GA-X58A-UD3R + OCZ Agility 3 = slow?

[zpewn]

Hello there! I recently purchased the OCZ Agility 3 120gb SSD, and after a BIOS update so the motherboard would recognize the drive, I was dissapointed to see the speeds with CrystalDiskMark and ATTO benchmark

It reaches a top speed at around 300 MB/s read and just over 200 when writing, and when I look at reviews and other peoples result with this drive, they get around the 500MB/s

I am using one of the 2 GSATA3 ports, with a brand new SATA3 cable

Is my motherboard faulty? How would you recommend I get higher speeds?

[Dark Mantis]

Hi and welcome.

The first question  I need to ask is are you using AHCI mode or are you still running in IDE mode ?

[Aussie Allan]

  Welcome zpewn

  As I understand it the GSATA3 goes through the Marvell 88SE9128 chip controller ..... if you got 300 MB/S ....Well done!  ......Move to Intel controller.

  Even though It's rated SATA2.....theoretical bandwidth before saturation is about 500Mb/s .........So you might not reach the Max speed for the SSD installed.....you will come very close........I would say much closer the GSATA

  And as DM asked .....are you running ACHI or IDE......?

  Aussie Allan

[zpewn]

Thanks for your replies!

To be honest, I am not really sure about the AHCI part.. In BIOS I've set the GSATA3-6_7 ports to AHCI mode, but when I look at the IDE list, the SSD shows up as IDE Master on port 6?

I have 3 other drives. 2 Samsung spinpoints 1TB in RAID0 and an old WD500GB, but none of these show up in this list?

How would I be sure whether or not I'm running in AHCI?

And am I to understand the the Marvell controller is bad for SSDs?

[Dark Mantis]

In a word, yes! The Marvell controller was a big let down and never worked as it was supposed to do. Even though it was supposed to be SATA3 6GB/s it never managed to achieve anywhere near that in fact the SATA2 ports are faster in real life.

The best port for your SSD especially if you are booting from it is the SATA2_0. If you have selected AHCI in the BIOS as the mode to run in then you can be fairly certain that is what you are using, but only on that controller. Another god reason for using the SATA2_0 Intel controlled port for the SSD is that it will pass TRIM commands through to the drive which are important for the long term health of the drive.

[Aussie Allan]

     Also when you boot.....Keep an eye towards the mid-upper left of the screen.....as it loads     in the driver list it will state ACHI Bios loaded or not

  Aussie Allan

[zpewn]

Thank you! I will connect it to SATA2_0 and make sure that it runs AHCI, then do a benchmark and come back witth the results

[Dark Mantis]

You will find that it is the fastest port on the board even though it is SATA2. It is also the most stable. AHCI is definitely faster then IDE mode too.

[zpewn]

Okay, hmm.

Write speed seem to have improved a bit. Went from 210-220 to 265, but read speed has declined from 320-ish to 280.

Thoughts?