P7P55D and SATA2 hard disk

[pinaklonkar]

I have a vanilla Asus P7P55D motherboard. When I first built my desktop, I bought this hard disk and it has been working quite well.

http://www.jr.com/hitachi/pe/HIT_310003272SP/

I later realized that it is a SATA1 hard disk with 3gbps speed and heck there are SATA2 ones available with double the speed transfer rate.

Will I benefit from using a SATA2 drive on this motherboard? Does it support SATA2? I checked the specifications and it says it features Sata 3.0Gbps support. But any caveats I should be aware of?

Windows 7 experience index rates my current hard disk only 5.9 while others are 7.4+ How much of a faster feel does SATA2 give in this situation?

Thanks

EDIT - HA! the current hard disk I have IS a Sata II interface. Sorry for the confusion.

 

[tecmo34]

The only way I'm aware of getting above 5.9 for your hard drive score is with a Solid State Drive (SSD). No current mechanical hard drive will score above 5.9 in WEI (that I'm aware of).

You have answered your other questions on your own

 

[pinaklonkar]

Best answer selected by pinaklonkar.

 

[pinaklonkar]

yeah, this one's closed... for some reason I thought I was using a SATA I and it was very disconcerting.

 

[jaquith]

Interesting Post -> http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/314-63-score
Yep, even the Raptor is 5.9. To increase a HDD >5.9 you'll need to RAID 0 a 'HDD' or get an SSD.

Most SSD's render 6.5~6.9, and to go higher 'most' SSD are in RAID 0. I said MOST not all, some PCIe SSD are > 700 MB/s Read and Write which breaks the SATA3 limit of 600 MB/s per device and you'll get 7.9 which is the highest value. My daughter's rig is C300 256GB with WEI 7.9, whereas my 'cheaper' 128 GB Kingston MLC SSD is averaging 6.9.

 

[pinaklonkar]

wow...windows 7 is really raising the bar, eh?

 

[jaquith]

Yep, to get 7.9 all across spells out a $3,000+ rig. My Daughter's gaming rig is 7.9 across, but it was $4K+ and runs everything OC, 3-WAY SLI, etc.

The following is my wife's rig, pseudo i7 workstation. The i7 930 cannot be OC to 7.9 requires a 6-core; even OC > 4GHz yields ~7.7 or less; an OC 980X will give you 7.9. RAM - my wife's has 1600 C9 Dominator but my Corsair Dominator TR3X6G1600C8D does hit 7.9. I have CF HD 5770 7.9/7.7 ; wife's 7.4/7.4. Oddly, build them but don't really game much - go figure.
Wife's rig ($1,600 in May/~$1,400 Dec):

 

[saint19]

I disagree.

1- WEI isn't the best way to know the performance of your rig.
2- IMO you don't need a 3K+ build to get 7.9
3- Spinpoint F3 or WD Velociraptor can go over 5.9 score.

The above score was do it with CPU: 3.8GHz under air, RAM: DD3-1600MHz 8-8-8-21-2T, old GPU GTX260 oc'ed: 655/1050/1408 and single C300 64GB on AHCI SATA 6Gb/s.

 

[jaquith]

^ I disagree as well.

1. Agree - I NEVER said it was!
2. Show me one with a FULL SET of 7.9 WEI that's much less than ~$3,000 {7.9, 7.9, 7.9, 7.9, 7.9}; requires a 6-core so there's ~ $1,000 CPU, $300 SSD, $300+GPU, $150 RAM, $100+CPU Cooler -> $1850 without MOBO, Case, PSU, etc.
3. All the {Primary} HDD Raptor's I've seen were at 5.9

 

[saint19]

1- ....
2- IMO, obviously, with my current rig I can't get that scores.
3- Pretty difficult find one....

Thread solved.