Confusion: Holding back on a new build due to SATA 6 Gbps and USB 3

[Sam888]

It really makes no difference to me whether I have an AMD or Intel CPU. However, I have been leaning toward an Intel CPU (i7 860) due to price, performance, and hyperthreading. However, the more I dig into the realm of the subject including mobos, the more confused I have become. Now, I am leaning toward an i7 930 because it seems to have a longer life span (more future proof) than the the P55 chipset.

The latest bit of confusion that caught my eye is that lack of true SATA 6 Gbps and USB 3 support by Gigabyte. In general, the PCIe bandwidth is restricted with the P55 chipset. But that's not the case with the X58 unless it has the ICH10 south bridge: http://media.bestofmicro.com/X58-dia...T-166025-3.gif.


Asus has a decent P55 mobo but it is limited in the number of PCIe slots and it really isn't that future proof.

AMD has a new mobo that has south bridge. It seems that it has all the bandwidth anyone could need.: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...deon,2571.html. Unfortunately, AMD doesnt have any CPUS at this time that are comparable to the i7 860 or i7 920/930.

In my case, I would like the ability to add a second video card down the road or another peripheral that will run at 16x (PCIe 2) without any bottlenecks. I plan to keep that system for a minimum of 2 years and maybe upgrading the RAM and/or Hard drives with SSD drives.

Any thoughts on how I should proceed? Wait until ??? we get some more new CPUs on the market that are more "future proof". Or buy now and live with buyer's remorse because you won't be able to upgrade later?

[kent1146]

I would not hold back a buying decision because of USB 3.0. The only real purpose for the additional bandwidth of USB 3.0 is for external hard drives. And even with external hard drives, you are better off using eSATA instead of USB 3.0. So if speed on an external hard drive is important, look for a motherboard with eSATA support.

SATA 6.0Gbps support is very rare these days, because it is so new. You will need to wait for motherboards to come out with SATA 6.0Gbps. The only benefit you will get with SATA 6.0Gbps is with very fast SSDs - with today's drives, that means Intel X-25M drives, or drives based off of the SandForce controller. Other drives will not be fast enough to saturate SATA 3.0Gbps, so they won't get much benefit out of SATA 6.0Gbps.

As for the PCIe bandwidth - this only matters if you are using the absolute fastest video cards. If you are using mid-range cards, you will not notice the difference. So this will only matter if you plan on investing in the highest-end video cards.

As for upgrading now or waiting - it will not matter. There is ALWAYS something better coming. And the moment you buy any piece of computer hardware, there is always something that is better. You will never avoid this, no matter what you buy or when you buy it. So buy what you want, when you want it, and forget about trying to time the market to "future proof" your system.

[Sam888]

Thanks kent for the clarification. USB 3 is not a big concern for me, but SATA 6 is. I dont usually upgrade for 2 or more years. Actually, the only upgrades I tend to do is RAM, HD, and Video card. But, in 2+ years, things will in most cases be very different than now. I was told that that if I really want to future proof (no such thing in the PC world) as much as possible, I should go with the X58 chipset. However, you mentioned that only the expensive video cards would benefit from the speed of PCIe 2x. Of course, by that time, PCIe 3x will be out. I would not need a more expensive video card, but I may want to get two low-mid SLI crossfire cards that'll suit me well in about a year or two.

Having said that, I will likely upgrade to a SSD drive when they drop down in price because, I would assume, they would be mainstream. From what I seen, not much info is available on the performance of SSD SATA 6 Gbps drives. That's why I think it would be prudent to hold off on buying until we get more better performance out of SATA 6 mobos ie,. no bottlenecks. Right now, i think it's the most confusing time for the PC user who wants to build or upgrade their system. Gigabyte is offering a crippled P55 mobo with SATA 6 and USB capability but you;re not getting full use of the board. Only Asus seems to have a reasonable solution by using a bridge and still keeping SATA 6 speeds. However, no testing was done with two video cards and running SATA 6 drives. What do you think? Am I off base? I shouldn't hold off?

[PriMaTe]

I wouldn't let sata 6 or usb 3 hold you back, you can always buy a controller card and drop them in to give you the capability when they are released

[Sam888]

That was my initial thoughts too. I then read reviews online stating that a controller card will very likely impact performance or cause bottlenecks.

[kent1146]

Am I off base? I shouldn't hold off?

Yes, you are off-base.

You will never buy a system that has no bottlenecks. You will never buy a system that 2 years later is still the fastest in video card bandwidth, memory bandwidth, disk storage bandwidth, CPU speed, USB speed, PCIe speed, etc. You will never build a system that has zero bottlenecks.

You are trying to time your purchase for what will amount to an absolutely negligible performance difference. In order to use SATA 6.0Gbps, you will need to wait for the controllers to become available, for the drives to become available, and for the drives to become affordable. That entire process will probably take 2 years.

The one rule of computer upgrading is to buy what you need, when you need it, and accept the fact that it will be outdated the moment you buy it.

[Sam888]

You will never buy a system that has no bottlenecks. You will never buy a system that 2 years later is still the fastest in video card bandwidth, memory bandwidth, disk storage bandwidth, CPU speed, USB speed, PCIe speed, etc. You will never build a system that has zero bottlenecks.

I agree, my thinking is that I would buy an older, but still new and cheaper, say a video, RAM, or HD that would optimally run on the mobo that I would have. While still retaining the same original CPU. Therefore, there should be no bottlenecks because it was designed to ideally work with the chipset.

You are trying to time your purchase for what will amount to an absolutely negligible performance difference. In order to use SATA 6.0Gbps, you will need to wait for the controllers to become available, for the drives to become available, and for the drives to become affordable. That entire process will probably take 2 years.

I appreciate your candeur. I had not heard this from anyone before. What you are writing is very sound and logical.

The one rule of computer upgrading is to buy what you need, when you need it, and accept the fact that it will be outdated the moment you buy it.

True, however it we all followed that rule, we would only upgrade when absolutely necessary because for the most part, we don't need anything but the most basic PC even a P4 Single core CPU to do most of the things we want to do.

Finally, what are you thoughts on this comment on the comparison between the Asus P55 and Gigabyte boards in terms of USB 3 and SATA 6 Gbps performance and how the P55 is not designed for USB3 and SATA 6: http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/30...p55/index.html

Final Thoughts
We saw a lot of performance numbers today and they all lead me to the same conclusions.

The Intel P55 chipset offers enough bells and whistles for mainstream users looking to use a single video card and technologies that are mainstream today. The chipset is just not designed to take full advantage of next generation high bandwidth goodies like SATA 6G and USB 3.0 without heavy modification to the motherboard design. ASUS and GIGABYTE are known for pushing the envelope as far as they can, but when it comes to P55 they pushed the envelope off the table. It is not like they didn’t give it a good try or skipped critical steps, P55 was just never designed to be used in this manner.

SATA 6G will one day aid in giving all users a more enjoyable computing experience. It will provide a much higher ceiling for hard drive manufacturers to aim towards and since the HDD is the slowest product in our computers, the additional bandwidth, when properly utilized, will make everything better. Right now there is only one single SATA 6G hard drive on the market and it is a platter based drive that sees little to no benefit with the increase in bandwidth. Seagate has a long history of firsts to market, but the Barracuda XT is going to be another footnote on the timeline; unfortunately that is all it will ever be, a footnote.

For early adopters, all is not lost as long as you can wait just a few more weeks. GIGABYTE has already released an X58 solution with both USB 3.0 and SATA 6G! The new GA-X58-UD7 is already in Sean’s test lab and I have another sample on the way to test SATA 6G products with in 2010. In my opinion USB 3.0 and SATA 6G can only be used seamlessly on X58 motherboards and they are more of a novelty on P55.

When it comes to hard drives that take advantage of SATA 6G, you are going to have to wait a little longer. We already know that solid state drives with a new Marvel controller will be on display at CES. Their ship dates have yet to be announced, but they are coming and coming soon. Indilinx also has a SATA 6G SSD controller on the way, but it is sounding like a Q2 product at the soonest, though a few may be on display at CES as well. Until we see these next generation solid state drives available, there is little need to buy a motherboard based solely on SATA 6G.

USB 3.0 on the other hand is another matter. If you frequently transfer data to an external hard drive USB 3.0 is the way to go. As long as you are only using a single video card, P55 boards look pretty attractive when it comes to a low cost solution to get started right away. USB 3.0 doesn’t have the little issues that make eSATA a pain and USB 3.0 can truly be called seamless.

When it really comes down to it, if you are looking for a P55 motherboard with USB 3.0 and SATA 6G the ASUS solution works a little better since you do not have to play with the BIOS on most of their boards (the P7P55D-E and P7P55D-E LX being the two exceptions). GIGABYTE did give us our first look at SATA 6G RAID, but the firmware will need to mature a little more. Still, when dealing with 2TB drives it is a good idea to run a pair in RAID 1 if you are keeping sensitive files on the drive and the only option for that is with the GIGABYTE P55A motherboards.

As for our testing today and how the workarounds use the additional bandwidth, I would have to call our tests inconclusive. Once we start to see SSDs with SATA 6G we can reevaluate both boards and see if an SSD is able to perform better with ASUS’ wider data path and be limited by GIGABYTE’s switching solution. As for right now, both of the motherboards give us enough bandwidth to use a Seagate Barracuda XT to its fullest.

[kent1146]

I agree, my thinking is that I would buy an older, but still new and cheaper, say a video, RAM, or HD that would optimally run on the mobo that I would have. While still retaining the same original CPU.

Ok... now you're talking a different topic than I had originally thought. What you are asking for is a system with a good price/performance ratio, that will not be outdated 2 years from now.

If you want a very fast system that will not be incredibly expensive, I recommend building a system off of a P55 chipset, A Core i5 750 CPU, and an ATI Radeon 5850 video card. That system will be more than enough to do whatever you want to do today, as well as 2 years down the road.

True, however it we all followed that rule, we would only upgrade when absolutely necessary because for the most part, we don't need anything but the most basic PC even a P4 Single core CPU to do most of the things we want to do.

Well, I disagree there. The computer I buy/build needs to be able to run games, which requires it to have faster hardware.

Finally, what are you thoughts on this comment on the comparison between the Asus P55 and Gigabyte boards in terms of USB 3 and SATA 6 Gbps performance and how the P55 is not designed for USB3 and SATA 6:

There are a few lines that I noticed in that article:

• The Intel P55 chipset offers enough bells and whistles for mainstream users looking to use a single video card and technologies that are mainstream today.
• For early adopters, all is not lost as long as you can wait just a few more weeks.
• Until we see these next generation solid state drives available, there is little need to buy a motherboard based solely on SATA 6G.

I highlighted those three lines because:

1. You want fast, affordable hardware that will perform well today, and two years down the road. It sounds like you are a mainstream user.
2. It does not sound like you are an early adopter.
3. SATA 6.0Gbps controllers aren't out yet. The drives aren't out yet. And when the drives do come out, it will take time for them to become affordable.

Since cost is a factor in what you buy and how you upgrade, I suggest you build a machine based off of a P55 chipset. When SSD's that support SATA 6.0Gbps come out, they will probably drive the cost of the current SATA 3.0Gbps drives down. That would be a good time to buy a SATA 3.0Gbps SSD drive, and get a huge improvement in speed over a mechanical hard drive.

[Sam888]

Muchos gracias!

Any reason you've chosen the i5 750 over the faster P55 i7 860?

BTW, I am not sure if you noticed in the article, i didnt the first time I read it. But the author didnt recommend the P55 chipset if your planning to run Sata 6 in the future, however, the Asus mobo with the bridge seemed to be a good alternative. Personally, I havent had very good luck with Asus mobos. I'd rather go with Gigabyte but their P55 mobos are truly crippled when it comes to USB 3 and Sata 6.

[MrDigital]

I'd bet a case of beer that no one can see a real world difference between SATA 3Gbps and SATA 6gbps. Maybe when transferring files between two super high end SSDs.

As a person who's spent a small fortune buying obscure hardware to try and support every new & amazing standard I've slowly learned the joys of buying mainstream equipment.

[fluffmonster]

USB3 will definitely be worth it, but I wouldn't see much point in getting the controller without USB3 media to use it on.