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Hey guys! So my bday is coming up in a few days, and I figured I'd finally splurge for a nice SSD (let's call it a budget of up to $250-275, for 240GB+). As it's my first SSD, I'm done tons of reading up on specs and reviews, but I'm still stuck trying to make a decision.

Here's what I'm currently looking at:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820226226
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227727
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820233312
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820233343

Thoughts?

Do you guys have any SSD suggestions? Anything you've bought and regretted it later?

NOTE: Since I know some SSDs play differently with various hardware, here's my current desktop setup:
ASRock 770 Extreme AM3 AMD 770 SATA 6Gb/s
RaidMax Hybrid 730W ATX12V
AMD Athlon II X4 635 2.9GHz Quad-Core
2x G.Skill Ripjaws Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 1600
HIS Radeon HD 6870 1GB 256-bit GDDR5
500GB 7200RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s HDD

Out of those 4, I would choose the Mushkin Enhanced Chronos Deluxe.
It's one I usually suggest. It's a good reliable model.

In all honesty, it's really just that I'm torn between the Chronos Deluxe and Corsair Force Series GS. Both have similar specs, and the reviews look good for both.

EDIT: I did find, however, that the GS has some issues with AMD based north/south bridges, which results in SATA 3Gb/s speeds instead of 6Gb/s. Researching on the Chronos now...

I've read that OCZ VERTEX 3 is pretty good, they have recently released VERTEX 4 but from what I read it seems unstable (buggy) and with no significant performance improvement.

Yeah, the same goes for the new Corsair "Neutron" series, which implements the new LAMD controller instead of SandForce. Some reviews mention the instability, while others haven't had a problem at all.

I figured it's best to stick with what's been on the market and tested thoroughly. I'll be going through and updating the SSD firmware and my BIOS as it is anyway.

The Chronos is probably the best priced, I admitted the Corsair Neutron is probably the better performer right now, but using a relatively new controller is an unknown factor. Atleast with that particular sandforce controller you know it's going to last, It's had time to prove itself. The Corsair GS, it's nothing special, it's new, but the Chronos was doing those numbers last year.
Yes I agree it's not the fastest because the Neutron beats it, but it's not 25% faster, maybe less than 5% faster. It's negligible when it's comes to know why you buying will be reliable with your data and will work without issues.

If money is not really an issue, the Corsair Neutron has the best guarantee at 5 years I believe. I might be wrong but most are 3 years. Worth checking out if their is any fine print on it. But that is nice to have if the worst happens.

For reliability, you need Intel. Second to that would be the Corsair Performance Pro, but both of them are expensive for your budget. The Chronos Deluxe is as fast as the MAX IOPS edition OCZ drives, slightly more reliable, and half the price. The Crucial M4 is great for any data, and won't slow down on compressed information like Sandforce-based drives will. The new Vertex 4 drives I have not yet tested, bu they have a Crucial chip with Indilinx firmware.

forget about Patriot.
Mine locks up about once a month and requires the power to be fully removed (not just system rest) to recover.

Forgot to mention the Samsung 830 series drives, also an excellent product.

This should help a lot: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/buy-ssd-recommendation,3255-6.html

I have two OWC Mercury Extreme Pro 6G 240GB as RAID0 config, and am very happy with them:

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/SSD/OWC/Mercury_Extreme_Pro_6G

Samsung 830 and intel 320 are the most reaible, almost server grade (the intel one).
All ssd are equal if compared with an old spinning disk, don't bother too much.

Definately Chronos Deluxe Enhanced
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820226226

Very true, but what got me about those two are the max write speeds and 4K Random Write IOPS. I do suppose, however, that I really REALLY doubt I'm going to tell the difference between 320MB and 520MB write when coming off of a 7200RPM disk that does maybe 50-100 at this point :P

Cheers guys! After some deliberation (as well as including your thoughts) I'm going with the Enhanced Chronos Deluxe. Good reviews, great speeds, and a fantastic price ($190!) for 240GB. Not the best performing on the market, but it's definitely up there.

I have a 120GB Force GT as my OS drive, it's a seriously quick bit of kit - it's only a tiny bit more than the GS over here  :)

I've never really bothered with SSD's in my rigs, never really seen the point. I'd rather just save money and have a high end HDD. With the prices of SSD's lowering though... that may just change.

i have a crucial 128 gb and no problems at all with it. very fast drive

Go with a Crucial M4 or Samsung 830. They are currently the best SSDs for their prices.
They perform really well, are reliable, and don't take performance hits on non-compressible data.

I agree with this, I went to SSDs a few months ago and was down to these two after some research, went with the 830 when it went on sale at Newegg, which they do all the time.

I'm so glad I went with SSDs too, it really saves a lot of time having to wait x seconds every time you want to open something. It adds up.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9-R0M3nJg8
Youtube video booting windows and loading 20 programs in 33 seconds.

When you try your first one, you will wonder why the hell you didn't do it earlier.

I run 3x Intel X25-V 40GB SSDs in RAID 0 for my Boot/Program Volume in Windows 7, but I still use VelociRaptors in RAID 0 for my 'Working Volume'.

Not including the (literal) 1.5 minutes that my rig takes to post, the SSDs boot and load programs like lightening. Great reads.

I have tried about a half dozen other SSDs in single and various RAID/Quantity combinations on various controllers and their write speeds are still shit...especially large files and multi-tasking. Anyone who re-muxs Blurays probably knows what I am talking about. For that, My 3x 150GB VelociRaptors in RAID 0 still kick ass.

Yep, you'll slap yourself for not doing it sooner.