Z77A-GD65 ASM1061 Controller vs. Z77 Chipset

[Helicon574]

Hi all,

Regarding the MSI Z77A-GD65 motherboard...

I'm not familiar with the ASMedia ASM1061 SATA 3 controller at all.

I've been searching around but only finding benchmarks and references to ASM1061 PCIe add-on cards, not the performance of the onboard ASM1061 this motherboard has. I've seen some crappy additional SATA controllers on boards before, take for example the additional JMicron SATA 2 controller on my current MSI P55-CD53. I wouldn't use those ports unless I absolutely had to, and even then it would only be for optical drives.

I don't have the Z77A-GD65 yet, but will very soon. I'm going to be putting a Core i7 3770K in it along with two SSDs in the Z77-controlled SATA 3 ports, but I'd like to put one of the latest 1 TB VelociRaptors with 64 MB cache on a SATA 3 port as well. Unfortunately there's only two Z77 SATA 3 ports.

Cut to the chase: does the ASM1061 onboard controller stack up against the Z77 at all? Would it be worth running said Velociraptor on the ASM1061? For argument's sake, would there be any real difference between running said VelociRaptor on the ASM1061 vs. the Z77, considering its limitations in being a mechanical drive, albeit a rather fast one?

Naturally the SSDs are the performance priority so they absolutely will be installed on the Z77-controlled ports, but at the same time, I'd like to get as much as I can out of the VelociRaptor.

What do you think?

 

[w1zz4]

Hi all,

Regarding the MSI Z77A-GD65 motherboard...

I'm not familiar with the ASMedia ASM1061 SATA 3 controller at all.

I've been searching around but only finding benchmarks and references to ASM1061 PCIe add-on cards, not the performance of the onboard ASM1061 this motherboard has. I've seen some crappy additional SATA controllers on boards before, take for example the additional JMicron SATA 2 controller on my current MSI P55-CD53. I wouldn't use those ports unless I absolutely had to, and even then it would only be for optical drives.

I don't have the Z77A-GD65 yet, but will very soon. I'm going to be putting a Core i7 3770K in it along with two SSDs in the Z77-controlled SATA 3 ports, but I'd like to put one of the latest 1 TB VelociRaptors with 64 MB cache on a SATA 3 port as well. Unfortunately there's only two Z77 SATA 3 ports.

Cut to the chase: does the ASM1061 onboard controller stack up against the Z77 at all? Would it be worth running said Velociraptor on the ASM1061? For argument's sake, would there be any real difference between running said VelociRaptor on the ASM1061 vs. the Z77, considering its limitations in being a mechanical drive, albeit a rather fast one?

Naturally the SSDs are the performance priority so they absolutely will be installed on the Z77-controlled ports, but at the same time, I'd like to get as much as I can out of the VelociRaptor.

What do you think?

ASM1061 is about 10% slower than Z77 SATA 3 ports (I tested it when assembling my PC). For a mechanical drive you will probably don't see any difference. Plug the SSD on Z77 and the Velo on the ASM1061 and everything will be fine.

When I've done the test (about 9 month ago), ASM1061 was faster with standard MS AHCI drivers than with ASM1061 ones.

 

[Helicon574]

FWIW, this will also be my first ownership of a 10K Raptor. I've read that these newer Raptors apparently perform considerably better than previous generations. That said, I'm doubt that the Raptor could come close to saturating a SATA 2 bus, but I have seen comments around stating that a fast mechanical HDD can still perform better on a SATA 3 bus regardless. I guess that's the main point of curiosity here.

 

[Helicon574]

@ w1zz4 - thanks for the input. This is kinda what I was figuring, but that's great that you tested it yourself. I'll keep in mind what you're saying about eh MS drivers too, I'll just leave those be after the Windows install.