Any benefit to running AHCI on P965?

[EnJoY]

I'm about to reinstall windows finally after viruses, ram tweaking, and other crap destroyed my current install. I'm curious about something. When I first setup this core 2 system however many months ago and ditched my opty 165, I noticed a big drop is program "snappiness". Programs definately didn't pop up as quickly. At first I attributed that to higher latencies on the FSB and DDR2, but when I really started tweaking and got the higher clocks with my conroe and it was STILL noticabley slower in this regard, I got to thinking it might be my drives.

When I installed windows last time, I used no driver, and left bios at it's defaults. Now I see this AHCI stuff and notice that I can install an Intel Matrix Storage driver with F6 on a fresh windows install. Now first of all...what is AHCI? And do I want it if I'm running a single 74GB Raptor for boot/programs and a 36GB Raptor for storage?

Thanks.

[STickGuy]

Good Post i would like to know 2

[alejo]

As far as I know, if you run in AHCI you get some features native to SATA. You get NCQ and the ability to hot swap.

[EnJoY]

Originally Posted by alejo

As far as I know, if you run in AHCI you get some features native to SATA. You get NCQ and the ability to hot swap.

Okay, do these native benefits also include anything that equates to a performance boost?

[newls1]

What a damn good question! Would like to know this answer as well.

[Dr.Frankenstein]

Originally Posted by EnJoY

I'm about to reinstall windows finally after viruses

You should look into using the Limited account coupled with RunAs. Of course, even with all that protection, you still need to scan anything before giving it privileges.

[EnJoY]

Originally Posted by Dr.Frankenstein

You should look into using the Limited account coupled with RunAs. Of course, even with all that protection, you still need to scan anything before giving it privileges.

I just need to stop using bittorrent.

[freecableguy]

I hear using AHCI makes your sperm swim faster. Is that a benefit?

[roibm]

Originally Posted by freecableguy

I hear using AHCI makes your sperm swim faster. Is that a benefit?

nope... in this case slower is better

[d.chatten]

Originally Posted by EnJoY

I'm about to reinstall windows finally after viruses, ram tweaking, and other crap destroyed my current install. I'm curious about something. When I first setup this core 2 system however many months ago and ditched my opty 165, I noticed a big drop is program "snappiness". Programs definately didn't pop up as quickly. At first I attributed that to higher latencies on the FSB and DDR2, but when I really started tweaking and got the higher clocks with my conroe and it was STILL noticabley slower in this regard, I got to thinking it might be my drives.

When I installed windows last time, I used no driver, and left bios at it's defaults. Now I see this AHCI stuff and notice that I can install an Intel Matrix Storage driver with F6 on a fresh windows install. Now first of all...what is AHCI? And do I want it if I'm running a single 74GB Raptor for boot/programs and a 36GB Raptor for storage?

Thanks.

With the old Raptors with an 8meg cache you won't see any difference at all in performance, the new Raptors with a 16meg cache you get NCQ (Native Command Queing) "if AHCI is enabled" which gives a very small performance boost when multitasking, you also get the Hot Swap feature, also with AHCI mode you get up to 300MB/s (SATA II) transfer rates if the drive you use supports 300MB/s transfer rates.

Apart from a very small performance boost when multitasking with an NCQ capable drive you won't notice any difference at all.

Hope this helps!

[Charloz24]

Don't know what in h*ll AHCI is, but what I do know is that you have to run in AHCI on 965 boards to be able to run Ubuntu, Kubuntu etc. (if you still have IDE drive/ cd/dvd)

[EnJoY]

Originally Posted by freecableguy

I hear using AHCI makes your sperm swim faster. Is that a benefit?

You know me Kris...the last one to win the race is the one that saves me the slap in the face.

Originally Posted by d.chatten

With the old Raptors with an 8meg cache you won't see any difference at all in performance, the new Raptors with a 16meg cache you get NCQ (Native Command Queing) "if AHCI is enabled" which gives a very small performance boost when multitasking, you also get the Hot Swap feature, also with AHCI mode you get up to 300MB/s (SATA II) transfer rates if the drive you use supports 300MB/s transfer rates.

Apart from a very small performance boost when multitasking with an NCQ capable drive you won't notice any difference at all.

Hope this helps!

Thanks dude, very helpful.

[quicksilverXP]

Yesh... I noticed the same things when I switched from AMD to Intel. My older AMD system was quicker to open certain programs. For example, I get the "rolling" effect of the icons the first time I open the Control Panel. But with my older AMD system, the icons would just all snap open.

Yet in benchmarks, games, and encoding the Conroe is way faster. Done all the tweaking I could possibly do and I think that's just the way it is. Maybe it's just the 965 chipset or somethin.

[newls1]

Originally Posted by quicksilverXP

Yesh... I noticed the same things when I switched from AMD to Intel. My older AMD system was quicker to open certain programs. For example, I get the "rolling" effect of the icons the first time I open the Control Panel. But with my older AMD system, the icons would just all snap open.

Yet in benchmarks, games, and encoding the Conroe is way faster. Done all the tweaking I could possibly do and I think that's just the way it is. Maybe it's just the 965 chipset or somethin.

I thought I was the ONLY ONE to notice the "rollin" effect when opening control panel, damn glad im not, heres to ya

[Lestat]

no AHCI doesnt do anything for speed regardless of what somepeople dig up out of Intel articles.


for you linux geeks it does help do 1 thing.
install Linux.
with AHCI OFF, linux will not install becuase it thinks it cant see the cd rom to load from .
but with it ON then everything is fine.

not sure why it cant find the cd to load from because it just booted to it in order to get to the install gui, and then the gui turns around and says "doh! i lost it, now i cant install"

stupid linux

[eva2000]

Originally Posted by Lestat

no AHCI doesnt do anything for speed regardless of what somepeople dig up out of Intel articles.


for you linux geeks it does help do 1 thing.
install Linux.
with AHCI OFF, linux will not install becuase it thinks it cant see the cd rom to load from .
but with it ON then everything is fine.

not sure why it cant find the cd to load from because it just booted to it in order to get to the install gui, and then the gui turns around and says "doh! i lost it, now i cant install"

stupid linux

for linux and jmicron based 965p you need to install and boot linux with command line option of -all-generic-ide

[nn_step]

http://www.intel.com/technology/serialata/ahci.htm
for the most part it is kinda helpful, but you hit one of Intel's flaws right on the head. Poor hard drive support (since it doesn't matter in benchmarks that Intel uses)