When it comes to DIY performance upgrades, the two biggest strides have been made in high performance graphics cards, and the mass market adoption of SSDs. While most high performance GPUs still only need a spare PCIe slot, and adequate power, for it to give you a generational boost in performance, SSDs, however, have changed with the recent unveiling of the Intel Z97 and X99 platforms, offering higher performance than before. The new M.2 SSDs, no bigger than a stick of gum, shame even the fastest 2.5 inch SATA units, and unfortunately, don't just ?plug in? to older motherboards. That's why the Plextor M6e is such an interesting product to those of us, still hanging on to an ?old skool? platform.