AHCI or IDE

shaneosborne · 21 Nov 2007 at 22:51

I am going to complete a clean install of Vista 64 should I set my BIOS to AHCI Mode or remain at IDE?

Is there any performance boost when gaming?

I will be using my rig for gaming and general use and will not be hot swapping drives.

Antec Nine Hundred Gaming Case
Coolermaster 600w PSU
Samsung SH-S183L 18x Burner Lightscribe SATA Black
Noctua NH-U12F CPU Heatsink and Fan 120mm
2x GeIL 2GB PC6400 800MHz DDR2 @ 5-5-5-15 (4GB)
2x Western Digital Caviar SE16 500GB 16MB Cache
Retail Nvidia 8800 GTS 640MB GDDR3
Intel Quad Core™ Q6600 2.4GHz @3.00GHz
Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3P

helmutcheese · 21 Nov 2007 at 22:57

Some optical Sata Drives will act up with AHCI Mode, just to let you know.

shaneosborne · 21 Nov 2007 at 23:23

Many thanks

If I chose not to go with AHCI Mode (assuming that AHCI has no benefits) could anyone assist in helping me set my BIOS options as I am confused

I have the following options I require help with;

SATA RAID/AHCI MODE - DISABLED
RAID
AHCI

SATA Port0-3 Native Mode - ENABLED
DISABLED

Onboard SATA/IDE Device - DISABLED
ENABLED RAID/IDE
ENABLED IDE
ENABLED AHCI

Your help is appreciated

jbloggs · 21 Nov 2007 at 23:40

SATA RAID/AHCI MODE - DISABLED
RAID
AHCI

SATA Port0-3 Native Mode - ENABLED

The above settings will let you run your SATA HDDs in IDE mode when connected to the ICHxR controller, simply install XP/Vista, no drivers are required to be installed, as the OS will supply them.

Onboard SATA/IDE Device - This is the Gigabyte SATA2 chip (Jmicron), if you have IDE optical devices connected you need this Enabled, set to "IDE" - this will also let you attach SATA HDDs on this controller and run them in IDE mode.

Jokester · 21 Nov 2007 at 23:43

If you're running RAID, you will almost certainly be forced to use AHCI for your optical drives which may cause issues, unless you use a separate controller.

Jokester

shaneosborne · 22 Nov 2007 at 00:02

Many thanks for your help.

I have no IDE devices so I can disable the option for Onboard SATA/IDE Device as all of my devices are connected to the ICHxR (yellow not Purple SATAII ports).

Also should I set DISABLED for the SATA Port0-3 Native or Legacy Mode option?

also should I DISABLE the SATA RAID/AHCI MODE option?

Will my drives still run at the full capable transfer speeds and I assume the ICHxR is better than the Gigabyte?

Many thanks for your help once again, much appreciated

eyetrip · 23 Nov 2007 at 09:24

There are two seperate controllers. There is the Intel ICH9R, and the Gigabyte sata2 controller.

The majority of the Sata ports will belong to the Intel ICH9R, if it is similar to my board. If you set this to AHCI, you can then leave the GSATA2 option to IDE and leave your optical drives connected to that.

On my board, the top AHCI/RAID option is for the Intel and the lower one is for the GSATA2.

Consult the manual to be sure you are using the correct connections on the mobo to attach your drives to.

Edit:
run them at native. its more a OS compatibility thing, and legacy is for older OSes such as win98.

I had to look into this a bit last night, as am going to be setting up a RAID array.

For drivers, make sure you get the latest intel sata drivers from the GIGABYTE PAGE, and not from intel. The most recent ones on Intel site caused system to lock up.