Intel claims that the X25-V is almost four times faster than a 7,200 rpm hard disk drive. "SSDs can replace or co-exist with traditional hard disk drives," Intel states in its marketing material. "Users keep their existing HDD as a means of higher-capacity data storage. This capability is commonly referred to as a boot drive, since the SSD accelerates boot or start-up time."

For example, with the X25-V's 40GB of boot drive capacity, a user could load the SSD with 's operating system, along with Microsoft Office applications and his favorite gaming application and experience up to 43% faster overall system performance or 86% improvement in the gaming experience, Intel claims.

According to Stephen Yang, product manager for solid-state drives at online retailer Newegg.com, the Intel solid-state drive is its top-selling SSD.

"This new value entry from Intel means more customers will have the chance to experience the benefits of SSDs, not just in notebooks or high-end PCs, but in mainstream desktops as a boot drive. This is the right price point to help convert more users to SSD computing," Yang said.

Lucas Mearian covers storage, disaster recovery and business continuity, financial services infrastructure and health care IT for Computerworld . Follow Lucas on Twitter at @lucasmearian , or subscribe to Lucas's RSS feed . His e-mail address is lmearian@computerworld.com .