# Is still windows ahci driver better than amd's?



## Tartaros (Sep 1, 2011)

I'm about to format my drive and I need to know wich ahci driver to install. I have searched but any topic about the amd ahci driver performance was at least 6 months old. Has someone tried newer drivers?


----------



## Derek12 (Sep 1, 2011)

The AMD one, in my case, always reports "The driver detected a controller error on \Device\RaidPort0. " so I changed to the Windows generic and none problems, also I don't notice any performance differences between the two, though that also depends of the computer and so on. 



EDIT: I take that back, I realized that AMD has an updated AHCI driver, I installed it and the controller errors don't appear by the moment, I though that the Gigabyte's linked in product page was the latest one but it isn't. Anyway I don't notice any performance advantage over the Windows generic one.


Conclusion, use the AMD one but the LATEST version from the AMD page and not from the motherboard one.


----------



## pigulici (Sep 1, 2011)

I allways install amd ahci driver


----------



## qubit (Sep 1, 2011)

With a question like that, you could potentially be facing a blue screen of death and an unworkable PC.

I recommend installing Windows on a separate hard drive and trying everything out on that. When you're happy that it's all working, you can image it over the original drive.


----------



## Woomack (Sep 1, 2011)

I don't know how on older boards but on 990FX last 2 versions of AMD driver are working faster and I have no stability issues.


----------



## Mussels (Sep 1, 2011)

i always use AMD's one, with no problems.


----------



## TheLaughingMan (Sep 1, 2011)

Depends on your setup. Testing with my MSI 708GX-G65 shows the most up to date AMD AHCI drivers run about 8 MB/s slower than the Microsoft generic ones in sequential read/write. The only thing it seems to affect is initial boot time.

On the flip, when comparing the exact same drivers on an APU build (Gigabyte A75M-UD2H) I found the AMD AHCI drivers were 16.5 MB/s faster than Microsoft's in the same test. It would seem their AHCI drivers favor SATA3 (6 Gb/s). So you having a 900 series board, the AMD AHCI drivers should net you better performance.


----------



## Tartaros (Sep 2, 2011)

Thanks all for the replys. The rig is the one I have in my system specs, it's a 790fx chipset. I'm using a ssd, so I need a driver with trimm support, when I did the last format, there wasn't any amd ahci driver with trimm support so I left the widows one but now the amd driver has trimm. 

I was about to install the amd one but I guess I'll stick with window's. It's not like I need much bandwith because it is the os drive and of course the majority of programs will be on another drive, but I would prefer the better or at least the safest one.

EDIT: I have some spare time these days, so I'll test the 2 drivers and post the results. At least it can be useful to other people.


----------



## Jetster (Sep 18, 2011)

Question, ahci even with a plater drive? Any other benefit besides hot swap? Why AMD driver? are they proprietors of ahci?


----------



## pigulici (Sep 18, 2011)

yes.yes.why not?.no.


----------



## btarunr (Sep 18, 2011)

Jetster said:


> Question, ahci even with a plater drive? Any other benefit besides hot swap? Why AMD driver? are they proprietors of ahci?



NCQ and some extended power management features. You can't have them in IDE mode.


----------



## Derek12 (Sep 18, 2011)

btarunr said:


> NCQ and some extended power management features. You can't have them in IDE mode.



Do they work with the generic Windows driver?


----------



## Mussels (Sep 19, 2011)

Derek12 said:


> Do they work with the generic Windows driver?



probably not.


----------



## TheLaughingMan (Sep 19, 2011)

Derek12 said:


> Do they work with the generic Windows driver?



Yes, NCQ will work with the windows AHCI drivers. I do not believe the power management features will work with them though.


----------



## Jetster (Sep 19, 2011)

So if I enable AHCI and format my system drive Is there anything I need to do with my storage drive?


----------



## ViperXTR (Sep 19, 2011)

if you installed windows 7/vista, i believe it should load the windows defaul ahci drivers. In my case i installed my OS in IDE mode, then later just made a registry change so that it would use AHCI mode without reinstalling the OS in AHCI mode. Restarting causes the OS to install the AHCI driver but i installed Intel's AHCI drivers anyway (Intel Rapid Storage Technology)


----------



## TheLaughingMan (Sep 19, 2011)

Jetster said:


> So if I enable AHCI and format my system drive Is there anything I need to do with my storage drive?



There is a program you can get that will reset windows to use AHCI without reinstalling. You basically install the AHCI drivers, do not restart, run the program, restart to BIOS, set to AHCI instead of IDE, save, done.


----------



## Jetster (Sep 19, 2011)

But ive read in a number of places that its better to do a fresh install. Windows 7 will load native drivers.  Although you can change an IDE to AHCI it can cause problems down the road according to an article i read. Or maybe it was a forum so could be wrong.  I'm do for a format anyway its been over a year. 
Ill see if I can find the article


----------



## TheLaughingMan (Sep 19, 2011)

Jetster said:


> But ive read in a number of places that its better to do a fresh install. Windows 7 will load native drivers.  Although you can change an IDE to AHCI it can cause problems down the road according to an article i read. Or maybe it was a forum so could be wrong.  I'm do for a format anyway its been over a year.
> Ill see if I can find the article



I did it years ago and it does nothing. You technically lose a little performance, but this can often be regained with a simply defrag. Doesn't solve the issue, but it is often a cause of slow drive performance high-end users ignore.


----------



## Mussels (Sep 19, 2011)

the only problem is if you DONT change to AHCI, it'll give you shit until you do.


----------

