May get a Vertex/Agility 3 - Do I need a controller card?

OpenToSuggestions · 23 Jun 2011 at 23:15

Evening OCUK,

I have an i5 rig (see sig) with the Gigabyte P55A UD3R motherboard which has the Marvell 9128 controller. I currently have an OCZ Vertex 60Gb and am thinking of selling it for an Agility 3 or Vertex 3.

I have heard stories of the Marvel controllers being crap and that a Sata 3 pci card is far better, however this would require an extra £30-ish on the hard drive setup.

Thanks

.

DragonQ · 23 Jun 2011 at 23:46

The Marvell SATA 6 Gbps ports are a bit rubbish, it's true, but you'd probably still get better performance that way than if you used the Intel 3 Gbps ports.

The trouble is, add-in cards with SATA 6 Gbps ports are also not terribly good, at least compared with on-board Intel/AMD SATA 6 Gbps ports, so I don't know if it'd be an improvement over the Marvell controller.

Captain Chaos · 24 Jun 2011 at 08:27

Marvel controllers are slower im afraid.

Best off using ms drivers over marvel

KMpuggy · 24 Jun 2011 at 09:36

These benchmarks from an agility 3 running on an onboard sata 3gbps, and a PCI-E sata 6gbps card. And both a marvell controllers which we all know by now are pants. Ok, quite an improvment in the read speed, but not so much on the write. I will be upgrading motherboard in the near future anyway.

Onboard SATA 2

PCI-E Card SATA 3

Pilgrim57 · 24 Jun 2011 at 11:32

KMpuggy said:
These benchmarks from an agility 3 running on an onboard sata 3gbps, and a PCI-E sata 6gbps card. And both a marvell controllers which we all know by now are pants. Ok, quite an improvment in the read speed, but not so much on the write. I will be upgrading motherboard in the near future anyway.

Onboard SATA 2

PCI-E Card SATA 3

Thanks for that

Confirms what I'm getting via the Startech card which has a Marvel controller on a PCIE 2.0 slot [Had it on a x4 PCIE 1.0 slot & got results similar to first results :eek:

noob error

]

So in short - add in card better than nothing.

KMpuggy · 24 Jun 2011 at 12:14

I paid £15 for a Xenta cheapo sata 6Gpbs card. As you just said, its better than running it through the onboard, i suppose if i paid a bit more and got another card the results would probably be a bit better, but im happy with it for now anyway until i get a new motherboard.

siege2 · 25 Jun 2011 at 10:50

I think the only way to get the full advertised speed from these SSD's is to upgrade Motherboard or to buy a PCI express card although buying a PCI express card is still not feasible atm as I am sure there is non yet to get the full 6GB's speed from the SSD's , If There is I would love to hear from you people regarding this :-)