I don't want any Marvell!

[GunfighterJ]

So after hearing the wonders of SSD's I plan on buying a couple. (Crucial 64Gb ones). My current motherboard, an Asus P6x58d premium, has a Marvell controller for the two Sata III ports. I plan on running RAID 0 on these two SSD's and I need an X58 motherboard that has a Sata III controller that can support RAID 0. The Marvell controller can't do any of this and severely bottlenecks the speed of the SSD. Any suggestions would be helpful. Thanks.

 

[GunfighterJ]

As a backup, in case you can't find a good enough x58 motherboard, can you suggest some of the LGA 1155 ones. I can't remember which is the best of them though, I think it's the z68 ones?

 

[o1die]

I suggest you sell your x58 setup with cpu/board/ram as a package deal on ebay or craigslist, anandtech for sale forum, etc. and upgrade to an 1155 package. Those board chipsets are newer and should have all the features you want. This board has two sata controllers; the second one may be Intel for raid: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131771. If you want six cores, checkout the a79 boards for e series sandy bridge. That upgrade will run about $900. I wouldn't buy another x58 board.

 

[GunfighterJ]

OK. Yeah I got my board a long time ago before sandy bridge was out. This board is a piece of garbage, one of the PCI-E x16 slots is burnt and it doesn't recognize the XMP profile of my RAM. That link you sent me returned a deactivated product. Could you tell me what board that is?

 

[inzone]

If you are going to run two SSD's in raid then you are right you don't want Marvell. But as an alternative you can run the raid on the Inte 3gb/s sata2 ports. What you want to look for is a motherboard with 4 sata3 ports , that way you can be sure that at least 2 of them will be off an Intel controller.

 

[o1die]

Sorry for the bad link. The board is the asus P8P67 pro version 3.1 for $154.99 before rebate at newegg.

 

[GunfighterJ]

OK Thanks. Do you like the p67? I was wondering what the order is for the LGA 1155 series. I think that Z68 is the best, but I can't remember.

 

[inzone]

ASUS Maximus IV Extreme-Z LGA 1155 Intel Z68 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Extended ATX Intel Motherboard $339.99

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131760

This is one of those boards that has two sata3 ports that are off the Intel controller chip. You could match it with this cpu;

Intel Core i7-2600K Sandy Bridge 3.4GHz (3.8GHz Turbo Boost) LGA 1155 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 3000 BX80623I72600K $319.99

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115070

I would recomend the i5-2500k but it is sold out at Newegg , unless you can find it someplace else.

 

[GunfighterJ]

Thank you all for the info. I will look into a better board. Hopefully I can find a good one that isn't too expensive to go with a 2600k

 

[GunfighterJ]

Best answer selected by GunfighterJ.