OCZ Revodrive X2, is it good and will it work in my computer?

[ricno]

I am looking into buying an OCZ REVODRIVE X2 PCI-E X4 SSD 240GB, to use with Windows 7 as data disk, not booting from. What is your opinon about that device?

And will it work in my computer? I have the following setup:

CPU: Intel Core i7 860 (no overclock)
Motherboard: Asus P7P55D-E LX (only SATA2)
Memory: 2x4 GB Corsair XMS3 DDR3 1333MHz (will buy 8 GB more soon)
GPU: XFX RADEON HD5770 XT 1GB GDDR5
Power supply unit: COOLER MASTER SILENT PRO ATX12V 2.3 600W
Harddisks: 2 x SAMSUNG Spinpoint F3 1TB (no RAID)

 

[JohnnyLucky]

Today is your luck day!

The answer to both of your questions is yes.

The OCZ RevoDrive PCI-e based solid state drives are good and they will work in your computer.

Have Fun!

 

[ricno]

The OCZ RevoDrive PCI-e based solid state drives are good and they will work in your computer.

Thanks for your reply. I read something about it being important which PCI-e slot the card should be placed at, do you know if that is correct?

On this side I found some similar ASUS motherboards as mine, but not exactly the model.

http://www.ocztechnology.com/displaypage.php?name=revo_ibis_moboguide

 

[ricno]

A question about the PCI-e slots:

From the OCZ website it says that it needs a PCI-Express Interface x4.

http://www.ocztechnology.com/ocz-revodrive-x2-pci-express-ssd.html

And on the my motherboard (ASUS P7P55D-E LX) there is:

1 x PCIe 2.0 x16
4 x PCIe 2.0 x1 (2.5GT/s, gray slots)
2 x PCI

http://www.asus.com.au/product.aspx?P_ID=DfyAB26HiDpiiu8f

Will this be a problem? I am not sure what the x16, x4 and x1 actually means.

 

[JohnnyLucky]

EDIT - Looks like you posted while I was typing. I also made the mistake of assuming you would have an available slot.

That is correct. A motherboard usually has a variety of PCI-e slots. They may be PCI-e x16, x8, x4, x2, or x1. The motherboard manufacturers offer quite a variety of combinations.

The OCZ RevoDrive will work in a PCI-e x16, x8, or x4 slot. You will have to check specifications or the owners manual for your "EXACT" model to determine if you have an appropriate slot available.

If the model number is correct, the specs at the Asus web site show the following PCI-e slots on your motherboard:

One PCI Express 2.0 x16 slot
Four PCI Express 2.0 x1 slots

Here is the link to the Asus web page:

http://www.asus.com.au/product.aspx?P_ID=DfyAB26HiDpiiu8f

You've got the XFX Radeon HD 5770 plugged into the single PCI-e 2.0 x 16 slot. There are no PCI-e x8 or x4 slots available. If that is correct, then you will not be able to use the OCZ RevoDrive. Please check your owners manual and make sure that is the case.

 

[ricno]

You've got the XFX Radeon HD 5770 plugged into the single PCI-e 2.0 x 16 slot. There are no PCI-e x8 or x4 slots available. If that is correct, then you will not be able to use the OCZ RevoDrive.

That is too bad if there is no correct slots available. Is the graphic card needed to be in the x16 slot?

 

[JohnnyLucky]

Yes, the XFX Radeon HD 5770 video card must be installed in the PCI-e x16 slot. Your motherboard does not have any other PCI-e slots that could accomodate the 5770.
Sorry.

 

[ricno]

Yes, the XFX Radeon HD 5770 video card must be installed in the PCI-e x16 slot. Your motherboard does not have any other PCI-e slots that could accomodate the 5770.
Sorry.

Lucky that I did not place the order..

However, I wanted that device, and it is a bit sad it wont fit and I will probably not change the motherboard for a while.

But, when looking at the manual it seemes that it supported SATA3, so perhaps I could find a large normal SATA3-SSD drive instead.

 

[JohnnyLucky]

I am in a similar situation and I am not a gamer either. I have an Intel Core i7 860 based system but with the Asus Sabertooth 55i motherboard. The Sabertooth 55i actually has two PCI-e x16 slots but it is an odd configuration. The first PCI-e x16 slot is designed for a video card and will operate at full x16 capability. However, if I install a second video card or other device in the second PCI-e x16 slot, then the two slots wind up operating at just x8 each. It is as if the two slots have to share instead of being fully independent of each other. My video card could operate at x8 but it would take a performance hit. That's why I am looking at some sort of SATA based ssd. I haven't made up my mind yet but I'm leaning toward the new Intel 320, 120 GB, SATA II (3 Gb/s) ssd. For $229.99 it should be a rock solid "mid-level" performer. Intel includes their excellent "ssd tool box" utility to help keep it operating smoothly and efficiently.

 

[ricno]

Thanks for your reply. I do not play games either, but use my PC mostly for running virtual machines through Vmware Workstation. It works great, but I am sometimes thinking of introducing a very fast data disk for a bit luxuary. The mechanical disks I have today works very well, but it would be pleasent to be able to place a couple of the VMs on the high performance drive.

I have the same CPU as you have, but another ASUS board. It has some similar strange features as you describe. The 16x slot will apparently become x8 if SATA3 is enabled! It has two inactive SATA3 ports, but if activated the x16 will go down.

Do you know if the graphic card would work at all if running at x8?

Do you know the performance gains if using SSD on SATA3 compared to SATA2?

 

[JohnnyLucky]

Yes, the 5770 will work at x8 but there will be a performance hit of about 5 to 8% when playing games or while performing video intensive tasks. Otherwise the performance hit should not be very noticeable.

 

[ricno]

Yes, the 5770 will work at x8 but there will be a performance hit of about 5 to 8% when playing games or while performing video intensive tasks. Otherwise the performance hit should not be very noticeable.

As I hardly play anything that would not be a direct problem, but how is SSD for SATA2 vs SATA3?

 

[JohnnyLucky]

AAAAHHHHH! The magic question. It is the same one I've been asking.

Hardcore gamers and enthusiasts will tell you that synthetic benchmarks clearly indicate SATA III (6 Gb/s) is preferred over SATA II (3 Gb/s). They will also say that operating systems, applications, and games will load faster. So far so good. Then things get a little murky. Sometimes it is difficult to interpret the benchmarks and put them in some sort of proper perspective.

I wasn't satisified so I started doing research over on the mainstream/enterprise side. I just happen to have stumbled into information about ssd's and VMware a few days ago. There were several threads in forums that were for professionals. The consus was that ssd's did improve some VMware processes and performance to varying degrees. One thread was about a VMware process that took over 4 hours with hard drives and only 2 hours and 20 minutes with ssd. There were other threads indicating a reduction in time also. The time to complete a particular task varied greatly. Unfortunately I do not know anything about VMware and I did not bookmark the web pages. I don't remember if the threads were about SATA, PCI-e, or enterprise ssd's. I do remember googling for a variety of phrases and terms about ssd productivity.

 

[ricno]

Hardcore gamers and enthusiasts will tell you that synthetic benchmarks clearly indicate SATA III (6 Gb/s) is preferred over SATA II (3 Gb/s). They will also say that operating systems, applications, and games will load faster. So far so good.

It should of course be cool to be able to deliver around 600 MB/s as to 300 MB/s with SATA2. However, 300 is still very much and few workloads demand that much. Even when running multiple virtual machines on HDD SATA2 it performs quite well.

Perhaps I shall try to find a large (200 GB+) SATA2 SSD drive, to not have to mess with lowering the graphic card speed.

Unfortunately I do not know anything about VMware and I did not bookmark the web pages. I don't remember if the threads were about SATA, PCI-e, or enterprise ssd's.

Vmware has a lot of different products, from the desktop ones as Workstation up to enterprise virtualization as vSphere (which I work with and is a very interesting product), but on the enterprise side there is almost only SAN-attached SAS disks and SSD is still a bit to expensive to get any larger volumes of yet.

 

[groberts101]

if performance in these programs is of primary consideration then there an excellent program out there that will surpass SSD in many aspects since ram will always be faster than any SSD. read here.

http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum/showthread.php?79525-Interesting-new-hybrid-disk-cache

 

[ricno]

Best answer selected by ricno.

 

[ricno]

So unfortunaly the correct answer was that it does not work in my computer, due to lack of PCI-e x4 slots.