HighPoint Rocket 620 on PCI 1.0 or 2.0? x1 or x16?

[paullyh]

The HighPoint Rocket 620 SATA III 6 Gbps adapter offers the following specs:
http://www.highpoint-tech.com/usa_new/series_r600.htm

Controller Specification
PCI-Express 2.0 x1 (Compatible with PCI-Express 1.0)
Serial ATA III (6.0Gbps) compliant, with speed negotiation Serial ATA II (3Gbps) and Serial ATA I (1.5Gbps)
600MB/s per SATA port
Industry Standard AHCI Compliant
Hot-plug capability
Supports Native Command Queuing (NCQ)
Out-of-the-Box Ready for Windows, Linux (Check AHCI detail OS support list)
Compatible with SATA (III, II, I) Hard Drives, SSD, etc
Support up to 2TB Hard Drives
Power Efficient – Going Green Saves Green
RoHS compliant

On Quick Installation Guide- Installation Step 1 , you can use the "PCI-Express 2.0 or 1.0 slot (x1, x4, x8 or x16) slot".

The fact it's "compatible" with PCI-E 1.0 means that it should show the same performance when used e.g. on a PCI-E 1.0 4x slot?

Around the forums some guys say that you MUST install on PCI-e 2.0 and on x16 slot in order to get the best performance from your SSD.

Anyone is willing to share his experience?
Thank you.

 

[eleclerc]

Rocket 620/620A Manual
http://www.highpoint-tech.cn/PDF/R62x/R62x%20Quick%20Installation%20Guide.pdf

Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCI_Express

Per lane (each direction):

v1.x: 250 MB/s (2.5 GT/s)
v2.x: 500 MB/s (5 GT/s)
v3.0: 1 GB/s (8 GT/s)

16 lane slot (each direction):

v1.x: 4 GB/s (40 GT/s)
v2.x: 8 GB/s (80 GT/s)
v3.0: 16 GB/s (128 GT/s)

If you using PCI-E 1.x
1x lane : 250MB/s
4x lane : 1GB/s
8x lane : 2GB/s
16x lane : 4GB/s

If you using PCI-E 2.x
1x lane : 500MB/s
4x lane : 2GB/s
8x lane : 4GB/s
16x lane : 8GB/s

Some SSD do not bottleneck PCI-E 1.0 1x! Just check out what is your read speed of your SSD.

if you consult Best SSD for money :
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-solid-state-nand-reliability,2998.html

you saw different speed, the max seems near 500MB/s in reading.



The only thing they don't wrote in the manual!!! If you can add speed with more PCI-E lanes.

I think, the card can't read fastest than 1x speed, because it architecture can do it, the PCB doesn't fill completly 4x 8x 16x lane!

So, if you are using PCI-E, your max speed is 250MB/s and if you using PCI-E 2.0, your max speed is 500MB/s. You can't add speed.!


EDIT : Guide about PCI-E pinout, to understand how lanes works :
http://pinouts.ru/Slots/pci_express_pinout.shtml

 

[paullyh]

Rocket 620/620A Manual
http://www.highpoint-tech.cn/PDF/R62x/R62x%20Quick%20Installation%20Guide.pdf

Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCI_Express

Per lane (each direction):

v1.x: 250 MB/s (2.5 GT/s)
v2.x: 500 MB/s (5 GT/s)
v3.0: 1 GB/s (8 GT/s)

16 lane slot (each direction):

v1.x: 4 GB/s (40 GT/s)
v2.x: 8 GB/s (80 GT/s)
v3.0: 16 GB/s (128 GT/s)

If you using PCI-E 1.x
1x lane : 250MB/s
4x lane : 1GB/s
8x lane : 2GB/s
16x lane : 4GB/s

If you using PCI-E 2.x
1x lane : 500MB/s
4x lane : 2GB/s
8x lane : 4GB/s
16x lane : 8GB/s

Some SSD do not bottleneck PCI-E 1.0 1x! Just check out what is your read speed of your SSD.

if you consult Best SSD for money :
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-solid-state-nand-reliability,2998.html

you saw different speed, the max seems near 500MB/s in reading.



The only thing they don't wrote in the manual!!! If you can add speed with more PCI-E lanes.

I think, the card can't read fastest than 1x speed, because it architecture can do it, the PCB doesn't fill completly 4x 8x 16x lane!

So, if you are using PCI-E, your max speed is 250MB/s and if you using PCI-E 2.0, your max speed is 500MB/s. You can't add speed.!


EDIT : Guide about PCI-E pinout, to understand how lanes works :
http://pinouts.ru/Slots/pci_express_pinout.shtml

Thanks for your detailed reply but I don't understand this piece regarding the practical use of the HighPoint card:

>>So, if you are using PCI-E, your max speed is 250MB/s and if you using PCI-E 2.0, your max speed is 500MB/s. >>

Do you mean that with PCI-E 1.0 -- in any lane between 1x, 4x, 8x, 16x -- the card will work at x1 so the bottleneck is 250 MB/s?

If this is true, then it's better to plug a Crucial SSD M4 or C300 to a SATA 2 port than buying this SATA 3 card if PCI-E 1.0 is going to be used...

Am I wrong?

 

[eleclerc]

you are true!

You just have 1 line connected from the SATA 6Gbit/s card to the motherboard, so you can't add speed when you insert in 4x 8x or 16x slot.

SATA 3Gbit/s (~300MB) is a little faster than PCI-E 1.0 1x (~250MB)

 

[paullyh]

you are true!

You just have 1 line connected from the SATA 6Gbit/s card to the motherboard, so you can't add speed when you insert in 4x 8x or 16x slot.

SATA 3Gbit/s (~300MB) is a little faster than PCI-E 1.0 1x (~250MB)

That's clear.

Could you please tell me the source about HighPoint Rocket 620 PCB using only 1 lane to communicate with the motherboard?

 

[eleclerc]

Rocket 620/620A Guide
http://www.highpoint-tech.cn/PDF/HighPoint%20Product%20Guide.rar
Page 8 : Bus Types PCI-Express 2.0 x1

Rocket 620/620A Image
http://www.highpoint-tech.com/image/products/r600/Rocket%20620%20card.jpg
We can see physically, this is a PCI-E x1

Rocket 620/620A Datasheet
http://www.highpoint-tech.cn/PDF/R62x/Rocket%20620%20Datasheet.pdf
They explain PCI-E 1.0 vs 2.0 and x1 lane


EDIT : Guide about PCI-E pinout, to understand how lanes works :
http://pinouts.ru/Slots/pci_express_pinout.shtml

 

[paullyh]

Effectively at page 10 of 22 of the Product Guide there is this excerpt:

Bus Types: PCI-Express 2.0 x1

therefore using this Sata 3 card on PCI-E 1.0 it will work at x1 too, regardless to the slot and being subjected to the the bottlenecks described above.

Thanks.

 

[groberts101]

the biggest limitation with ANY card using the Marvell 91xx series chip is its(the Marvell chip) internal PCI-E x1 limitation. R/W of about 400/250 is as good as it gets regardless of the PCI-E port it's connected to.

Putting it on a PCI-E bus running at 1.0 specs will kill perormance even moreso to about 200'ish.

 

[paullyh]

the biggest limitation with ANY card using the Marvell 91xx series chip is its(the Marvell chip) internal PCI-E x1 limitation. R/W of about 400/250 is as good as it gets regardless of the PCI-E port it's connected to.

Putting it on a PCI-E bus running at 1.0 specs will kill perormance even moreso to about 200'ish.

Thanks for your clarification.

Are there Sata 3 add-on cards alternative to the ones built around the Marvell 91xx serie and working at 4x on PCI-E 1.0??

 

[eleclerc]

HighPoint RocketRAID 640
It is PCI-E 4x

Quick installation Guide
http://www.highpoint-tech.cn/PDF/RR600/Quick_Installation_RR64x_100202.pdf

Photo
http://www.highpoint-tech.com/image/products/r600/rr640_card.jpg

Product Page
http://www.highpoint-tech.com/usa_new/series_rr600.htm

Datasheet
http://www.highpoint-tech.cn/PDF/RR600/RocketRAID%2064x%20Series%20Datasheet.pdf

IN THE DATASHEET
PCI-Express 2.0 x4 Max Performance up to 2GB/s

PCI-Express 2.0 doubles the bandwidth of existing PCI-Express bus for faster data throughput. Each PCI-Express lane provides up 500MB/s of throughput. It is also backward compatible with previous generation PCI-Express 1.0

4 x 250MB/s = 1000MB/s on PCI-E 1.0

EDIT:

According to this datasheet :
http://www.datasheetarchive.com/indexdl/Datasheets-SW3/DSASW0053396.pdf
The chip itself don't stream higher than 1x PCI-E. Same bottleneck!

YOU NEED TO PROOF YOURSELF WHEN YOU ARE WRITING

 

[groberts101]

"2GB/s" my as*!... don't be mislead by the advertised specs of a card. The RR640 listed above uses the same exact chip as the 620 does only it utilizes 2 of them for up to 4 drives. BUT.. each chip still has the internal PCI-E x 1 limitation for the max speed of 800/500(which is the previous mentioned 400/250 x2 due to doubled Marvell 9128's in software raid).

And no.. I highly doubt that you will still find x4 1.0 spec'd cards out there and will just have to run a newer one and let the PCI-E port downclock it to it's native 1.0 revision.

What is the intended setup for this card?

 

[JohnnyLucky]

The are much better cards that are available but they are very very expensive. The high end cards were not designed for typical consumer use.

 

[paullyh]

"2GB/s" my as*!... don't be mislead by the advertised specs of a card. The RR640 listed above uses the same exact chip as the 620 does only it utilizes 2 of them for up to 4 drives. BUT.. each chip still has the internal PCI-E x 1 limitation for the max speed of 800/500(which is the previous mentioned 400/250 x2 due to doubled Marvell 9128's in software raid).

And no.. I highly doubt that you will still find x4 1.0 spec'd cards out there and will just have to run a newer one and let the PCI-E port downclock it to it's native 1.0 revision.

What is the intended setup for this card?

The idea is getting a decent SATA 3 6Gbps add-on card able to drive a SSD like Crucial C300 or M4 on old motherboard PCI-E 1.0 slots.

But after all thse posts, it's my understanding that this not a viable solution.

 

[groberts101]

I'd say go for it since it will breath new life into an older system like that. Then you will have hardware that is forward compatible(if only slightly future-proofed.. if there even is such a thing) to be used on the next system you upgrade to later on.

The best couple hundred dollars you could spend if you don't want to build an entirely new system right now, IMO.