GA-X58A-UD3R SATA 3 and VERTEX 3

[mokkabonna]

I have the GA-X58A-UD3 motherboard and I just got my new 120 GB Vertex 3 SSD, which is capable of very high speeds 550MB/s ish sequential read, from tests I've read.

So I plugged my SSD into one of the sata 3 ports and made sure AHCI was turned on and then I did a clean reinstall of win 7 ultimate. Also installed the marvell drivers during the install. (that's the way to do it right?)

After install I run AS SSD and I get the following results:



This is much less than expected and I am scratching my head trying to figure out why.

I've found this messageboard and I keep hearing that the marvell controller is crap. Still.. is that the reason for my low speeds?
http://forum.giga-byte.co.uk/index.php/topic,2277.msg11813.html#msg11813

Should I just accept that in reality my motherboard don't really have sata 3 speeds even though it says so? and then plug my vertex 3 into one of the standard sata 2 ports? Any help appreciated!

[Dark Mantis]

Hi and welcome to the Gigabyte Forum.

Obviously you haven't searched the forum before asking your question or you would have soon found the answer. The SATA3 on your motherboiard is controlled by the Meavell 9128 chip. This controller was not up to the standard it should have been and never worked at proper SATA3 speeds. It just wouldn't handle the throughput of anything more than SATA2. In fact the Intel ICH10R SATA2 controller was actually faster so I would suggest that you put your nice shiny new SSD onto the first SATA2_0 port as that is where you will get the best speeds out of it.

[mokkabonna]

Thanks for the fast reply.

Well I did search the forums quite a lot before I posted, and what I got from that was that the marvell chip was, as you just said now, was not performing well for sata 3 standards. And in most of the cases, people got encouraged to put it on a sata 2 port, but all the posts I found about it was for drives that AFAIK wasn't even capable of performing over 3Gbps anyway.

So the question I was left with was "are people encouraged to do so since anyway their drives don't utilize sata 3 really, and for sata 2 the intel controller is better?" But you basically answered that pretty clearly now. I was hoping that even if the marvell controller don't deliver on the promise of full 6 Gbps, at least it would maybe deliver more than SATA 2 speeds. It was just a bit hard to believe that it wouldn't, since when my motherboard clearly boasts SATA 3.. :/

Thanks for your help. Does anyone have a quick tip on what motherboard I could get that ACTUALLY have sata 3 support AND delivers the 6 Gbps speed?

[Dark Mantis]

I wasn't getting at you just making an observation. It's just I wish I had a pound for every time I had written that out!

I was caught out byt he SATA3 problem as well as absic and several other members I could mention. It just doesn't work with SATA3 drives.

If you want to get a motherboard that definitely supports it the new P67 boards and the inpending Z68 boards wil all support SATA3 with the new Marvell chip and the Intel SATA3 chip as well.

I have the P67 board beside me and I can vberify the ability of the SATA3 chipset on that board as I am running a RAID0 array with SATA3 disks with no problems whatsoever.

[Aussie Allan]

 Poor DM! you might want to consider a form letter For Marvell 9128 that you can sticky in on every second post at the moment!  Tee Hee!

  Mokkabonna ! everybody is in the same boat over this one, it still astounds me there's not a party/civil action running for all the problems that has rippled through the industry over this one......I personally think a £50 discount on my next purchase would soften the blow it caused me, I probably spent close to £220 and a month in labour with "NO" result for my labours...........you have to deal with the reality of what you presently have!

 Your options are ICH10R, a RAID Card or a new MoBo..........I went for a raid card and a PCI-X Drive.........Yes I have the same board as you!

                                                                           Hope This Helps
  Aussie Allan

[mokkabonna]

Thanks all for the replies, I guess I will just accept the board I have now and maybe buy a new motherboard in the future.

[Dark Mantis]

I think that is probably the most sensible way to go and you can always use an addon card if you feel it is necessary in the future.

[phillaholic]

I don't mean to thread-jack, but being in the exact situation, I was wondering if any of you would recommend a good add-on card. I have the C300 CTFDDAC128MAG. Thanks in advance.

[Aussie Allan]

  Not at all Mr Holic

 Bang for buck has to be the Rocket Raid 640........... with 4 sata ports......SataIII too!.......and bootable.......I think they'd be around the $120-140 US mark for you guys.......I got one (640) for storage in my box with a RevoDrive x2 for C:Drive.....Lightning!

 Aussie Allan

[phillaholic]

That one looks great Allan. Are there any with less ports that might be a little more affordable, or is that one so good that it would be worth saving up for? (It's $180 on newegg.com the US's best tech store, though I've seen it for around $90 at a site I never used before.) Is there something in the $50-$60 dollar range? 47.3440 to 56.8128 in Australian dollars according to Google. Thanks for you help. I don't want to end up in the same situation by buying something crappy, but I really only need it to power my single ssd when it comes down to it.

[Aussie Allan]

 Gimmy a day or two to have a hunt around for you.....wish I was paying in OZ dollars instead of British pounds.........everything is stupid expensive here in the UK presently........probably twice what you pay for the same item after conversion.........not many places in the world left where you pay $2.30US for petrol.............and that PER LITRE!....I kid you not!

 Aussie Allan

[Aussie Allan]

  The 622 (RocketRaid PCI-X card) is almost half the price of the one I quoted with 2 ports.........seems to be the only real ones out there with 6GB/s .....cheaper then a new mobo and has JBOD ,0,1,5 and 10 raid support

 Aussie Allan

[Dark Mantis]

Both of them are nice cards but in my opinion I would pay the extra and buy the RocketRaid 640 which gives more ports for the future.

[Aussie Allan]

 Gotta agree with Mantus there as it was my original "Gut" recommendation......It really does future proof you no end, but at the end of the day you buy what you can afford......Bugger the recession, ... where all feeling it!

 Aussie Allan

[Wonderwrench]

Don't the Rocket Raid cards use Marvell controllers? As far as I know the cheapest cards that will perform correctly start at about $360 USD.  IMO too much money. I'm in the same situation and I'm going to live with it until socket 2011 or Bulldozer come out.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816118107&cm_re=sata_controller-_-16-118-107-_-Product

Bill