Does the ASUS P5Q Pro support SATA 3?

[McNab666]

Hello there,

I'm looking at upgrading my system OS from Vista to 7, obviously a wise move despite having no issues with Vista.

Obviously this all done best with a new hard drive to install a new OS on and obviously SSDs are the best out there.

However, if I'm not mistaken, SSDs all work best with a SATA 3 connection. I know they are backwards compatible although somewhat limited, though I'm unsure if my motherboard has any SATA 3 connections on board.

My board is the ASUS P5Q Pro as stated in the title.

I look forward to an answer from you guys, as I couldn't from Google, as this will effect whether I buy an SSD or an quick HDD with the new OS.

Thanks in advance.

 

[cmichael138]

Southbridge
- 6x SATA 3Gb/s
- Intel® Matrix Storage Technology with RAID 0, 1, 5 10 support
Marvell 88SE6111
- 1 x UltraDMA 133/100/66 for up to 2 PATA devices
Silicon Image Sil5723 (Drive Xpert technology)
- 2 x SATA 3Gb/s
- Supports EZ Backup and Super Speed functions
*Drive Xpert function is available only when the hard disk drives are set as data drives.

 

[InvalidError]

SATA3 became a an official standard less than two years ago while LGA775 has been on its way out for over two years. The P5Q series is over five years old.

There is no way in hell a five years old platform would support a two years old standard. Before you ask, the P5Q does not support PCIe 3.0 either for the same reason.

 

[McNab666]

So basically I'd be best buying a new motherboard to benefit from SSDs and until then a new HDD would be better?

 

[InvalidError]

So basically I'd be best buying a new motherboard to benefit from SSDs and until then a new HDD would be better?

The biggest benefit of SSDs for OS boot time and most applications' launch time is latency. An SSD will still give you sub-1ms access time even on SATA-1 while the best conventional HDD will still be worse than 6ms even on a good day.

If you want an SSD as a boot drive, you will get the biggest benefit regardless of which SATA version you have.

 

[McNab666]

"If you want an SSD as a boot drive, you will get the biggest benefit regardless of which SATA version you have.".

Can anyone else attest to that? Not that I'm calling you a lier InvalidError, I just want to be certain.

 

[apache_lives]

SATA2 will limit the max sustained throughput to about ~280-290 but those figures are meaningless because it all comes down to random read/writes and seek times

honnestly side by side you probably wont be able to tell the difference either

you will be very impressed at an SSD even if it is limited to SATA2 specs

 

[InvalidError]

honnestly side by side you probably wont be able to tell the difference either

The OP might get confused by that statement.

I'm sure you meant "won't see the difference between SATA-2 and SATA-3" but I'll just say so just to make sure the OP does not get confused and think you might have meant HDD vs SSD.

 

[McNab666]

Thanks guys!