I wanna get a SSD. I have No free SATAII ports but can work something out depending. So to use Bit-tech's setup I'll fill in the blanks with what I have. Budget: $250 Main uses of intended build: To game, and record videos of games I play in high resolution. Listen to music, store photos, browse the interweb (I love that word). Parts required: This is were it starts to get complicated The following items are not all required but can be use in certain configurations depending on what is the best route for me. So they are: An SSD 64GB to 128GB, a PCI Express x1 1.0 SATA addon card, or if it works a rocket point 620 card. Previous build information: This is what I have running in my pc: ASRock P45X3 Deluxe E8400, 4Gigs ram, video card 4870 In PCI Express 2.0 16x slot, sound card ASUS Xonar DX in PCI Express 1x slot. (So i have free on my mother board 1 pci xpress 1x slot and 2 pci slots). A sata dvd burner. 3 SAMSUNG Spinpoint F3 1TB Drives, one is my current boot drive, the other 2 are stripped via windows and where I have steam located (with a bazillion games). In the process of installing 2 SAMSUNG Spinpoint F4EG 1.5 TB Drives, I wanna use these for back up. I guess that's all the needed info. Monitor resolution: 1920x1200 Storage requirements: Okay so what I would like is a SSD with sataIII performance, my 3 samsung F3s in a raid0 setup where I will keep steam with my games, and use my 2 samsung F4EG as backup (whatever I am planning on backing up IDK), and maybe have them in their own raid0 setup. Not really needing a fault proof OH MY GOD! I just lost all my data concern here. It's games and music I do not overclock. Motherboard requirements: So this is where I am having difficulty. My problem or rather the solution to my setup would be to throw in a rocket point 620 and plug my ssd to that, however, I am unable to get sataIII preformance out of this since my remaining pci xpress x1 slot is not 2.0 (stupid old motherboard ). There is another x16 slot but the chipset on my mother board only supports 16x and N/A, or 8x and 8x (the latter being for xfire). I spent awhile trying to figure out if I could use that other 16x 2.0 slot for the rocket point 620, but when I have my primary 16x slot in 16x electrical, (there is some fancy for the time card switcheroo thingy to change between the two setups), my other slot 16x I believe does not operate. I have not tested this out, but have garnered this information with my awesome english print manual So if that doesn't work where do I go from here? Extra information about desired system: I thought about getting a raid controller since for the information I can gather online my mother board south bridge is Intel® ICH10 although cpu-z says it's a boy NO! it says it's 82801JR (ICH10R). I am not really sure if this is possible with my mb alone. I can look at this stuff and in 2 seconds convince myself that I know what I'm doing, think it's all downhill, but if I think about it for a bit I realize this will take some work. I need input. What do you guys think? What should I do? Since I don't have free sata ports (3 1TB drives, 2 1.5 TB drives, and 1 dvd burner sata) What kind of card should I get for the ssd to plug into? Or should I by an ide dvd burner and plug the ssd into the now free sata port? Should I try and do a raid setup with my HDD? This is kinda a different question and is off topic from the thread altogether. Or just build a new PC for $1,300? Here is what I try to do when I record me playing video games: Notice how it looks at high resolution. Killing floor solo
Easiest and cheapest route would be to free up that sata port and get a reasonably priced SATA II SSD. I imagine the latest gen has knocked down the price of the previous by a fair margin, but haven't looked much myself. I know there can be problems with the Highpoint Rocket cards, and given that you only have a x1 v1 slot, that doesn't sound like a suitable option. Though, are you sure your two x16 slots don't just drop to 8x each when both occupied? If you really have the cash to splash sandy/ivy bridge are nice upgrades, with socket 2011 (1366 replacement) due later this year (I think).
I can put them both at x8 by switching a card around on my MB, ASRock's brain child idea to save money, but this puts my video card on an x8 lane. Although that might be a good fix if I really don't lose any performance since I only have a 4870 gpu. Would I see a performance drop by running my video on an x8 2.0 lane? If I wouldn't then I could go for asus's U3S6, which requires a x4 lane and I hear works better then the Highpoint 620. In the long run I actually wanna go for Intel's new chipset, which is why I have put off jumping for a sandy bridge one. Also would like to get the SataIII to work so when I do upgrade I have that to build upon and don't need to spend extra cash. I need to test that out with my x16 slots.
You shouldn't do. http://hardocp.com/article/2010/08/23/gtx_480_sli_pcie_bandwidth_perf_x16x16_vs_x8x8/3 I've heard the same thing as you on that. Socket 2011 will be a beast from what we know. Good choice. Intel Sata III ports are included onboard with the Sandy Bridge chipset and no doubt socket 2011, so not sure what you mean exactly.
Whilst you'll lose nothing from having the gfx card at 8x, you don't *have* to run a 6Gb/s SSD on a 6Gb/s SATA controller... ...okay, you won't get the sequential speeds that it's capable of, but it'll still be vastly quicker than your HDDs. Yeah, as i've said before, there aren't any great budget 6Gb/s controllers on the market yet so, whilst they're not hugely expensive, it'd be throwing money at one that you'll never see any return from in the 2nd hand market. Otherwise, if you're actually looking at recording video on the SSD itself (it's not very clear what you're saying on this) then, whilst i wouldn't generally recommend doing this at all (& there's little advantage (& huge disadvantages in terms of longevity) since video recording is highly sequential -> a half decent well defragged HDD will more than suffice), you'd then need to look at something like the intel 510... ...whilst the Vertex 3 is the fastest SSD out there at either 120 (well the max iops version) or 240GB (either version) then it's not especially suited for this type of task. if you are determined to record video on it (& i assume a reasonable amount), one other issue you will find is that the cheap 6Gb/s controllers can't pass on trim commands, so if you're propsing to reasonably heavily use the SSD for recording video then this would give a significant advantage to using the onboard 3Gb/s ichr one.
