I recently bought a new 128 GB Samsung 830 for an amazing price which I've dedicated to FSX and it rocks with an almost 50% speed up in flight load times (and significant placebo effect as well :lol:). Unfortunately my 2009 mobo only has sata 2 controllers; using it in AHCI mode, my SSD is limited to 260 Mbs as reported in bench tests. I've looked into PCIe SATA 3 adapters and even purchased one that won't work properly with my mobo (thinks all my available pci-e 2.0 slots are pci-e 1.0 slots). In my research trying to find a worthy but inexpense controller card, I've read that in "real life use" the benefits of using a SATA 3 SSD on a SATA 2 controller vs. a SATA 3 controller are negligable. Can anyone confirm if this statement is true for FSX as well...meaning should I continue my search for a worthy pci-e SATA 3 controller?

 

The obvious solution is to get a whole new computer, which will be in about a year. And please, windows 7 boot time is irrelevant to me. Thanks for reading.

I recently bought a new 128 GB Samsung 830 for an amazing price which I've dedicated to FSX and it rocks with an almost 50% speed up in flight load times (and significant placebo effect as well :lol:). Unfortunately my 2009 mobo only has sata 2 controllers; using it in AHCI mode, my SSD is limited to 260 Mbs as reported in bench tests. I've looked into PCIe SATA 3 adapters and even purchased one that won't work properly with my mobo (thinks all my available pci-e 2.0 slots are pci-e 1.0 slots). In my research trying to find a worthy but inexpense controller card, I've read that in "real life use" the benefits of using a SATA 3 SSD on a SATA 2 controller vs. a SATA 3 controller are negligable. Can anyone confirm if this statement is true for FSX as well...meaning should I continue my search for a worthy pci-e SATA 3 controller?

 

The obvious solution is to get a whole new computer, which will be in about a year. And please, windows 7 boot time is irrelevant to me. Thanks for reading.

 

It's a lot more about random access and TRIM availability. So yeah, use an Intel SATA II port and don't look back

My ASUS board has four 6GB SATA controller and my SSD and HDD's are all plugged into those ports. According to the specifications on your P7P55D MB - http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/Intel_Socket_1156/P7P55D/, you have 6 3GB ports on your motherboard I would plug them all in there. Maybe that's where you have them plugged into already as you indicated your SSD is limited. To get the most performance you would need a 6GB port but it will work in the 3GB port until you upgrade. Here's a link where they tested 6GB ports (SATAIII) vs 3GB ports (SATAII) - http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/sata-6gbps-performance-sata-3gbps,3110.html. The bottom line was not to get the fastest but say within your budget as the benchmarks don't justify it. This was a 1 Feb 2012 test so it should be pretty valid today.

 

Best regards,

Jim

Rod. If you want to see how little improvement you could possible get from faster storage with flight load time in FSX, try this:

1 Restart your computer.

2 Open FSX

3 Time with a stopwatch how long it takes to load one particular flight. This flight will be loaded from your storage.

4 Close FSX fully

5 Open FSX again

6 Once again time with a stopwatch how long it takes to load the same flight as previously. Remember to have everything the same. This time all data will be cached in your RAM and not pulled from your storage. So no storage, however fast, will ever be able to load the flight quicker.

7 Report back here how small the difference is=)

It's a lot more about random access and TRIM availability. So yeah, use an Intel SATA II port and don't look back

Thanks dazz, I'll keep put for now with my sata II controller. Now back to flying!

 

Rod. If you want to see how little improvement you could possible get from faster storage with flight load time in FSX, try this:

1 Restart your computer.

2 Open FSX

3 Time with a stopwatch how long it takes to load one particular flight. This flight will be loaded from your storage.

4 Close FSX fully

5 Open FSX again

6 Once again time with a stopwatch how long it takes to load the same flight as previously. Remember to have everything the same. This time all data will be cached in your RAM and not pulled from your storage. So no storage, however fast, will ever be able to load the flight quicker.

7 Report back here how small the difference is=)

The point you're making is irrelevant IMO...sure, buffer cached disk reads are always the fastest...so what...does that make using an SSD or Raptors for FSX a dumb idea? BTW, with my SSD the difference between the two is tiny.

The point you're making is irrelevant IMO...sure, buffer cached disk reads are always the fastest...so what...does that make using an SSD or Raptors for FSX a dumb idea? BTW, with my SSD the difference between the two is tiny.

Where exactly did I say that using Raptors or SSDs for FSX is a dumb idea? If you search my previous topics you'll find the exact opposite. Can I just quote your initial post once more:

In my research trying to find a worthy but inexpense controller card, I've read that in "real life use" the benefits of using a SATA 3 SSD on a SATA 2 controller vs. a SATA 3 controller are negligable. Can anyone confirm if this statement is true for FSX as well...meaning should I continue my search for a worthy pci-e SATA 3 controller?

I thought that showing you how little improvement you could ever possible get on your own rig in FSX from upgrading your storage to something as fast as the RAM might give you the answer. I don't understand why you find that irrelevant. As you say, the difference between your current SSD (on SATA2) and having everything everything in RAM is already tiny. Going to SATA3 instead of SATA2 won't even yield all of that tiny improvement. The SSD with it's fast response time is basically putting your CPU as the bottleneck now. Sorry for trying to answer your question.

In case the answer isn't clear. Stop searching and enjoy flying FSX with a very competent SSD=)

SAAB340, I read too much between the lines of your initial response and I got it wrong, my bad...so again, back to flying!