NCQ and revisions

[MaxRabbit]

Hello! I have a couple of questions about the GA-P35-DS3L motherboard-
A) In the manual it says: "AHCI (Note) Configures the SATA controllers to AHCI mode. Advanced Host Controller Interface
(AHCI) is an interface specification that allows the storage driver to enable
advanced Serial ATA features such as Native Command Queuing and hot plug."

Does this mean that this motherboard supports Native Command Queuing? And do all SATA hard drives support NCQ?

B) When I buy the motherboard from NewEgg, is there any way to know which revision I'll get? Some people have said that they got revision 2-but just because a couple people got it doesn't guarantee me getting it, does it?

Thanks for any help.

 

[qwertycopter]

a) AHCI - Yes, but I doubt you need NCQ. It really has no benefit for home users where most read/writes are sequential. And it can actually hurt performance. When you have a server environment with heavy disk access by multiple users, NCQ is handy. For a home user, it just adds overhead which increases latency (read more at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_Command_Queuing ). As for hot swap.. do you really need to disconnect/connect a hard drive while the computer is still on?

SATA - Not all SATA drives support NCQ (most new ones do, older ones are less likely). Check the drive specifications to see if your drive supports NCQ.

b) No - It's luck of the draw. The only thing you can do is look around on forums to see if people are still getting Rev 1 boards.

 

[skittle]

A1) yes
A2) No

B) newegg sometimes lists different revisions, sometimes not.

 

[skittle]

And to the above poster: To be honest, the sources for that wikipedia quote are quite old. 3 years in fact. A recent test using the .11 standard would be welcomed (the tests in the source used .7).

Who knows, maybe things have gotten better.