SSD on Nvidia chipset?

CurseTheSky

Diamond Member
Oct 21, 2006
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My boss has a PC with an ASUS Striker II (Nvidia 780i). I was recently talking with him about SSDs, and he wants to get one.

As far as I can remember with my previous 680i board, Nvidia chipsets don't support AHCI. So, my questions are:

1 - Is it still worthwhile for him to get an SSD, even without AHCI? Will there be a huge performance drop compared to a SSD with AHCI enabled, or will it still be lightning fast compared to a mechanical HDD?

2 - Will Windows 7 still be able to pass the TRIM command, or will it need to rely on background garbage collection? If background GC is the only option, which drives would be best? Sandforce / Indilinx / Intel / Micron / etc.

He's looking to spend about $250 or so, and around a 100-120 GB hard drive would be best. Reliability is absolute top priority. What do you guys recommend?
 

fffblackmage

Platinum Member
Dec 28, 2007
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1 - Yes. I remember there was an article on IDE vs. ACHI mode for SSDs, but don't really remember how conclusive it was. The impression was that IDE mode was slightly slower, but compared to a mechanical HDD, it's still blazing fast.

2 - TRIM is passed through Microsoft's IDE and AHCI drivers. Make sure you're not using nVidia's IDE/AHCI drivers or whatever.

I'm currently using my 60GB Agility on IDE mode, because I apparently forgot to switch to AHCI before installing Win7. I tried switch to AHCI anyways, but that caused at least one minor issue I didn't want to live with. Compared to using a HDD as an OS drive, the SSD is definitely faster.

While on AHCI mode, I noticed a higher score for the primary hard drive sub-score for the WEI thingy, but didn't notice the SSD being any faster than it was on IDE mode.

edit:
Found the article I mentioned: SSD Benchmark Tests: SATA IDE vs AHCI Mode @ benchmarkreviews.com
 
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sub.mesa

Senior member
Feb 16, 2010
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Particularly random reads become higher with AHCI; as it enables the use of 32-queue I/O using NCQ. Without it, you would be using single queue I/O.

In random read scenarios the absence of NCQ causes the SSD to only use one of its multiple flash channels; ~20MB/s. SSDs that have 10 channels thus become castrated in the random IOps. In essence, IDE mode makes your parallel SSD a serial SSD.

Commands such as TRIM would also block any other commands in IDE mode, while in AHCI the NCQ causes other commands to be processes in parallel to the TRIM command or any command; you now have a multi-lane highway while IDE is a single-lane highway.

As fffblackmage said, make sure you're not using the nVidia drivers which do not support TRIM; you would want to use the Microsoft drivers instead. Do not install "chipset drivers".

Hope that helps. :)
 

kmmatney

Diamond Member
Jun 19, 2000
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If you get an Intel SSD, you can set up the Intel Toolbox to clean up the drive every week automatically - so you don't need to worry about TRIM too much.

Reading speed is usually better in AHCI mode, but wroiting speeds are usually about the same between modes. This is not true of all SSD controllers - Indilux and JMicron controllers actually perform about the same in AHCO versus IDE, while Sandforce controllers are much better in AHCI.

http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.p...sk=view&id=505&Itemid=38&limit=1&limitstart=5


Overall the tests here show only a slight advantage of AHCI over IDE (in the more real world tests).
 

kmmatney

Diamond Member
Jun 19, 2000
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As foir a reliable drive, you can't go wrong with an Intel drive - I've bought about 10 of the 40GB and 80GB drives so far, and had no issues. The sizes are awkward, though. Another good choice is anything with a Sandforce controller (Agility 2, etc..)
 

CurseTheSky

Diamond Member
Oct 21, 2006
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If you get an Intel SSD, you can set up the Intel Toolbox to clean up the drive every week automatically - so you don't need to worry about TRIM too much.

Reading speed is usually better in AHCI mode, but wroiting speeds are usually about the same between modes. This is not true of all SSD controllers - Indilux and JMicron controllers actually perform about the same in AHCO versus IDE, while Sandforce controllers are much better in AHCI.

http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.p...sk=view&id=505&Itemid=38&limit=1&limitstart=5


Overall the tests here show only a slight advantage of AHCI over IDE (in the more real world tests).

Thanks for the link. So AHCI certainly gives a performance benefit, but IDE SSD vs. IDE HDD is still night and day. Good to know. :)

Now I just need to figure out which will take a bigger performance hit - Intel in IDE mode, or Sandforce in IDE mode. :)
 

tweakboy

Diamond Member
Jan 3, 2010
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www.hammiestudios.com
From what I read and researched the most reliable stable SSD is made by Intel .

Go with whats proven go with Intel, Not OCZ or another small company. IMO

G3 will do justice. Thanks gb and gg,
 

Voo

Golden Member
Feb 27, 2009
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http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.p...sk=view&id=505&Itemid=38&limit=1&limitstart=5


Overall the tests here show only a slight advantage of AHCI over IDE (in the more real world tests).
Bold for emphasis. Those tests got a whole lot of criticism for only testing sequential r/w speed where the minimally smaller overhead of IDE had some advantages while completely ignoring NCQ.. bad, bad, bad review - but I think they printed a part2 or something like that where they corrected that.