SATA3/SATA2 Chipset Comparison Tests Ian Mapleson Last Change: 06/Apr/2016, 0251hrs P67 Board (Intel SATA2/3): ASUS Maximus IV Extreme, i7 2700K @ 5.0GHz, 16GB DDR3/2133. X58 Board (Marvell SATA3 and Intel SATA2): Asrock X58 Extreme6, XEON X5570 @ 3.5GHz, 24GB DDR3/1600. SSD Used: OCZ Vector 256GB, Firmware 2.0. AS-SSD/CDM/Atto/PCMark7 tests done with a 200GB partition. ASMedia 106x PCIe x1 card tested on ASUS M4E, Driver Version 3.1.7.0. All systems run Win7 Pro 64bit. Asrock ASUS M4E ASUS M4E Asrock Asrock Asrock ASUS M4E Intel X58 Intel P67 Intel P67 Marvell 9120 Marvell 9120 Marvell 9128 ASMedia 106x SATA2 SATA2 SATA3 1.2.0.1016 1.2.0.1032 1.2.0.1032 SATA3 HDTach Maximum Read: 222.00 213.15 375.00 302.00 293.00 302.00 272.75 HDtach Maximum Write: 232.00 206.80 330.00 200.00 200.00 172.00 254.10 HDTach Average Read: 221.30 204.20 342.40 288.10 279.90 294.20 245.20 HDTach Average Write: 210.30 189.90 273.20 178.50 178.80 161.90 225.20 AS-SSD Sequential Read: 266.67 266.53 516.72 367.33 322.72 365.41 378.61 AS-SSD Sequential Write: 257.68 255.92 503.12 233.27 237.42 185.78 359.13 AS-SSD 4K Read: 27.19 23.05 24.99 24.10 24.14 24.27 21.57 AS-SSD 4K Write: 98.21 54.28 68.01 60.70 61.88 59.98 49.43 AS-SSD 4K/64Thrd Read: 200.31 190.32 348.38 261.64 257.42 197.83 161.52 AS-SSD 4K/64Thrd Write: 182.34 164.37 280.04 167.09 169.88 95.38 123.81 AS-SSD Access Time Read: 0.038 0.063 0.053 0.056 0.055 0.055 0.074 AS-SSD Access Time Write: 0.030 0.060 0.052 0.051 0.051 0.050 0.074 AS-SSD Read Score: 254 240 425 322 314 259 221 AS-SSD Write Score: 306 244 398 251 255 174 209 AS-SSD Overall Score: 701 615 1048 740 734 565 550 CDM Sequential Read: 278.00 276.70 521.90 397.20 398.20 380.20 385.90 CDM Sequential Write: 269.30 267.10 519.60 251.50 252.90 201.50 373.10 CDM 512K Read: 252.30 249.90 417.80 343.00 342.50 337.50 338.60 CDM 512K Write: 268.20 264.10 508.40 248.10 249.80 200.60 367.20 CDM 4K Read: 29.12 25.01 26.65 25.95 26.04 26.15 22.82 CDM 4K Write: 120.10 64.60 77.68 72.15 73.16 69.93 52.83 CDM QD32 4K Read: 213.30 199.40 370.00 279.10 281.10 215.40 171.40 CDM QD32 4K Write: 206.60 186.40 341.70 193.20 194.90 106.50 124.30 Atto 4K Read: 193536 126030 245760 198656 200724 127680 128382 Atto 4K Write: 198656 200704 311296 178176 175104 103166 124928 Atto 64K Read: 274411 272399 534199 378092 380838 347419 361469 Atto 64K Write: 270415 258269 486653 248477 250256 193226 360604 Atto 512K Read: 274976 275457 555461 405638 367491 387404 387404 Atto 512K Write: 272121 269326 528936 250256 252061 197471 376283 Atto 8MB Read: 282192 281822 552762 406720 379414 389742 400649 Atto 8MB Write: 272177 270804 533536 250289 252052 197924 381435 PCMark7 Secondary Storage Score: 5104 5073 5420 - 5195 5121 5178 Windows Defender: 5.58 5.54 5.61 - 5.54 5.54 5.47 Importing Pictures: 26.40 26.35 30.70 - 26.88 24.92 28.55 Video Editing: 22.09 21.98 23.01 - 22.42 22.40 22.39 Windows Media Center: 8.15 8.14 8.27 - 8.15 8.11 8.21 Adding Music: 1.41 1.41 1.41 - 1.40 1.40 1.40 Starting Applications: 48.33 47.57 57.87 - 53.22 52.21 50.12 Gaming: 16.42 16.31 16.91 - 16.53 16.54 16.30 PCMark7 Raw Secondary Storage: 4579 4326 6136 - 4603 4329 4615 Windows Defender (raw): 57.52 53.19 60.34 - 53.21 53.40 5.47 Importing Pictures (raw): 84.42 83.84 152.80 - 89.47 70.95 28.55 Video Editing (raw): 153.09 148.24 211.97 - 170.83 169.66 22.39 Windows Media Center (raw): 229.20 220.07 385.14 - 223.63 197.63 8.21 Adding Music (raw): 108.57 91.40 117.05 - 86.78 83.18 1.40 Starting Applications (raw): 76.69 74.79 103.87 - 89.79 86.94 50.12 Gaming (raw): 97.87 93.80 117.82 - 101.67 102.07 16.30 Conclusions ^^^^^^^^^^^ The newer 1.2.0.1032 drivers for Marvell don't give better results than the previous 1016 drivers. The Marvell 9128 chip has signifantly worse write performance than the 9120. Intel's P67/SATA3 is massively better than the Marvell and ASMedia SATA3 chips. Even Intel's X58/SATA2 is often faster than either Marvell SATA3 chip. The ASMedia SATA3 controller tends to be better than the Marvell SATA3 controllers for sequential or large size access, but not for 4K or small size access. Most oddly though, the ASMedia controller is really bad for many of the PCMark7 tests, no idea why. The X58/SATA2 gives surprisingly strong 4K performance for AS-SSD/CDM/Atto, beating the Marvell SATA3 chips, though this isn't reflected so much in the PCMark7 results. Strangely, X58/SATA2 is noticeably better than P67/SATA2 aswell, again especially for 4K performance (check the AS-SSD and CDM 4K results). Very odd indeed. NOTE 1: I didn't start the PCMark7 testing until after I'd updated the Marvell drivers on the Extreme6, thus the lack of PCMark7 data for the Marvell 9120 with 1016 drivers. Downgrading Marvell drivers is a bad idea. Doesn't matter though, the data would basically have been the same as for the 9120 with the 1032 drivers. NOTE 2: although these boards have different levels of CPU power, this shouldn't affect the PCMark7 results much as I've only run the Secondary Storage tests, which don't depend on CPU power. I could tell this was true because the 2700K's PWM fans on the heatsink never sped up from idle during testing.