-
Hi, due to one of my PC's hard drives is dying (it's slow after formatting, it makes a lot of noise and since yesterday Windows tells me to quickly make a backup because of errors in that disk's partitions) I'm considering urgently buying an SSD for the operating system.
I think 128Gb could be enough (newly formatted and with essential applications around 36Gb occupied, photoshop, lightroom, Open office...). I could also consider a 256Gb one.
The current components I have are:
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-P55A-UD3 Socket 1156
Case: Cooler Master Dominator CM-690 II Advanced
Graphics card: Zotac GeForce GTS 250 1GB GDDR3 Premium Pack
According to what I read on the motherboard:
Marvell 9128 chip:
2 x SATA 6Gb/s connectors (GSATA3_6, GSATA3_7) supporting up to 2 SATA 6Gb/s devices
Support for SATA RAID 0 and RAID 1
Chipset:
6 x SATA 3Gb/s connectors (SATA2_0, SATA2_1, SATA2_2, SATA2_3, SATA2_4, SATA2_5) supporting up to 6 SATA 3Gb/s devices
Support for SATA RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, and RAID 10
iTE IT8720 chip:
1 x floppy disk drive connector supporting up to 1 floppy disk drive
iTE IT8213 chip:
1 x IDE connector supporting ATA-133/100/66/33 and up to 2 IDE devices
- The performance of 4x SATA3 RAID 0 and 2x SATA3 is the theoretical maximum. The actual performance will depend on each system's configuration.
- SATA3 SSDs are not recommended for use in RAID 0 mode on Marvell SE9128 ports.
*** When SATA3 / USB 3.0 (Marvell 9128 /NEC USB 3.0 Controllers) work at turbo mode, 1st PCIE x16 will work at x8 speed**
Which SSD should I buy for the computer? Considering the motherboard of course.
SATA2 or SATA3, I say this because I understand that if I put it in the SATA3 the PCIe x16 will be slower, although I swear my graphics card wasn't plugged in there but in the PCIe X4.
Should the graphics card indicated at the beginning go in the PCIe x4 or should I put it in the PCIe x16?
Thanks -
Hello, I would go for the SATA3, so when you upgrade the equipment, it will still serve you and it will work better.
Regarding the graphics card, it goes into a PCIe 16X, look at the size of the connector:
Best regards
-
I understand that then I should change where the graphics card is plugged in.
And about the hard drive, given the pace at which prices are dropping and considering that "non-computer fanatics" change their equipment less frequently, by the time I change, it might not even be worth using the SSD in the future computer.
What could be a good option for my current motherboard, considering that in 3 years I hope not to have to change anything?
-
I would recommend a Samsung EVO of the capacity you can afford. I get along well with 128GB but I wouldn't mind something with more capacity, between the margin of safety to degrade less, Battlefield 3 and Guild Wars 2 in addition to some editing programs and Windows 7, there's no room for more. The problem is that the gigas are paid for with those chips...
As for the controller, I have seen some Marvell that perform less in general terms than the ICH10 from Intel. Perhaps it was because older models only exceeded SATA 2 in sequential reading, the Samsung EVO also have good writing rates. The best thing you can do is to test on both controllers with AS SSD and comment on the results.
As for the graphics, that 250 will care little about functioning with PCIe x8 or x16, if your equipment performs worse using the Marvell controller it won't be for the PCIe bandwidth but for poor management when sharing bandwidth but I don't think you will have problems with this, the other PCIe will already make you lose something, it works at x4.
