GA-EX58-UD4P - How to determine PCIe version?

[MinimalTech]

Hi! I have a desktop PC with the GA-EX58-UD4P motherboard inside it. I want to make an upgrade to my system by putting 2 new SSD disks and a SATA-III (6Gbps) controller.

I am thinking of buying one of these controllers:

1) DAWICONTROL DC-600e RAID (with Marvell 88SE9128 chipset)

-or-

2) Startech 2 Port SATA 6 Gbps PCI Express SATA Controller Card (also with Marvell 88SE9128 chipset)

but, both of them, needs a PCI Express Gen 2.0 enabled computers to work properly (they connect to PCI Express x1 slot).

So, I want to ask you: What is my version (or "Generation") of my PCI Express x1 slot on my motherboard? Is it Gen 2.0 or not? I can't find anywhere this information in Gigabyte site...

Can I put one of these controllers to my motherboard? Are they going to work properly?


Thank you.

 

[cin19]

The pcie should be the gen2.0 you may find the info either from intel or wikipedia. If you want add the add-on card, may just get the dc-600e raid card, but not the sata controller card for the SSD.

Other question, do you use the those cards for the SSD or something else?
1) If you use 2x SSD for raid, don't do that. read the review http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-raid-benchmark,3485.html
2) If you use the sata controller card for regular HDD, it is fine but not for the SSD. Here is other review http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/sata-6gbps-performance-sata-3gbps,3110-7.html

I know your MB has the sataII (3Gb/s) ports only, but they are still good for using for SSD. Recommend to buy the bigger size single ssd, the RAID ssd maybe good for the benchmark, also the RAID may give you problem later, one drive fail, you lost all the data. But if you want to buy the card and install it to the pciex4 ( orange color one) instead of the pciex1.

 

[MinimalTech]

The pcie should be the gen2.0 you may find the info either from intel or wikipedia. If you want add the add-on card, may just get the dc-600e raid card, but not the sata controller card for the SSD.

Other question, do you use the those cards for the SSD or something else?
1) If you use 2x SSD for raid, don't do that. read the review http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-raid-benchmark,3485.html
2) If you use the sata controller card for regular HDD, it is fine but not for the SSD. Here is other review http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/sata-6gbps-performance-sata-3gbps,3110-7.html

I know your MB has the sataII (3Gb/s) ports only, but they are still good for using for SSD. Recommend to buy the bigger size single ssd, the RAID ssd maybe good for the benchmark, also the RAID may give you problem later, one drive fail, you lost all the data. But if you want to buy the card and install it to the pciex4 ( orange color one) instead of the pciex1.

Thank you for your advice @cin19!

I didn't know the existence of these articles and benchmarks! They are very interested, I read them all. I wanted to use the controller to connect the SSDs in the SATA-III (6Gbps) interface, without any RAID configuration. But after these benchmarks I see that this is unnecessary.

So, I'm going to continue with your way: just to connect the SSDs to the SATA-II (3Gbps) interface and keep the extra 50€ to my pocket...

😀