PS3 + SSD = faster load times, shattered budgets
Sitting idle while your new PS3 game installs is painful, but since it's all in the interest of reducing subsequent load times it's worth the wait, right? Not for the impatient sods at ExtremeTech, who tried to speed things up further by swapping out their original 60GB PS3's HDD with Intel's hot new 80GB X25-M SSD. The result? Sadly, those multi-minute installs from disc were largely unaffected, since the limitation here is Blu-ray drive speed and not disk speed. However, installs of downloaded demos were upwards of 30-40 percent faster, as were post-installation load times in most games. That's an impressive boost, but at a cost of about $600 for the SSD itself you'll be spending about 50 percent more than an entire PS3 of the 80GB spinning disk variety. In other words, this one's not for the frugal modders, but it is so choice if you have the means.
