X25-M SSD Performance Question

[idata]

I recently installed an X25-M SSD in my system and although the Windows Experience Index rates it a 7.7 and CrystalDiskMark shows very good read/write speeds for this drive, I seem to be having issues with it while playing games. While running Fraps in my background I have been experiencing FPS spikes and freezes at certain times on a very non-demanding game that only uses a single core of the processor. I used to run this same game with a Western Digital Caviar Black Sata 6gb/s and had never experienced this kind of shakyness. I have installed the proper drivers for the video card and it just seems convenient that this started occuring when I installed this hard drive into my system.

Specs:

Motherboard: ASUS p7p55d-e

CPU: Intel Core i7 860@ 2.8 GHz

GPU: XFX Radeon HD 4870

RAM: Patriot Sector 5 Series DDR3 4GB

Primary HD: INtel X25-M 80GB (Windows 7 Ultimate)

Secondary HD: Western Digital Caviar Black 640 GB SATAIII (Windows 7 Ultimate, still has an operating system since it used to be my only HD)

I checked the firmware using the firmware upgrade tool and it is up to date. The drive was set in AHCI mode when I installed the operating system because I read about people getting better performance rather than IDE. Any feedback is appreciated.

[idata]

I really appreciate the help and suggestions thus far. Hope I get some more feedback too

[idata]

I'm starting to suspect that the Intel SATA controller is gimped somehow on that motherboard. It seems performance on Intel controllers can vary quite a bit depending how they are integrated on the motherboard. The other SATA ports are actually using a Marvel controller that is SATA III as opposed to SATA II on the Intel controller. The Marvel controller is however not that good performance wise with SSD. It might however be worth giving it a shot if your Intel controller has been gimped….you might just be able to squeeze a bit more out of the SSD.

Below is what I get with a 160GB drive on an Asus Ramp Extreme with ICH9. To be honest in real life applications you should not see a see performance difference between my score and yours.

Name: INTEL SSDSA2M160G2GC

Firmware: 2CV1

Controller: iaStor

Offset: 1024 K - OK

Size: 149.05 GB

Date: 02/08/2010 11:28:28

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Sequential:

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Read: 252.56 MB/s

Write: 104.72 MB/s

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4K:

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Read: 21.33 MB/s

Write: 51.20 MB/s

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4K-64Threads:

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Read: 157.31 MB/s

Write: 66.32 MB/s

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Access Times:

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Read: 0.078 ms

Write: 0.085 ms

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Score:

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Read: 204

Write: 128

Total: 437

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[idata]

I realized that my bios actually was not up to date and although I was hopeful that maybe somehow this could be related to my issues after updating the BIOS there really is no difference according to the benchmark program. You think I should try connecting it to the SATA3 port just for kicks?

[idata]

.......or maybe switch the video card to a different pcie lane. A total wild shot. Are you still getting freezes by the way?

[idata]

Yea every now and then I get the freezes and the frame drops are still hapenning. It's just annoying that the performance should be apparently better than the WDC drive, but its almost as though its not as fast during game play. It is faster with loading programs and Boot Up and Shut Down.