (240GB) Review
by Anand Lal Shimpi on May 24, 2011 2:53 AM ESTFinal Words
OCZ's Agility 3 is a mixed bag of performance. For typical desktop workloads and light usage, the Agility 3 looks a lot like a Vertex 3. It's only when you start mixing in data that's not easily compressed/deduped that the Agility misbehaves. As a general boot/application drive I'm pretty confident in the Agility 3's abilities, however those of you who work with (more than just play back) a lot of photos, video, music and file archives will want to spend the extra on the Vertex 3.
The Agility 3's viability in the market really boils down to its street pricing. The Vertex 3 is selling for considerably more than its original MSRP, assuming the Agility 3 does the same then I'm not sure I see a ton of value in the drive. However if the Agility 3 can keep to its MSRP, it may be a good alternative for those users interested in the Vertex 3 but put off by its price premium vs. the Vertex 2. Theoretically the Agility line should be able to hit Vertex 2 pricing (assuming the SF-2200 isn't much more expensive than the SF-1200) given that both drives use asynchronous NAND.
Drives just started shipping so unfortunately it's too early to tell how the Agility 3 will price in the market. If history is any indication the Agility 3 and Vertex 3 will be moving targets with the best buy depending on NAND pricing at any given point. Hopefully you understand the performance tradeoffs enough to know when to pull the trigger on the Agility 3 and when the Vertex 3 is a better deal. In short, if the prices are close go Vertex 3, otherwise the Agility 3 should be fine for most light/typical desktop usage.
I have to add that choosing a SF-2200 drive isn't particularly easy. Different configurations result in different performance levels even down to the number of chip enables per NAND device (not just the number of die). Now adding asynchronous NAND back into the mix definitely makes this harder.
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cactusdog - Tuesday, May 24, 2011 - link
Anand can you get hold of the new Corsair Force series 3, preferably the GT version to test?A lot of us are waiting for a non-ocz sandforce 6 GBs drive.
Reiker - Tuesday, May 24, 2011 - link
I agree! I would really like to know if there will be ANY 120Gb SF2k drive that is up to spar with the 240Gb version...Love the work you´re doing Anandtech!
Minion4Hire - Tuesday, May 24, 2011 - link
I'd like to see how much of a performance difference exists between the 60 GB and 240 GB Agility 3s. I don't need 240 GBs for my OS and my important apps, so I'd be more interested in two or three 60 GB drives in RAID 0.... assuming the drives aren't horribly crippled and I'm not bandwidth limited by my controller.Mr Perfect - Tuesday, May 24, 2011 - link
Yes, please. The Force drives look interesting.Also, in the opening you touched briefly on the importance of the 64GB drives, could you test them as well? Looking at the difference between the 240GB and 120GB drives, you can't help but wonder what the 64GB drives will end up like.
Dracusis - Tuesday, May 24, 2011 - link
Yeah, Anand's SSD reviews are the best, they really make me feel like I know what I'm buying into. Would love to see more SF-2200 series drives benchmarked and discussed. Some performance numbers/thoughts on the Agility 3 60GB & 120GB variants would be nice too as there's a lot of performance differences between the Vertex 3 120 vs 240.Having all the Corsair Force 3's new drives on here would be brilliant - It must take a hellish amount of time to do all of these benchmarks though.
MrSpadge - Tuesday, May 24, 2011 - link
A roundup of 60 GB drives would be nice: Agility 3, Solid 3, some Sandforce 2 (34 and/or 25 nm) and Crucial C300 and C400.MrS
dhanson8652 - Tuesday, May 24, 2011 - link
+1 on the 60/64GB roundup. Definitely want to see those and the 120/128GB for any that don't fit like the X25V/M, Intel 320.Oxford Guy - Tuesday, May 24, 2011 - link
What I don't understand is why we have reviews of the 240 GB Vertex 3 and the 240 GB Agility 3 and yet...The 240 GB Vertex 2 is nowhere to be found in the charts!
anonapon - Tuesday, May 24, 2011 - link
I'm really interested in a review of the Corsair Force 3, too, or of any new Sandforce drive which can play well with the IRST drivers, which the OCZ V3 doesn't seem to do with consistency.gayannr - Tuesday, May 24, 2011 - link
Does Intel Stand a chance ? Probably NO! :-/