What do you think of PCIE SSD?

[fogy]

What do you guys think of something like this?

Newegg.com - OCZ RevoDrive OCZSSDPX-1RVD0120 PCI-E x4 120GB PCI Express MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)



And speaking of which, when installing on a Gigabyte MB, how would you place the following in its PCI slots:

x16 EVGA GeForce GTX 470 (Fermi) SuperClocked 1280MB
x16 2nd Video card slave
x8
x8 OCZ RevoDrive OCZSSDPX-1RVD0120 PCI-E x4 120GB
x1
x1

Does putting the PCIE Drive in the x8 slot drag the 2nd Video Card down to x4?

Also, would there be a problem using the PCIE Drive as boot when in the 4th PCIE slot?

[Tim]

Each PCIE slot is independant, and realistically, high end video cards don't really fully use much above the x8 anyway.

Also, I would think the SSD drive would require a x1 slot, maybe x4 max.

But yea you're safe with the setup you mentioned.

[Tim]

Another note, let me know how that pcix card goes, I'm really interested. The speed is nice but its not too much higher than SSDs these days. Price looks good tho.

[fogy]

Thanks, Tim. I was basing my questions on the details advisory for the MB:


2 x PCI Express x16 slots, running at x16 (PCIEX16_1/PCIEX16_2) (Note 1)
2 x PCI Express x16 slot, running at x8 (PCIEX8_1/PCIEX8_2) (Note 2)

(Note 1) For optimum performance, if only one PCI Express graphics card is to be installed, be sure to install it in the PCIEX16_1 slot; if you are installing two PCI Express graphics cards, it is recommended that you install them in the PCIEX16_1 and PCIEX16_2 slots.

(Note 2) The PCIEX8_1 and PCIEX8_2 slots share bandwidth with the PCIEX16_1 and PCIEX16_2 slots respectively. When PCIEX8_1 is populated with an expansion card, the PCIEX16_1 slot will operate at up to x8 mode; when PCIEX8_2 is populated with an expansion card, the PC IEX16_2 slot will operate at up to x8 mode.

Thus I was thinking if I put an x4 SSD card on the shared bus that it would drag the x16 slot down to x4.

[Tim]

Ahh yea fogy I think you are right. Very odd that it functions like that, its like saying the PCIX is 16x, but really its the lowest speed between that and the other slot. Very odd, I wonder if all motherboards do that?

[burningforce]

its based on how many pci lanes the cpu can use I believe. So the i7 can use a certain amount of pci lanes and thats it. you can not go over it so that is why some hardware limits or operates pci lanes lower then you would expect.

why not just go with a SSD drive (S-ATA)?
or raid 2 of them and get those speeds, might be cheaper as well
And for your question, there might be a problem with running the card in the 4th slot. some people have problems booting from the first slot on their motherboards, though I think it really depends on the motherboard layout an how it is programmed.

[fogy]

Originally Posted by burningforce

why not just go with a SSD drive (S-ATA)?

I'm a glutton for punishment/new approaches.

SSD Raid 0 on the Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD3R SATA 6gb/s is not recommended (yet?), so I'm restrained to the SATA 3gb/s bottleneck if I RAID regular SSD's. Jumping on the PCIX4 bandwagon is OCZ's future and is on the path to surpass SATA solutions, IMO.

Further, the cost is now comparable, the on-board RAID is included, so no cheap drivers, it's automatic, bootable and proprietary SandForce controllers are stupid fast.

Meh, I'll just wait for it to get here and let you know how it goes.

[burningforce]

yes keep us posted, I might be in the market for one as well, my 40GB SSD is running out of space :P