The battle between the OCZ Vector and the Samsung SSD 840 Pro has been closely contested ever since the Indilinx-based drive arrived late last year, though when push comes to shove OCZ could be on the losing end.

Meet the Vertex 450, OCZ's latest addition to the Vertex SSD series based on a slightly modified version of the Barefoot 3 controller that is designed to be more cost effective. So how does the new Vertex drive fare against the best SSDs in the market including OCZ's own?

TigerDirect offers the OCZ 480GB Solid 3 Series SSD, model no. SLD3-25SAT3-480G, for $329.99. This $50 mail-in rebate cuts it to $279.99. With free shipping, that's $0.58/GB and the lowest total price we could find $50, although we saw it for $10 less in December (since expired)...

Today only, TigerDirect offers the OCZ 256GB Agility 4 SSD, model no. AGT4-25SAT3-256G, for $159.99. This $30 mail-in rebate drops it to $129.99. With free shipping, that's $0.51/GB, and the lowest total price we could find by $60, although we saw it for $30 less on Black Friday...

Earlier this year we reviewed OCZ's flagship Vertex 4 SSD which at the time we were lead to believe was based on a second-generation Everest controller developed in-house. Eventually it was revealed and later confirmed by OCZ that the Octane and Vertex 4 drives actually used Marvell controllers with firmware developed in-house by the Indillinx team. While we acknowledged that it was very sneaky on OCZ’s behalf, it also didn’t change things much for us. Regardless of who did or didn't make the controller, the Vertex 4 was still one of the best performers and best values in the high-end SSD segment.

So with the controversy of the Vertex 4 almost behind them, OCZ is finally ready to unveil its first truly in-house SSD controller. It's been three years since Indilinx released a brand new controller and they are doing so today with the Barefoot 3, which is to be featured in OCZ’s latest SSD series known as Vector.

The major issue with SSD adoption over the past few years has been price, the astronomically high price when you are counting in hundreds of gigabytes. In today's comparison review we are going to look at 8 popular SSDs that cost $100 or less and feature capacities of up to 128GB.

The contenders include the OCZ Vertex 4 128GB, Samsung 840 120GB and Crucial m4 128GB. The most affordable high-capacity SSD featured in our roundup is the Kingston SSDNow V+200 120GB, while the OCZ Vertex 4 64GB, Crucial m4 64GB and Samsung 830 64GB should all offer stellar performance for under $80.

TigerDirect offers the OCZ 256GB Agility 4 for $159.99. This $30 mail-in rebate drops it to $129.99. With free shipping, that's $0.51/GB, tied with an August deal, and the best price we've seen for this drive. It's a current price low by $54. This drive features read speeds of up to 420MB/s...

Ending today, TigerDirect offers the OCZ Vertex 3 120GB SSD for $59.99 with free shipping via the directions below. That's $0.50/GB, tied with a deal from two weeks ago, and the lowest total price we could find by $21. Features include read speeds of up to 550MB/s and write speeds...

By mid 2012, SSD prices fell through the floor, costing approximately half as much as last year. Granted, that's still nowhere near as economical as standard hard drives, so companies have continued to offer affordable solutions in addition to their high-end series to drive sale volumes.

Such is the case with OCZ and the Agility 4, a budget-minded counterpart to the Vertex 4 that employs cheaper NAND flash memory. In similar fashion we recently saw the arrival of the Crucial v4 series. With both the Agility 4 and Crucial's v4 priced at just under $200 for 256GB models, it seems we have the makings of a value-driven shootout...

Rumors are circulating that OCZ is in talks with several industry giants about a potential buyout. According to Fudzilla's unnamed industry sources, Seagate is a likely buyer and would pay over $308.5 million, OCZ's Nasdaq value before the rumor was published...

Although SandForce controllers have powered much of OCZ's solid-state lineup, the company is shifting to its own solutions after purchasing Indilinx early last year. The "Octane" flash drives were the first to use the Indilinx Everest controller last holiday season and now that its SF-2281-based drives are over a year old, OCZ has begun phasing Everest into the rest of its offerings, including the Vertex series.

The Vertex 4 series is aimed at performance buffs, with initial Indilinx Everest 2 based models offering capacities of 64GB, 128GB, 256GB and 512GB. Performance is the name of the game here and OCZ doesn't disappoint.

Although SSD prices have fallen rapidly over the last three years, they haven't fallen rapidly enough some might say. According DigiTimes' all-seeing, ever-elusive "industry sources in Taiwan," many large players concur with that sentiment -- albeit for reasons none too charitable...

TigerDirect offers the OCZ Agility 3 120GB 2.5" Serial ATA 6Gb/s Internal SSD for $102.99 with free shipping, via the directions below. That's $0.86/GB, $10 under a deal from last week (which included a $15 gift card), and the lowest total price we've seen for this model without gift credit...

As a follow-up to last week's CES special feature and coverage, here are more of the products we observed and played with, along with photos taken during our journey to the event. As you've surely noticed, mobile tech consumed the event with seemingly every major company unveiling smartphones, tablets or ultrabooks. Nonetheless, we managed to lay hands on plenty of awesome PC hardware from the likes of Samsung, Silverstone, MSI, Razer, Roccat, Toshiba, Gigabyte and more...