My little SiL3132 PCI Express x1 Review

[wiak]

I needed more sata 3gbps ports, as my 4 port ULI M5288 SATA300 controller on my Abit AT8 motherbord ran out of ports, i found this SDM PCIe SATA II 300 RAID 2P (SiL3132 PCI Express x1) for around 244 nok (38usd)

the size of the controller pcb is realy small

the front:
http://nwgat.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/01/pict0566.JPG
note the size of the norwegian 20 krone comparied to the little silicon image chip

the back
http://nwgat.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/01/pict0570.JPG
the package includes
SDM PCIe SATA II 300 RAID 2P (SiL3132 PCI Express x1) Card
Mini-CD with Drivers (80mm)
A basic Install Guide
Antistatic Plastic

Hardware
Abit AT8 with BIOS 11 (with custom updated uli bios)
AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+
2GB OCZ DDR500 PC4000 (2x1GB)
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB SATA2 16MB 7200RPM

Performance:
ULI M5288 onboard (without driver)
Silicon Image PCIe Sil3132 (with raid bios and driver)
http://nwgat.net/woot/files/1/graphuli-sil.png

HDTune of Sil3132
http://nwgat.net/woot/files/1/si3132_pre_ST3320620AS.png
HDTune of ULI M5288
http://nwgat.net/woot/files/1/ulim2588_pre_ST3320620AS.png
HD Tach Both (Quick bench 8mb zones)
http://nwgat.net/woot/files/1/hdtach_sil_uli_pre.png
Score
Driver: 6 of 10
(base driver is a bit buggy)
Preformace: 7 of 10
(preformace is overall good)
Build Quality: 7 of 10
(ok as far components go)

[hat]

should be in the review section, but otherwise nice review job

[regan1985]

i have the same controler its not bad but but isnt the best i have found that my 3114 sata1 is just asgood as the 3132 sil