Marvel controller on x58 board for 6gbs is it ok to use

roachyuk · 9 Apr 2011 at 21:00

been reading some posts about people do not use the marvel controller as its not recommended why is this?...ive just read this that the SATA6G/USB3 borrow from PCI-E link lanes is this a problem

DragonQ · 9 Apr 2011 at 22:02

It's mainly cos Marvell SATA controllers suck.

roachyuk · 9 Apr 2011 at 22:07

so buying a new ssd that works on the sata 3 which on the x58 boards...is marvel ...so why do they suck what reason behind this thanks.

Surveyor · 9 Apr 2011 at 23:14

They suck because they're poorly implemented compared to the Intel controller.

See here:

http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.p...sk=view&id=413&Itemid=38&limit=1&limitstart=3

roachyuk · 9 Apr 2011 at 23:39

so by ordering a say intel 510 ssd its pointless because you cant run it on the 6gbs controller ...is that what your saying. this review says its ok on 6gbs controller or am i missin gsomething?
http://www.storagereview.com/intel_ssd_510_review_250gb

Surveyor · 9 Apr 2011 at 23:57

The review says it has very good performance over legacy and SATA 6.0Gbps connections.

It was tested on the Intel ICH10R SATA2 ports and a SATA3 LSI 9260-8i RAID card.

If you bought one it would work fine on the Intel SATA2 ports but not as fast as on a good SATA3 port.

The Marvell SATA3 ports are not particularly good.

roachyuk · 9 Apr 2011 at 23:58

do they work though and the reason being is they are slower and buggy ...

roachyuk · 10 Apr 2011 at 00:01

hahahaha have you seen how much them cards are lol gee shouldve stayed with my 80gb x25 satrting to regret selling now to upgrade to sata 3.

bhavv · 10 Apr 2011 at 00:41

I thought that a Sata III drive on the Marvel controller is faster than it would bo over the Sata II, but the X58 marvel controller is useless for Raid.

roachyuk · 10 Apr 2011 at 00:46

ahh so if your using one ssd 310 intel say it will perform ok.

pastymuncher · 10 Apr 2011 at 19:09

There was another review i found the other day and it was a update because Marvell has released a firmware upgrade and performance has improved a lot. I need to try and find it again. I am also in the same boat as my P55 uses the 9120 controller for Sata 3 and am looking at getting one of the Crucial M4's. The latest bios for my board updates the Marvel Firmware but reading through the X58 boards bios revisions there is no mention of the Marvell controller being updated.

***Edit*** Just done a search for the review and could'nt find it but what i did find made for dismal reading. Might as well forget about using the Marvell controller as performance is even worse than Sata 2 on the P55 chipset.

Cosimo · 10 Apr 2011 at 19:23

bhavv said:
I thought that a Sata III drive on the Marvel controller is faster than it would bo over the Sata II, but the X58 marvel controller is useless for Raid.

It certainly is faster than over SATA 2 but the new OCZ Vertex 3 has shown up its limitations. I wouldn’t be rushing out to change an X58 motherboard just for higher SSD speeds.

roachyuk · 10 Apr 2011 at 19:58

i found that review i am sure it was on the asus site ....someone mentioning the update being in french or something lol....just waiting on a asus P6X58D-E...bought it of members market so see what its like...if no good ill just sell again ...keep mine.

pastymuncher · 10 Apr 2011 at 20:29

No it was a Gigabyte P55 board. They compared the Gigabyte with the updated Marvell firmware to my board running the old firmware and the difference was rather large. Gigabyte was supposed to put the updated firmware on their website but never did and you can't get it from Marvell direct.

I just really don't know what to do now. Get the Crucial M4 and try it on the Marvell controller while at the same time keeping in mind that i will be doing my usual upgrade (CPU/Mobo) around November so i will get the full speed from it then. Or, getting one of the cheap Sata 2 drives that Gibbo has on offer and running it off the Intel ICH10R controller.

roachyuk · 10 Apr 2011 at 21:28

think im gonna get the intel 510 for reasons being it works on the marvel controller well does on my mates sabertooth ok....and should be stable and reliable drive...faster than the 80gb x25 which i found to be excellent..but sold it now thinking id do better upgrading should have stuck with it for now but hey its all fun messing about....just means if it doesnt run ok on the marvel ill put it on the intel port....and loose a drive from my pc into a usb 3 case...cant be bothered with the sandybridge to get the intel 6gbs controller.

bhavv · 10 Apr 2011 at 23:18

simulatorman said:
It certainly is faster than over SATA 2 but the new OCZ Vertex 3 has shown up its limitations. I wouldn’t be rushing out to change an X58 motherboard just for higher SSD speeds.

No I definitely wouldnt either, I thought that the OP was asking in the sense that he already had an X58 board with marvel Sata III ports.

roachyuk said:
ahh so if your using one ssd 310 intel say it will perform ok.

Erm, no. Sata II SSDs will perform better on Intel sata II ports than they will on Marvel Sata III ports.

Sata III SSDs on the otherhand, such as Crucial C300s will perform better on marvel sata III than on Intel sata II, but the marvel controller cannot handle raid configurations, only the Intel controller can.

It might sound confusing, but it isnt. Unless you are specifcally wanting to use fast Sata III SSDs, theres no need to have Sata III ports, especially not on the X58. Even if you want to set up a speedy Sata III setup, P67 will do that a lot better than X58 does.

If you only have a Sata II X58 board, then simply go ahead and get some OCZ Sata II SSDs if you want them. You dont need to worry about Sata III.