On paper the PEX PLX8613 PCIe bridge chip, which allows the Marvell 9123 SATA controller to use a single PCIe 2.0 x1 lane  to connect to a SATA 6G drive for a maximum bandwidth of 500 MB/s, looks like a great idea.  It doesn’t allow for the full 600MB/s that the SATA 6G specs allow for but certainly sounds faster than the previous 300GB/s maximum.  As listeners of the live Podcast last night heard, the reality is not as nice.  Using system RAM as a cache, along with no actual indications of increased transfer rates has disappointed Ryan sorely.  See the full details in his preview.

“SATA 6G technology is being paraded around by motherboard manufacturers as one of the main reasons to upgrade your motherboard in the coming months but do the advantages really make the upgrade worthwhile? And how do these current SATA 6G implementations actually work? We look at the ASUS P7P55D Premium and an early sample of a Seagate SATA 6.0 Gb/s hard drive to see how the hype stands up.”

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