ASUS Z77 terrible SSD benchmark numbers

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rampantandroid

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Hi all,

Just upgraded to a P8Z77-v Pro board from ASUS. I've got a 250GB Intel 510SSD as my boot drive, and I ran Crystalmark on it, with these results (I had closed CDM, and so re-ran with only 1 run, which produced numbers that are the same as running 5 times.):

CDM2.PNG


The drive IS in AHCI mode, and IS plugged into the gray 6Gbps ports, so while the sequential read/writes seem in line with what I expect, the 4k numbers are WAY off. Am I missing something?

Here are the numbers from my old ASUS x58 sabertooth board, with the SSD running on the Intel 3Gbps controller:
CDM1.PNG


Thanks!
 
Are you running the latest firmware on the drive??
All drivers up to date in windows for the board?
I'm having no issues at all getting high marks from a samsung 256GB 830 SSD using the same exact board you're using...
ssd%20bench.png
 
The numbers on my Intel 520 on one of the Intel 6G ports is in line with pwrusr's numbers. I did notice one thing, I've got a second SSD for HDD caching on the Marvell controller, and I found on that Corsair SSD, the numbers in CrystalDisk were crappy compared to the Intel. I found the numbers coming up in ATTO to be more accurate with the Corsair for some reason. Also found the speed on the Intel port to be much better than the Marvell, especially for write.
 
bitgod said:
The numbers on my Intel 520 on one of the Intel 6G ports is in line with pwrusr's numbers. I did notice one thing, I've got a second SSD for HDD caching on the Marvell controller, and I found on that Corsair SSD, the numbers in CrystalDisk were crappy compared to the Intel. I found the numbers coming up in ATTO to be more accurate with the Corsair for some reason. Also found the speed on the Intel port to be much better than the Marvell, especially for write.
Click to expand...

Also note that the P8Z77-V Deluxe has a third SATA 6.0 Gbps controller, from ASMedia. That controller lacks RAID support whatsoever - and its performance is slow. The P8Z77-V PRO has only the Intel and ASMedia controllers and ports, but no Marvell controller.
 
The offset is 1,048,576 - which looks correct to me.

Drivers are up to date, AFAIK - I installed all the latest off the ASUS website. Drive firmware is also up to date.

Are my numbers skewed since this is a boot drive?

Thanks!
 
rampantandroid said:
The offset is 1,048,576 - which looks correct to me.

Drivers are up to date, AFAIK - I installed all the latest off the ASUS website. Drive firmware is also up to date.

Are my numbers skewed since this is a boot drive?

Thanks!
Click to expand...

They are, indeed, skewed since this is your system's boot drive. Ideally, the drive to be tested should be completely separate from the OS (boot) drive for reliable benchmark results. You see, using a single drive for absolutely everything will place stress on the SATA channel: SATA is not a full-duplex interface, but rather only a half-duplex interface. This means that a certain large block of transfers going in one direction must be completed before any transfers are allowed to start moving in the opposite direction. And running benchmarking software on the same drive as the one being tested now requires simultaneous reads and writes, something that is not allowed by the SATA connection. An analogy to this would be the reversible one-way narrow express lanes as featured in the middle of some superhighways such as the one on the Kennedy Expressway on Chicago's Northwest Side. During the morning rush period, the reversibles are one way going towards downtown - but during the afternoon rush that direction is reversed, away from downtown. The SATA connection is much like those reversible express lanes described above.
 
Last edited:
rampantandroid said:
The offset is 1,048,576 - which looks correct to me.

Drivers are up to date, AFAIK - I installed all the latest off the ASUS website. Drive firmware is also up to date.

Are my numbers skewed since this is a boot drive?

Thanks!
Click to expand...

The latest drivers from Asus are guaranteed to work, but how about you try the latest from Intel?
 
E4g1e said:
Also note that the P8Z77-V Deluxe has a third SATA 6.0 Gbps controller, from ASMedia. That controller lacks RAID support whatsoever - and its performance is slow. The P8Z77-V PRO has only the Intel and ASMedia controllers and ports, but no Marvell controller.
Click to expand...

This is incorrect

The Marvel 9128 does fully support Raid as well as our ASUS SSD Caching implementation. Due to the interconnect link ( PCI-E lane ) being less than the bandwidth afforded to the PCH SATA ports max performance will be lower than that of the Native SATA6G ports. WIth that noted overall performance relative to application launch time, boot performance and other real world usable aspects will be essentially the same.
 
rampantandroid said:
Hi all,

Just upgraded to a P8Z77-v Pro board from ASUS. I've got a 250GB Intel 510SSD as my boot drive, and I ran Crystalmark on it, with these results (I had closed CDM, and so re-ran with only 1 run, which produced numbers that are the same as running 5 times.):

CDM2.PNG


The drive IS in AHCI mode, and IS plugged into the gray 6Gbps ports, so while the sequential read/writes seem in line with what I expect, the 4k numbers are WAY off. Am I missing something?

Here are the numbers from my old ASUS x58 sabertooth board, with the SSD running on the Intel 3Gbps controller:
CDM1.PNG


Thanks!
Click to expand...


Something seems off in the numbers as generally the SATA3G controller from the PCH while robust cannot provide throughput over 300MBs.

Keep in mind changes to the RST software and CStates can impact performance so this could be part of your issue. I would advise running ATTO and see if the drive hits the advertised performance numbers if it does not you may need to secure erase and retry as we have internally test this drive and found no issues relative to performance.
 
KENNYB said:
The latest drivers from Asus are guaranteed to work, but how about you try the latest from Intel?
Click to expand...
I got all the drivers I'm using for my system from the ASUS site and have no issues with things working fast.
 
Juan_Jose said:
This is incorrect

The Marvel 9128 does fully support Raid as well as our ASUS SSD Caching implementation. Due to the interconnect link ( PCI-E lane ) being less than the bandwidth afforded to the PCH SATA ports max performance will be lower than that of the Native SATA6G ports. WIth that noted overall performance relative to application launch time, boot performance and other real world usable aspects will be essentially the same.
Click to expand...

Sorry that I did not make my previous post clear enough. The P8Z77-V Deluxe actually has not one, not two - but three SATA controllers, two of which (the Intel and the Marvell) support RAID. However, since there are only two SATA ports controlled by the Marvell controller, the type of RAID support on that controller is limited to RAID 0 or RAID 1.

And I have actually looked at the P8Z77-V PRO in person. That board has only the Intel and the ASMedia SATA controllers (no Marvell controller at all). And as I stated in my previous post, the ASMedia SATA controller lacks RAID support whatsoever.
 
Juan_Jose said:
Something seems off in the numbers as generally the SATA3G controller from the PCH while robust cannot provide throughput over 300MBs.

Keep in mind changes to the RST software and CStates can impact performance so this could be part of your issue. I would advise running ATTO and see if the drive hits the advertised performance numbers if it does not you may need to secure erase and retry as we have internally test this drive and found no issues relative to performance.
Click to expand...

This. Turn off C states & EIST, then run it again. My Asrock Z77 board has made my benchmark scores go through the roof (seen below), but I ordered a P8Z77-I Deluxe for comparison and this thread has me a little worried.

Edit: Try a different sata cable too

m33t.jpg
 
Juan_Jose said:
Something seems off in the numbers as generally the SATA3G controller from the PCH while robust cannot provide throughput over 300MBs.

Keep in mind changes to the RST software and CStates can impact performance so this could be part of your issue. I would advise running ATTO and see if the drive hits the advertised performance numbers if it does not you may need to secure erase and retry as we have internally test this drive and found no issues relative to performance.
Click to expand...

Hi Juan_Jose,

I have not yet reinstalled Windows after I did the hardware change and still need to (all DRM broke with the hardware change) - what is the best way to secure erase this SSD? I can't do it from within windows since it is the boot drive, and Parted Magic running off a USB stick hard locks within a few minutes running off my GTX580 (running off the HD4000, it won't render right.)

Should it still be low post-reinstall, I'll try killing EIST and the c states.

Thanks, and great to see ASUS has a presence here, something I didn't expect when I made this thread!

RA
 
MissJ84 said:
but I ordered a P8Z77-I Deluxe for comparison and this thread has me a little worried.]
Click to expand...
No need to worry. SSD performance is fine on the ASUS Z77 boards. Set Win7 power plan to High Performance for max benchmark speed.


Vertex 4 on P8Z77-V Deluxe


click for larger image
 
Good to know and yes, I forgot to add the bit about Win7 power plan. Change minimum power state to 100%
 
OK, so quick update:

The drive was actually unstable, the Intel toolbox was showing a read error. And Parted Magic hates Z77 right now, it seems. So I went to work today as I have a good system there (P7P67 with an intel 120GB 510 drive)

Formatted the drive with parted magic (it can handle the secure freeze crap, yay!) and then ran the toolbox check on my drive - no read errors thankfully. Finally, I ran CD Mark on my drives.

Here is the 120GB 510 SSD in my work PC:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
CrystalDiskMark 3.0.1 x64 (C) 2007-2010 hiyohiyo
Crystal Dew World : http://crystalmark.info/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
* MB/s = 1,000,000 byte/s [SATA/300 = 300,000,000 byte/s]

Sequential Read : 377.548 MB/s
Sequential Write : 207.249 MB/s
Random Read 512KB : 312.929 MB/s
Random Write 512KB : 200.850 MB/s
Random Read 4KB (QD=1) : 16.910 MB/s [ 4128.5 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=1) : 34.196 MB/s [ 8348.5 IOPS]
Random Read 4KB (QD=32) : 87.715 MB/s [ 21414.7 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=32) : 64.070 MB/s [ 15642.1 IOPS]

Test : 1000 MB [C: 76.9% (85.7/111.4 GB)] (x5)
Date : 2012/05/05 16:54:16
OS : Windows NT [] (x64)
Click to expand...

Here is my drive, with a single partition added to allow CD mark to run:

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
CrystalDiskMark 3.0.1 x64 (C) 2007-2010 hiyohiyo
Crystal Dew World : http://crystalmark.info/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
* MB/s = 1,000,000 byte/s [SATA/300 = 300,000,000 byte/s]

Sequential Read : 462.063 MB/s
Sequential Write : 331.566 MB/s
Random Read 512KB : 318.806 MB/s
Random Write 512KB : 303.783 MB/s
Random Read 4KB (QD=1) : 16.455 MB/s [ 4017.3 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=1) : 34.790 MB/s [ 8493.7 IOPS]
Random Read 4KB (QD=32) : 82.318 MB/s [ 20097.1 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=32) : 50.275 MB/s [ 12274.1 IOPS]

Test : 4000 MB [D: 0.1% (0.1/232.9 GB)] (x5)
Date : 2012/05/05 17:07:33
OS : Windows NT [] (x64)
Click to expand...

Now, the 4k queue depth =1 numbers still seem SLIGHTLY low, but in line with what I'd expect. So the drive is fine it seems...now to reinstall windows when I get home.
 
And finally, my drive with my board:

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
CrystalDiskMark 3.0.1 x64 (C) 2007-2010 hiyohiyo
Crystal Dew World : http://crystalmark.info/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
* MB/s = 1,000,000 byte/s [SATA/300 = 300,000,000 byte/s]

Sequential Read : 484.947 MB/s
Sequential Write : 335.089 MB/s
Random Read 512KB : 309.581 MB/s
Random Write 512KB : 320.761 MB/s
Random Read 4KB (QD=1) : 19.157 MB/s [ 4677.0 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=1) : 41.748 MB/s [ 10192.4 IOPS]
Random Read 4KB (QD=32) : 82.293 MB/s [ 20091.1 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=32) : 50.493 MB/s [ 12327.3 IOPS]

Test : 4000 MB [C: 18.0% (41.9/232.8 GB)] (x5)
Date : 2012/05/06 5:01:30
OS : Windows 7 Ultimate Edition [6.1 Build 7600] (x64)
Click to expand...
 
Hia all.

I have a similar problem.

Bought a ASUS P8Z77-V Deluxe and and Intel 520 SSD.

Tried all the sata ports and this are the best i get.
Have tried to disable c-state to no avail.

ssd.jpg



Anyone have any idea what might be wrong?
I have updated firmware on the ssd and tried latest drivers.

/Jimmie
 
Zordax said:
Hia all.

I have a similar problem.

Bought a ASUS P8Z77-V Deluxe and and Intel 520 SSD.

Tried all the sata ports and this are the best i get.
Have tried to disable c-state to no avail.

ssd.jpg



Anyone have any idea what might be wrong?
I have updated firmware on the ssd and tried latest drivers.

/Jimmie
Click to expand...
Do u have antivirus on your pc? I found that usualy i have a lower score with antivirus installed.
 
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