OCZ Agility 4, Corsair Force GS and Corsair Neutron GTX : Specs| Hashrate

In this lab review, another trio of SSDs will be reviewed. The OCZ Agility 4 is a budget drive with asynchronous memory, but with the same controller as the Vertex 4. Let’s see if the lower price justifies the reduced performance. The Corsair Force GS is an updated model of the Force line, featuring a SandForce controller and Toggle Mode chips. And the Corsair Neutron GTX is a unique top model among all Corsair solid-state products, the heart of which is the exclusive LAMD controller.

Test participants

OCZ Agility 4

As you probably know, the Agility series represents one of the most affordable lines of OCZ products. The manufacturer himself refers it to the “Mainstream Performance” category, since the Vertex Plus with the SATA II interface are the really budget ones. This 256GB drive is based on the Indilinx Everest 2 controller, supports SATA 6Gb / s and has 512MB DDR 3 cache, like the more expensive Vertex 4, but unlike the latter, it uses ONFI 1.0 asynchronous flash memory.

The delivery set is, to put it mildly, modest. More precisely, there is nothing in the package except the SSD itself. Save so save.

The design is similar to the Vertex 4: the metal back cover adjoins the controller through a thermal pad and serves as a heatsink, the other half is plastic.

An autopsy showed that the already familiar IDX400M00-BC controller, a Hynix H5TQ2G63BFR-H9C 2 Gbit DDR3 cache, and a 25 nm Micron 29F128G08CFAAA asynchronous flash memory chip are working inside.

On the reverse side, there are eight more flash chips and one more cache chip.

The firmware is carried out with the standard OCZ Toolbox, everything you need is already built into it. The transition to version 1.4 from earlier was destructive, that is, it occurs with the loss of all data, but fresh updates are installed directly from the system without problems.

Firmware 1.5.2 was released in August 2012 and has not changed since then.

CrystalDiskInfo does not quite correctly determine the firmware number and does not indulge in a variety of SMART attributes. The only good news is that a new disk has arrived.

Corsair Force GS

This Corsair product is part of the SandForce 2200 SSD family. However, most of the other models use synchronous ONFI memory, and here they use Toggle Mode. Contrary to the lingering stereotype, the GS version is newer than the 2011 GT. Let’s see if this drive can distinguish itself with something in terms of speed.

The kit includes a mount for a 3.5 “bay, which is good news.

The Force GS body is made of thick metal and painted with a bright red rough finish. The back cover is also metal, the board is screwed to it. There are no thermal pads.

Short chain mail PCB, but this does not prevent the manufacturer from placing eight SanDisk SDZNPQBHER-016GT chips on each side.

The SF-2281 controller is located on the rear side. There is no DRAM cache for drives with SandForce.

The firmware update program is remarkably similar to those of Kingston and Kingmax. The firmware file must be downloaded separately from the manufacturer’s website.

Version 5.03 participated in the tests.