You may remember that back in October, we took a look at the OCZ Vertex 3 240GB SSD, which simply blew us away in terms of the performance that was on offer with lightning fast speeds and a decent set of internals featuring a SandForce controller.

Working on the success of that drive, OCZ have developed the Max IOPS version with a few minor touches from themselves. The development on the Max IOPS has had a bit of a revamp in terms of the PCB, the NAND used with Toshiba Toggle Flash being used opposed to IMFT flash as seen on the original Vertex 3. These little touches allow the Vertex 3 Max IOPS to deliver more when it comes to the overall I/O operations per second, which is the whole purpose of this drive.

OCZ always quote their 4KB Random Write Aligned IOPS through use of IOMeter 2008 and with the standard Vertex 3 coming in at 60,000 write, we find the Max IOPS boasting a massive 75,000 IOPs. An impressive figure to say the least, but we all know that sales hype can sometimes be exactly that.

It’s drives like this that we’re really keen to look at as they offer something different to the norm and get our enthusiast blood pumping again, so let’s get straight into it by starting off with what comes included, as we all know OCZ always like to bundle a nice package together.

With the sudden influx in hard drive prices rocketting through the sky, it’s a perfect opportunity for Solid State Drive manufacturers to get their products more into the mainstream market by offering larger capacities for competative prices.

Retailers have taken note of this opportunity and are currently bringing you the best possible prices around for the very best SSDs on the market including this little beauty from OCZ. You may remember that we looked at the Vertex 3 240Gb SSD a little while ago and we thought that it was great in terms of performance, branding and even the price.

Today we see the same SSD; the Vertex 3 240GB being offered at an even lower price of £299.99.

You can buy the OCZ Vertex 3 240GB Solid State Drive here for £299.99

Be sure to check out the other great offers from Scan’s Today only section

The cards can utilise Windows Media Centre to stream High Definition or Standard Definition TV to the computer without the need for a TV set up. The diagram below shows how the device actually functions, you can run a TV or a monitor off the card as the card is essentially the signal reciever:

The specifications of the cards are pretty standard, they utilise AMD reference clock speeds, you can see the full specifications of the two cards below:

This is definitely going to be a great buy for those who want to increase the functionality of their computers or just want to get rid of the aging TV.

“Following the successful launch of our Vertex 3 SATA III 6Gbps solid state drives we are pleased to introduce the new Max IOPS edition,” said Ryan Petersen, CEO of OCZ Technology Group. “Vertex 3 Max IOPS drives increase random write performance, and are the ideal storage solution for applications that require high aggregate workloads and increased IO throughput.”

The Vertex 3 Max IOPS edition combines the cutting-edge SandForce® SF-2200 SSD processor with premium NAND flash components to deliver exceptional 4KB random write performance with up to 75,000 IOPS. Furthermore, these drives can significantly improve multimedia entertainment and management, and the overall computing experience compared to both traditional mechanical hard drives and competing SSDs.

Vertex 3 Max IOPS will be available in capacities of 120GB, 240GB, and 480GB, and features TRIM support to optimize performance over the drive’s lifespan. All Vertex 3 Series drives come backed with a 3 year warranty to ensure customer satisfaction.

Overclockers UK still have stock of the Vertex 3 120GB variant, ready to ship with next day delivery at an attractive £239.99.

Sadly, the 240GB is pre-order here too, but we will update our readers as soon as we have confirmation of stock.

These speeds are clearly very impressive and could be nearly 8* faster than a conventional hard drive. The performance does also continue with a 4k random write speed of 60,000 IOP’s. This is a small improvement on the Vertex 2 Series. It has been built by OCZ using a 25nm MLC NAND flash memory and will be available in capacities of 120 GB (~£156) and 240 GB (~£310).

Or there is also a Pro versions of the Vertex 3 which does not offer better performance but will offer higher reliability (not that the other version isn’t reliable), security and endurance. This is available in 100GB ,200 GB and 400 GB capacities.

We at eTeknix are sure we are about to see a whole range of new SSD’s supporting the SATA III interface and these will likely be showcased at CeBIT in Hannover, however OCZ is clearly going to pip everyone to the post with shipping likely to start straight after the CeBIT event.