GA-P55A-UD3 and Highpoint Rocketraid 620?

[Carvetii]

 Hello,
  I'm a newbie to Gigabyte and this forum, so please take what ever that means into consideration... and, thanks for any helpful suggestions.

  I  just bought a GA-P55A-UD3 plus an i5 core 760 on an auction site. And, because of the problems I have read about the Marvel Sata 3 controller. Would it be wise too  buy a Highpoint Rocketraid  620 Sata 3.0 card?

NZXT Gama,  Enermax 625W PSU,  Visiontek Killer 5770, 2 WD 500G Blue Caviars, Asus DVD/CD R/W, Gskill PC10666 Sniper 8G, INTEL BXXTS100H Heatsink and an Acer 23"

[Dark Mantis]

Hi and welcome to the Gigabyte Forum.

You only need to purchase a SATA3 card if you have SATA3 drives you want to run otherwise it is just a waste of money. The Intel ports work very well and will suppport any drives you have at SATA2 speeds including running a RAID array if you so desire.

It is best to use the SATA2_0 port as the boot drive's connection.

[Carvetii]

 Hi,
   Thanks for the reply, but I guess I should have added this "Caviar Blue WD5000AAKX 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s " in the hardware description. And, I would like to use the drives in Raid O with Sata 3 and not have to worry about the PCi-E 16X slot being forced to 8X by the Marvel chip.
 
 

[Dark Mantis]

Even at x8 speed the throughput should be enough for your requirements.

[Carvetii]

 Yes, your probably correct about how there is little difference between the 8X vs 16X  with a Visiontek HD 5770. From my own experience with the card I never noticed much change in Furmark scores after my old MB for some reason defaulted my PCi-E 2.0 X16 slot to 2.0 X8.

 Also ,since  I've read nothing good about the Marvel SATA 3 controller on the MB on this forum or other sites. And, I would still like to be able to use SATA 3 for the Sata 3 drives in Raid 0 and a possible SSD drive in the future. Plus the Highpoint Rocketraid cards are cheap to buy.

 I also found out at the Highpoint site the Rocketraid 620 card will fit in any  PCi Express 2.0 slot or PCi-E 1.0 slot. On the  MB I have spare PCi-E 2.0 X4 and 2 PCi-E 1.0  X1 slots.
 

[Dark Mantis]

Well if you disable the Marvell chip totally in the BIOS and add the Highpoint Rocketraid card for SATA3 support that should be an end to your troubles and supply the necessary SATA3 ports. Good luck.

[mjscott]

Just want to chime-in here (altho I am a newbie too...)

I recently purchased the HighPoint 2722 SAS card (PCIeX8) - and it will not work correctly on my MoBo (GA-H55-USB3).

I discovered on the HighPoint site that there is a compatibility matrix for MoBo's and their cards.   You might want to check that matrix prior to buying anything?

I am currently switching from the HighPoint card to the Areca ARC-1880X card - to see if it will work in my MoBo...

[Dark Mantis]

Hi

Was there not a Hioghpoint card that you could have swapped it for on the matrix for your motherboard ?

[Carvetii]

Hi mjscott,
 
 Yes, I checked  Highpoint's compatibility list and it shows a very, very similar MB (GA-P55A-UD3R)  on the very short list. And, as far as I can see the only real difference between the UD3 and the UD3R according to Gigabytes specs is the addition of a JMB362 SATA2 chip for 2 Sata 2.0 ports on the back plane.

[Dark Mantis]

The main difference denoted by the model number is the RAID capability of the UD3R.

[Carvetii]

 Yes, if the user wants to add external Sata 3.0 HDD's .
http://www.gigabyte.com/products/comparison/list.aspx?ck=2&pids=3439,3438

[Carvetii]

 Sorry, I meant to say...Yes, if the user wants to add external Sata 2.0 HDD's