SATA or Gigabyte SATA2 sockets ?

topgazza

topgazza

topgazza

Associate
Joined
12 May 2004
Posts
264
Slightly thrown by finding this option on my Gigabyte MA790XT mobo.

It has plenty of SATA sockets but two Gigabyte SATA ones...Is there a reason why I should use the Gigabyte ones or just stick with the "normal" SATA ones ?

Manual doesn't go into any detail on that...just that they are there...
 
http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Products...rd&ProductID=3010&ProductName=GA-MA790XT-UD4P

South Bridge:

  1. 1 x IDE connector supporting ATA-133/100/66/33 and up to 2 IDE devices
  2. 6 x SATA 3Gb/s connectors supporting up to 6 SATA 3Gb/s devices
  3. Support for SATA RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID5, RAID 10 and JBO
These run on the SB750 southbridge.

GIGABYTE SATA2 chip:

  1. 2 x SATA 3Gb/s connectors (GSATA2_0, GSATA2_1) supporting up to 2 SATA 3Gb/s devices
  2. Support for SATA RAID 0, RAID 1 and JBOD
Gigabyte RAID tends to use a silicon image chipset or similar, when you boot it should tell you.

Personally, I'd use the AMD sata ports, as they're better integrated and will more likely use a more modern chip.
 
Cheers JB...my gut feeling was to use the AMD ones as well

Can't see any advantage stated on the website for the Gigabyte ones.

Both support SATA as you say...both support RAID...be it all different sets, South Bridge offers more ...but can't see any performance gains which, if the case, why offer the alternative ?
 
Last edited:
When I used to have a Gigabyte P965 DS3P mobo I did some tests and the GigaSATA ports were definitely slower. Did some reading up and it turned out that the Intel ports are connected via the PCI-E bus whereas the GigaSATA are connected via PCI so they have an extra buffer/convertor to go through which could account for why they were slightly slower.

No idea if the above is true for your mobo though.
 
I know the answer to this :)

The Gigabyte "GSATA" ports support hotswapping, so they're best kept if you have a Raid1 setup for rebuilding, or if you want to use eSATA.

The AMD ones don't work with eSATA. Tried and tested, even by setting the AMD ones to AHCI.
 
the GSATA ports use a Jmicron 36X controller connected to 2x JMicron Port multipliers chips so basicly 2+2 = 4 ports (790FXT-UD5P)

both SB750 and GSATA has AHCI support, including hotswap, you should try, and see wich works best for you, on my VelociRaptor the GSATA ports works best, all depends on your harddrives ;)
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom