Battle of the SATA 3.0 Controllers

[parsec]

Psi... it did not even occur to me to make sure they didn't use Marvell controllers, but you are indeed correct. Nice find That Highpoint RocketRAID card uses a Marvell controller that is circa-2009, meaning it actually predates the variants of the Marvell controller utilized on X58 and P67 motherboards... So I guess my first link is a dud after all! I suggest avoiding it like the plague. ...

Hi, Great review, I've been wanting to see one with the Marvell controllers compared to others for a long time now. I was somewhat disappointed that you chose the latest Marvell chip, when the earlier models are what is in use in so many boards now. Which brings me to my point.

The Marvell 9128 chip is one of if not the most commonly used model on X58 mother boards, virtually all ASUS X58 boards use them, as well as Intel X58 boards. The older Gigabyte X58 boards also use the 9128, I just checked that and it is listed as the SATA 6Gb/s interface for all the "UD" series X58 boards.

My ASUS P67 mother board has a Marvell 9120 SATA chip to supply two additional SATA 6Gb/s ports. That is a variant of the 9128 that does not support RAID.

It is also known that the Marvell 9128 is usually implemented with a single PCI-E 2.0 lane, that is stated as a feature in Marvell's own documentation.

You are lucky (?) to have the 9182 in your board, it is still uncommon in mother boards. Only the Maximus ASUS P67 and Z68 boards use the 9182, and I noticed at least one ASUS Z68 board uses the 9128 (yes, 9128), while others use the 9120.

I have seen reviews using the 9128 to test SSD's, that was prior to the release of P67 boards, and they seemed to work fine in the tests. Otherwise they have a bad reputation, which is usually blamed on the driver. You can use the Windows 7 msahci driver with the 9128, and it is much more stable and actually faster than the Marvell drivers, but without RAID support.

I thought I should point this out, since I've been answering posts in other forums regarding the 9128 for a while now, they are everywhere, including RAID cards as you discovered.

 

[Kougar]

Howdy Parsec! I am not the one that conducted the review (just to clarify), but Rob indicates he tested with the 9172 controller, not the 9182. From what I can see the 9182 controller is the only one of the lot designed to connect to the chipset via a 2x PCIe 2.0 interface.

The interface bottleneck aside, it is more than just the 1x PCIe interface that hobbles the Marvell chips, otherwise write speeds would not be artificially limited so far below read speeds. MB/s is still MB/s, so whether the data is being read or written shouldn't yield such an impact as is seen in the results when comparing to Intel's and AMD's own controllers.

I have seen reviews using the 9128 to test SSD's, that was prior to the release of P67 boards, and they seemed to work fine in the tests. Otherwise they have a bad reputation, which is usually blamed on the driver. You can use the Windows 7 msahci driver with the 9128, and it is much more stable and actually faster than the Marvell drivers, but without RAID support.

I've seen a few myself that didn't show any problems, but those were using SATA 6Gbps HDDs. Then there are reviews that use even first-gen Sandforce SSDs which show a significant difference in performance. But it really wasn't until the launch of Intel's own 6GBps controllers with P67 that people began to realize there was even an issue, because they finally had a benchmark to compare to. Then the much more recent launch of SF-2281 powered SSDs ontop of the problem only made the situation more clear, as these SSDs are capable of maxing out the Marvell controllers.

I'm not sure all the problems can be "fixed" by simply forcing the use of Microsoft's driver. A few major SSD makers already discourage or warn users against using their products with Marvell's controllers due to reliability/BSoD concerns. And it is pretty clear it isn't just the 1x PCIe bottleneck that is the problem here, so I personally wouldn't care if it was the 9182 or 9120... I'd stick to Intel's 3Gbps port. Namely because even Intel's 3Gbps port will deliver higher write performance than Marvel's 6Gbps port.

 

[Taikwandoe]

What of the 990FX?

Any idea if the SATA 3.0 controller in the 990FX is the same one as is in the A75 chipset? I'm thinking of going with Bulldozer when it comes out, and am curious as to how its disk controller handles modern SATA 3.0 SSDs.

 

[eunoia]

"Future-proofing is a fool's game."

- A guy who built with the same mobo as Rob 10 months ago.

 

[Kougar]

Any idea if the SATA 3.0 controller in the 990FX is the same one as is in the A75 chipset? I'm thinking of going with Bulldozer when it comes out, and am curious as to how its disk controller handles modern SATA 3.0 SSDs.

I'm 99% sure they utilize the same controller. As Rob's own testing shows 99FX offers good SATA 6Gb/s performance, so there isn't a need for a major change. It's possible they may of tweaked it, but 990FX was already decent, and doesn't share any of the issues afflicting Marvell controllers.

 

[Taikwandoe]

I'm 99% sure they utilize the same controller. As Rob's own testing shows 99FX offers good SATA 6Gb/s performance, so there isn't a need for a major change. It's possible they may of tweaked it, but 990FX was already decent, and doesn't share any of the issues afflicting Marvell controllers.

Thanks! So the platform is one point in Bulldozer's favor; I hope that its performance ends up being at least competitive.

 

[Siv]

Howdy Siv! Sorry for a bit of a late reply to your question.

For the moment, the safest thing to do is make sure to stick to a motherboard that uses Intel's own SATA 6Gbps controller. These deliver the best performance and stability with SATA 6Gbps SSDs. Many P67 and Z68 motherboards come with these, but a quick read through the port listing or the manufacturer's website will confirm it for you.

After having used ASUS's P8P67 as Techgage's SSD test platform I feel the new UEFI BIOS has plenty of polishing left to do, but even so it is still the best matchup for SSDs. Intel and ASUS both utilize UEFI BIOS motherboards, but we should see more pickup with the next generation of chipsets.

Kougar,
thanks for your reply, sorry been very busy and only just checking back here. I took your advice and have been looking into various boards. I like the look of the ASUS P8Z68-V Pro and it looks like it uses the Intel chipset for the SATA III ports.

http://www.ebuyer.com/267772-asus-p8z68-v-pro-z68-socket-1155-8-channel-hd-audio-atx-motherboard-p8z68-v-pro

I would be interested to know if you think this mobo will give me true 6Gb/s?

Siv

 

[Kougar]

Howdy Siv, not a problem!

Any Intel 6Gb/s socket will give you full performance, most P67 and Z68 boards have them. For the ASUS P8Z68, the white SATA ports are Intel 6Gb/s.... dark blue is the Marvell 6Gb/s, and light blue are the Intel 3Gb/s ports. Just be sure to attach the SSD to the white ports on ASUS boards and you'll be good to go.

 

[gp]

I have a motherboard with a X58 chipset and a Marvell SE9128 SATA controller. After reading the article, I understand that performance with SATA 3 SSDs on this motheboard will be poor. The better chipsets (P67, Z68) don’t seem to be available on MBs with the 1366 socket. Is there any hope that I might be able to get a motherboard with good SATA 3 support and a 1366 socket in the future? I would definitely do an upgrade for this, but I would like to keep my current CPU, otherwise it would be too expensive.

 

[Unregistered]

Hello everybody
I'd reading in this and other forums about the marvell's poor performance.
What I don't understand is how those motherboards were sold being sata III compliant when obiously they aren't ?. Is sata III anything capable of out max 3Gb/s or stands for 6Gb/s ?
Are we being cheated by manufacturers?


ASUS P6X58D Premium User
2 (Supposed ) SATA III Ports on Marvel 9123

 

[Kougar]

Hello everybody
I'd reading in this and other forums about the marvell's poor performance.
What I don't understand is how those motherboards were sold being sata III compliant when obiously they aren't ?. Is sata III anything capable of out max 3Gb/s or stands for 6Gb/s ?

There are one or two premium X58 motherboards I've heard of that offer full SATA 6Gbps performance, but I don't recommend buying any X58 motherboards at this time. Any Sandy Bridge motherboard (P67 or Z68) will come with native Intel SATA 6Gbps ports, and the upcoming X79 boards will as well.

Remember that when X58 came out, there wasn't any SATA 6Gbps SSDs on the market. It was almost two years before the Crucial C300 came along, but even that drive couldn't max out a 500MB/s link under normal use. It wasn't until the SF-2200 controllers launched that this became a genuine problem, and by that time X58 hardware had been on the market for going on three years.

 

[Cypherdude]

Hello,
I have an Asus P7P55D-E Pro with a Marvell SE9123 SATA3 controller. BTW, Asus's own P7P55D-E Pro product specifications for this mobo does not mention which Marvell controller model number is installed. I had to reboot and write down the info which is incomplete: 88SE91xx. Even Asus's P7P55D-E Pro manual does not have the Marvell model number. To get the full Marvell SE9123 model number, I had to Google it and visit several sites before I found a PCStats P7P55D-E Pro mobo review with the full info. Extremely frustrating.

Anyway, has anyone tried the www.station-drivers.com Marvell drivers and firmware listing on their Asus P7 mobo? If so, what has been your experience? Positive or negative? I am hesitant to try it because this is not an official site. The listed Marvell drivers and firmware are also general in nature, not specific to the Asus P7P55D-E Pro mobo.

I was thinking of upgrading my Seagate SATA2 7200 RPM HDD to a Corsair Force Series GT 120GB or 180GB SSD. However, with all the problems the Marvell SATA3 controller has with SSD and the poor throughput, I wondering what's the point.

 

[Kougar]

Hi Cypher. I have not tried those drivers at all so I cannot comment on them. Part of the issue is the physical design of the motherboard, the Marvell controller is limited to a 1x PCIe lane and so it does not have enough bandwidth. No driver can fix that issue.

You can put the SSD on one of the Intel controller ports and install the HDD to a Marvell port, as no HDD that exists today is fast enough for the Marvell port to cause any problems.