ICH5 or Promise for RAID?

[Chymera]

I just bought the rest of my new system: P4C800-E Deluxe, P4 3.0C, Thermalright SP-94 w/ Panaflo H1A, 1Gb Corsair XMS Twin PC-3200 (3-2-3-5), AIW 9800 Pro, 2 SATA WD740GD raptors (yes, the new ones w/ FDB), 1 WD2500PD ATA133 (also w/ FDB) for ghost images and music. But here is the question. I plan to RAID 0 the raptors. Should I use the ICH5 (loading XP) or the Promise 378 controller? Does it make any difference on speed? I'd like to set it once and not have to switch later since I'm assuming the striped sets are not compatible between controllers.

 

[beaconengr]

My opinion, if your are going to use Raid 0 now and forever, use the ICHR. The reason is that you will be able to install the Intel Application Accelerator from the CD. This speeds up boot time, application load, etc. according to Intel. If you ever plan to use Raid level 1, then you would have to use the promise.

 

[nineball9]

IIRC, on the P4C800-E, the Promise controller uses the PCI bus for data xfer; the ICH5R does not.
You will get better performance for RAID 0 using the ICH5R. (This was an issue with earlier models of the P4C800 mobo which did not have Intel's Raid chip.