OCZ Agility 4 (256GB) Review
by Kristian Vättö on September 1, 2012 1:00 PM ESTThe Agility 4
Besides the sticker, Vertex 4 and Agility 4 are virtually identical.
The PCB is actually screwed to the top part of the chassis, which is not very common. The top part of the chassis is made out of plastic, whereas the bottom part is metal. There's also a single thermal pad for the controller.
The controller is the same Indilinx IDX400MOO-BC (also known as Everest 2) as is found inside the Vertex 4. The silicon is provided by Marvell, although neither OCZ or Marvell has confirmed which exact silicon the Everest 2 is based on.
Similar to the Agility 3, the Agility 4 uses Micron's asynchronous NAND. As far as I can tell, Micron was the sole supplier of NAND for the Agility 3, so I would expect this trend to continue. There are eight NAND packages on each side of the PCB, bringing the total NAND package count to sixteen. Since our model is a 256GB version, each NAND package is 16GB (two 8GB dies).
There are also two Hynix 256MB DDR-1333 chips. All our Vertex 4 samples have had Micron DRAM in them, though it's very likely that OCZ is using multiple suppliers.
Test System
| CPU |
Intel Core i5-2500K running at 3.3GHz (Turbo and EIST enabled) |
| Motherboard |
AsRock Z68 Pro3 |
| Chipset |
Intel Z68 |
| Chipset Drivers |
Intel 9.1.1.1015 + Intel RST 10.2 |
| Memory | G.Skill RipjawsX DDR3-1600 2 x 4GB (9-9-9-24) |
| Video Card |
XFX AMD Radeon HD 6850 XXX (800MHz core clock; 4.2GHz GDDR5 effective) |
| Video Drivers | AMD Catalyst 10.1 |
| Desktop Resolution | 1920 x 1080 |
| OS | Windows 7 x64 |
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41 Comments
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Qapa - Sunday, September 2, 2012 - link
Yes, please do it :)Italic / special background color / anything
(just also indicate that at the start of the article)
Mr Perfect - Thursday, September 6, 2012 - link
Yes, good idea. I generally assume most of the text on the performance pages of a SSD article is boilerplate and just skip it. I was surprised to find unique bits of information on the performance pages.Death666Angel - Saturday, September 1, 2012 - link
Thanks for the review! I'm kinda missing the power consumption part though. :DDeath666Angel - Saturday, September 1, 2012 - link
Nevermind, just saw the other comment about it. Hope you can add it in the future though. :)ajp_anton - Sunday, September 2, 2012 - link
"Pricing is very close to the Vertex 4"I'd say. It's identical, except for the 120GB one. With the Ag/Vx 3, the Agility is actually more expensive at that size.
Are you sure you got that table right?
CaedenV - Sunday, September 2, 2012 - link
All the sudden I am not so sad about using the Agility 3's for my system drive. Agility 4 came out shortly after I purchased my first Agility 3 and I was kicking myself, but now it looks like it was not too bad of a move.SanX - Sunday, September 2, 2012 - link
"But at normal prices, the m4 or 830 for a little more would be a much better purchase..."830 consumes 2 times more - hell 5+ Watts - then all others in the market
claysm - Monday, September 3, 2012 - link
But is 5 watts really that much? 830 ftw even if it's 15 watts more.erple2 - Monday, September 3, 2012 - link
In a desktop environment, no, it doesn't make a significant difference. However, the mobile market is where every extra watt will make a significant difference in battery life. I've been considering buying an ssd for my laptop for a while, and the high power usage in the 830 is why I've taken that one out of the running.Wanou - Monday, September 3, 2012 - link
back in 2000, OCZ was known for their bullshit marketing selling DRAM.Then, they sold PSUs.
I bought one for myself... Guess what ? It was bullshit: Expensive for no more than a cheap crappy PSU in a classy box.
When OCZ started making SSDs, I thought:" I will never buy one from them".
But the Vertex 1 and after, the Vertex 2 looks so good, I bought one. And another. And another for my mother, another for my dad...
They all worked great and are still working !
So, I decided to get every PC where I'm working with a vertex 2 SSD. We are using huge mailboxes (Several Gb). So it was damn fast.
May I say that It was just AFTER OCZ switched silently to 25nm ?
Two friends of mine bought also one VTXE.
When the first one bricked, it was bad luck
The second started BSO before dying. Bad karma.
The third locked Windows and was not detected on reboot.
As for the 4th, the 5th, the 6th, the 7th...
Each time, the bricked VERTEX 2E SSDs were replaced by Agility drives.
I've switched to Samsung 830. So far, with more than 20 SSDs installed during the last 4 month, I've not suffered from ONE defect.
Today, i'm waiting for the replacement SSDs for my 8th in row FAILED OCZ VERTEX2.
One product can fail.
But when you get 8 failed products on 16 products coming from 2 batches and 2 different sizes (90/120Gb), you should take care and stop using the -still working- remaining ones.
And never buy OCZ Again.