Which C2D chipsets support NCQ ?

[NoobyDoo]

Which of the chipsets/SBs from nVidia & Intel ( incl P35 ) support Native Command Queueing ?

Thanks.

 

[cmdrdredd]

NCQ is a feature of AHCI, so basically as I understand it any chipset that has an AHCI driver supports NCQ. Here's a quote I found while looking up info on exactly what NCQ is/does...

"Native Command Queuing (NCQ) is a technology designed to increase performance of SATA hard disks under certain situations by allowing the individual hard disk to internally optimize the order in which received read and write commands are executed. This can reduce the amount of unnecessary going back-and-forth on the drive's heads, resulting in increased performance (and slightly decreased wear of the drive) for workloads where multiple simultaneous read/write requests are outstanding, most often occurring in server-type applications. However, the current technology actually slows down HD access in certain applications, like games and sequential reads & writes, because of the added latency induced by NCQ logic"

According to my reading it seems as if the drive must have it enabled too by the AHCI driver and the controller. Also depending on your usage of the drive, performance could be reduced slightly.


anyhow to answer your question, I think they all support this feature.

 

[NoobyDoo]

I remember reading that ICH8 does not, but ICH8R does, not sure where.

There is a article at Hardware Secrets dated April 16 2006 : link.

The results achieved with PCMark04 were the following: HDD Usage increased from 5,978 MB/s to 6,112 MB/s, an increase of only 2.24%. Windows XP loading time performance (XP startup) improved 9.76%, jumping from 8,947 MB/s to 9,821 MB/s.

The hard disk performance with IOMeter with NCQ disabled was 119 (a proprietary unit), jumping to 142 when we enabled NCQ, a 19.32% performance improvement. Not bad at all.

NCQ feature only improves the hard disk drive performance when it receives a series of out-of-order commands ... Notice how Windows XP loading time ? which loads files stored in several different positions of the hard drive ? measured by PCMark04 improved considerably.

Why isn't NCQ ever used/mentioned more often ? Wouldn't it really help loading Vista ?

 

[Capt Caveman]

For the normal user, NCQ will actually slow your system. I would only enable NCQ if you're running your pc like a server.

 

[secretanchitman]

Originally posted by: Capt Caveman
For the normal user, NCQ will actually slow your system. I would only enable NCQ if you're running your pc like a server.

thats what i thought too....but apparently noobydoo contracts that with proof.

i want some real answers!

 

[NoobyDoo]

Tech Report Link

This is where I found the ICH8 vs ICH8R stuff. (September 21, 2006 )

The ICH8 and ICH8R are differentiated from one another only by their support for RAID and AHCI. Intel implements SATA Native Command Queuing (NCQ) through AHCI, so the ICH8 also misses out on this worthwhile I/O performance enhancement. Interestingly, the nForce [ nForce4 SLI X16 MCP & nForce 570 SLI MCP ] chipsets manage to support NCQ without AHCI.