Benchmarks: Real-World Applications
The Intel SSD 520 Series 240GB provided impressive Windows 7 boot performance taking just 9.2 seconds to complete the task, on par with some of the best results we have seen from SF-2281 based drives. This made it roughly 38% faster than the SSD 510 Series 120GB drive and 18% faster than the Samsung 830 Series 512GB drive.
When measuring Windows 7 multitasking performance the Intel SSD 520 Series 240GB was able to match the OCZ Vertex 3 240GB taking just 4.8 seconds to complete the task. This made it a fraction faster than other SF-2281 based SSDs that we have tested along with the Crucial m4 512GB.
The single application loading performance of the Intel SSD 520 Series 240GB is lightning fast, though it is no more exceptional than that of other current generation drives that we have tested.
Finally when testing the level load performance using StarCraft II we were impressed with the Intel SSD 520 Series 240GB as it was able to crack the 10 second barrier, coming close to the performance of the OCZ Vertex 3 240GB. When compared to the ADATA and Kingston SF-2281 based SSDs the Intel SSD 520 Series 240GB was slightly faster.