P4C800-E Deluxe: is it true it's best to connect your harddisk to the Southbridge (ICH5R)?! Why is that?!!

[Dance123]

Hi,

If you have the P4C800-E Deluxe motherboard, is it true that it's better to connect your harddisk to the Southbridge instead of the Promise 20378 RAID controller this motherboard also has. Anybody can explain why this is cause I remember reading this some time ago but I forgot why it was better or am I wrong about this?!

The P4C800-E Deluxe has following options to connect harddisks:

South Bridge:
2 x UltraDMA 100
2 x Serial ATA

Promise 20378 RAID controller:
1 x UltraDMA 133 support two hard drives
2 x Serial ATA
RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 0+1, Multiple RAID

1/ So, if I get an ATA harddisk (a 120GB Maxtor 7200 rpm), do I best connect it to the Southbridge, even if it is only UltraDMA 100 where the Promise controller has UltraDMA 133?! Why is the Southbridge the better option or isn't it?! What will give the best performance and why?!

2/ in case I would get a SATA harddisk, to what do I connect it best then and why?!

 

[AndyHui]

Connect to the SouthBridge ICH5R Controller. The SATA plugs have their own dedicated interconnect back to the ICH5 and doesn't need to share bandwidth with other devices.

The Promise Controller sits on the PCI bus and needs to share PCI bandwidth with other devices, which is not preferable.

Don't worry too much about the DMA speeds, it has no material affect on your system.

Will you please get your punctuation correct?