Thanks for the replies guys and csThor I hope it's ok to continue using your thread. It may help others too.
Just to get my thoughts in order and I hope I don't offend anyone of I have misundertood....
A. HDD or SSD?
The "Negatives"
1. Cost
2. Drive Space (but I have plenty of HDD space for general purpose use)
3. "Not much faster than a Mechanical HDD in gameplay" if I understand correctly. I understand Madfish's comments about "In the real world no game loads 3TB data after it's started. It'll load in smaller chunks". But then Feuerfalke says "Especially for gaming it's random read access and here is, where the SSD can really triumph, because it simply has no physical disc to turn and no arm to swing. As a result the most important thing for loading multiple files especially for gaming is the reaction time. etc". Ermmm.......
The "Positives"
Fast loading:
I would sacrifice Windows Boot time for better gaming response (FSX, IL-2, SoW). Boot time is a one-off. For me it's all about smoother gameplay.
I know an SSD will not run the game much 'faster', that is mainly down to the CPU/memory/GPU/OS etc but I would have assumed it would help load new IL-2 maps/missions faster and remove some of those scenery update/player'joining' hesitations due to faster read speed of scenery data, a/c data etc. No?
Longer life/Reliablity
Takes a fraction of the Power of an HDD
Low (no) noise level (and there's not much demand of the HDDs while flying) although the pesky fans make most noise.
The "Uncertaintives"
The anandtech gaming load times vary from 1 second (Spore) to 21 seconds (Crysis) and minimum gaming FPS (although in Crysis) benefits from the SSD while average FPS shows marginal improvement. (Is Spore a serious benchmark?) And then this:
http://www.samsung.com/global/busine...ence_Rev_3.pdf suggests only a 5-6% improvement in loading and FPS and "Although not quantifiable, there was a definite feeling of smoothness while running the system with the SSD."
Conclusion:
Given my experience with HDD failures
and the small but definite improvements the SSD gives it seems right to go for a gaming SSD as that is my main concern. I'm not a "must load it now!" person when it comes to other applications and in any case the new rig will be much faster than anything else I have had before. If the SSD runs out of space I'll just have to relegate whichever sim is least used to a HDD or buy another SSD.
B. Socket 1336 seems to be my choice as futureproofing within a budget is one major criteria. I can't wait for the P67's early next year and overclocking is likely to become an issue in 3-4 years time. I'm sure I'll be able to overclock beyond an i7 960 so I won't double the CPU cost on one now. Also the money saved on an SSD won't get me from a 5870 to a 5970 GPU.
Any major opinions against?
Thanks again guys,
klem