Does SSD Speed really matter? and have they done it yet?

[HURRIC4NE]

I'm running a pretty old motherboard (about 3 years now).

its got a dedicated marvell SATA3 port which is just pure crap with the right drivers and everything (it is a rare motherboard since its not easy to find a SATA3 on a 1156 socket). My ssd pops out at around 140-160 mbps with it.

however when i plug it into the SATA2 Port, it jumps around the limit (like 220 i believe).

does the newer motherboards (on the ivy/haswell benches) perform likewise? or do they actually perform like they are supposed to? (in the 450+ range on sata3)

I don't know if a faster HD speed will also speed up boot times in the OS and video games, currently i'm on the max of sata2 so it is quite fast (i used to run a mech hd, that thing is SLOOOW). does it really speed things up even more when maxxin on a sata3? and is it possible with all the newer generation motherboards out now?

 

[Deders]

Are you talking benchmarks or actual performance?

 

[GlacierFreeze]

Should only see significant differences in sequential speeds between SATA2 to SATA3. Random write/read speeds shouldn't be much different. Shouldn't see much performance difference with just booting/games. Do those benchmarks again and look at your random speeds (4K), not sequential.

 

[GlacierFreeze]

Here's a great review. Can't remember if Anand did one or I'd link theirs but here's a recent one that comes to mind.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-upgrade-sata-3gbps,3469.html

Specifically this page:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-upgrade-sata-3gbps,3469-14.html

Booting/games will be random speeds, so those are most important benchmark numbers to look at in this case. SATA2 (3Gb/s) is about the same as SATA3 (6Gb/s) in this case.

 

[Zap]

its got a dedicated marvell SATA3 port which is just pure crap with the right drivers and everything (it is a rare motherboard since its not easy to find a SATA3 on a 1156 socket). My ssd pops out at around 140-160 mbps with it.

however when i plug it into the SATA2 Port, it jumps around the limit (like 220 i believe).

There are a few variables such as native Intel controllers having really low latency, but basically you are running into bandwidth limitations of the Marvell controller to the rest of the system. On socket 1156 the graphics card uses 16 lanes from the CPU, and the chipsets only have eight PCIe lanes (which are additionally limited to PCIe 1.X bandwidth, not 2.0) to work with for the rest of the system. Those boards probably max out at four lanes for a 3rd party SATA controller, and many may use only one lane. That's what is limiting your performance.

from this article

 

[HURRIC4NE]

There are a few variables such as native Intel controllers having really low latency, but basically you are running into bandwidth limitations of the Marvell controller to the rest of the system. On socket 1156 the graphics card uses 16 lanes from the CPU, and the chipsets only have eight PCIe lanes (which are additionally limited to PCIe 1.X bandwidth, not 2.0) to work with for the rest of the system. Those boards probably max out at four lanes for a 3rd party SATA controller, and many may use only one lane. That's what is limiting your performance.

from this article

i have 2 16x slots, one of them is taken by my graphics card, i don't know whats keeping my sata6 from working...

 

[hhhd1]

does the newer motherboards (on the ivy/haswell benches) perform likewise? or do they actually perform like they are supposed to? (in the 450+ range on sata3)

I think the newer boards (sandy/ivy/..and above) that have an Intel SATA3 connection, will reach 500mb read/write.

In your case, plugging the ssd in the sata2 (the native intel port) should be better than any 3rd party controller.

The real performance difference between sata2 and sata3 is negligible, you won't notice a big difference in boot times or app load times.

 

[Cerb]

i have 2 16x slots, one of them is taken by my graphics card, i don't know whats keeping my sata6 from working...

Nothing. It's just going to be slow. The Marvell controllers were never ideal to use. They gave extra ports, and allowed them to put 6Gbps support on the box.

Data transfer goes something like:
SSD->Marvell SATA controller->PCH/CPU/RAM
CPU/PCH<->Marvel SATA controller is 250MBps
Marvell SATA controller<->SSD is 6Gbps (600MBps)
PCIe has overhead
SATA has overhead
200MBps is not going to be far from the max it can do.

Basically, the issue is that they tacked on the Marvell controllers for a marketing bullet point, rather than actually adding a controller that could offer great performance. A newer AMD or Intel chipset will be able to do 500MBps or more sequential, with the right SSD, and offer better random performance too, whether at 3Gbps or 6Gbps.

 

[Zap]

i have 2 16x slots, one of them is taken by my graphics card, i don't know whats keeping my sata6 from working...

But you don't have two slots with sixteen PCIe lanes per slot. What's your motherboard? Does it support SLI? If it does not, but supports Crossfire, then the second slot only has four half-bandwidth lanes from the chipset.

 

[tweakboy]

Its like going from a Pinto to a Ferrari. SSD is the best upgrade path for good 2 or 3 years...