sata Suggestions for a Sata3 controller

[Lucian_Dragos]

TL;DR Need a cheap and reliable PCI-E 1X Sata3 Controller and no need for raid...

 

I'm looking for a decent PCI-E 1X Sata3 controller for an old rig that only has Sata2 onboard... I need something reliable but not too pricey and don't need raid..

It's for an old gaming rig I dug up for my 10y/o niece when she moved in with me. It has a C2Q Q9550, 8Gb DDR3 ram and a 4Gb GTX680 and runs most fairly recent games well (so long as they don't need SSE4.2). But the Sata2 controller seems to be a sticking point for games that stream a lot in from the HDD such as open world games like Fallout, Skyrim (non-SE) and GTA IV/EFLC.

Frame rates are decent once and area is fully loaded but as you cross the map it stumbles quite a bit as things try loading in... Now I played Skyrim on this HDD and Video card before and it ran fine, And the CPU is better then I had back when that game was new so the only weak point I can see is the Sata2 interface. So I'm hoping an Sata3 interface and an SSD with help smooth it out

[NelizMastr]

Make sure the board even has PCIe 2.0 as a PCIe 1.1 x1 card maxes out at 250MB/s of total bandwidth. Otherwise grab any SATA3 6Gbps card you can find. Startech, Adaptec, Highpoint, and heck probably even Delock will have cards that fit your needs.

 

SATA2 won't be the bottleneck for a HDD mind you, as it can do 300MB/s where the HDD is likely 80-100 max.

[Lucian_Dragos]

I will try to look it up idk if it will be easy... I forgot to mention it's an old Dell. Thankfully a post "BTX" one so video card mounts the right way around and don't interfere with other things x_X. Though it does use DDR3 memory not 2 so It should be at least 2.0 since it's a very late model LGA775 board

 

And I saw plenty of cheap cards but I didn't know the performance or reliability of them....

 

Update Edit: Yes it is PCIe 2.0

Edited October 16, 2018 by Lucian_Dragos
Update

[seagate_surfer]

You can check the transfer rates according to the amount of lanes and PCIe version you are using here in this link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCI_Express#History_and_revisions

 

One SSD working under a PCIe 2.0 x1 looks fair... Always upgrading to an SSD results on something very good, load times and boot times lower but frame rates may not be the strongest point as that particular task relies more on the CPU and the GPU than on the type of drive you are using. Upgrading to an SSD will bring many benefits and the if your frame rates doesn't get any better then you will also need upgrades in the other components (CPU, GPU, RAM, in that order)

[Lucian_Dragos]

@seagate_surfer
I did confirm that it is PCIe 2.0, and the frame drops I'm seeing seems more to do with stream in then processing power.

I.E. in GTA once the area I'm in loads fully the major frame drops go away and it runs fine (well as fine as GTA IV can run) even in the middle of complete chaos with a lot of smoke, fire, explosions and lots flyin NPCs live and dead 

However if I jump in a car and rush a crossed the city, pop-in and frame drops get real bad

[Lucian_Dragos]

Anyone have dealings with this company before?
https://www.amazon.com/SHINESTAR-Expansion-Embedded-Hardware-Controller/dp/B079GS5GG5

[Electronics Wizardy]

On 10/16/2018 at 6:04 AM, Lucian_Dragos said:

TL;DR Need a cheap and reliable PCI-E 1X Sata3 Controller and no need for raid...

 

I'm looking for a decent PCI-E 1X Sata3 controller for an old rig that only has Sata2 onboard... I need something reliable but not too pricey and don't need raid..

It's for an old gaming rig I dug up for my 10y/o niece when she moved in with me. It has a C2Q Q9550, 8Gb DDR3 ram and a 4Gb GTX680 and runs most fairly recent games well (so long as they don't need SSE4.2). But the Sata2 controller seems to be a sticking point for games that stream a lot in from the HDD such as open world games like Fallout, Skyrim (non-SE) and GTA IV/EFLC.

Frame rates are decent once and area is fully loaded but as you cross the map it stumbles quite a bit as things try loading in... Now I played Skyrim on this HDD and Video card before and it ran fine, And the CPU is better then I had back when that game was new so the only weak point I can see is the Sata2 interface. So I'm hoping an Sata3 interface and an SSD with help smooth it out

Just Use the ssd on a sata2 connector. The performance difference between sata2 and sata3 is very small for desktop uses, Ived tested it. The iops and latency are much better on the ssd, and almost nothing on a gaming pc needs the extra sequential speeds.

 

tldr; Just get a ssd, sata 2 vs sata3 won't make a noticeable difference.

[Lucian_Dragos]

21 hours ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Just Use the ssd on a sata2 connector. The performance difference between sata2 and sata3 is very small for desktop uses, Ived tested it. The iops and latency are much better on the ssd, and almost nothing on a gaming pc needs the extra sequential speeds.

 

tldr; Just get a ssd, sata 2 vs sata3 won't make a noticeable difference.

ok will just pickup a cheap Kingston UV400 or WD Blue SSD and see how that goes