Performance - Storage - SATA | AHCI

HDD SSD performance

So here's where I will get a little lazy charts wise. With the new SATA3 6G controller and USB 3.0 controllers we started adding SSD performance numbers measured on such interfaces (when applicable). Putting these in nicely styled charts would be better, but with technology so new we just do not have anything out there yet to compare to, so here are some RAW numbers:

Above you can see a N002 series A-DATA Solid State Drive running over its SATA2 interface on the motherboard. As you can see, the implementation works out really well. Nearing 250 MB/sec read and 200 MB/sec write performance.

Now here we connected the same SSD towards the same interface yet in the BIOS we now choose AHCI. A small note is in order here, AHCI mode is a little faster for SSDs opposed to HDDs. As you can see that performance is definitely stunning, look at the read speeds there ... nearing 270 MB/sec (!). However on the other end of the spectrum we see a drop in performance at the smaller files. Intel definitely would be faster in AHCI mode with small file sizes. Alternatively we recommend you simply use SATA mode in the BIOS and leave AHCI for what it is.

Right, let's go check out some games and their performance.