New
#21
Personally, I have tested both AHCI and IDE on my Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3R with a Seagate 7200.12 1TB, a Western Digital 1TB caviar black and now an Intel X25-M2 80GB SSD. For all intents and purposes, my speeds were pretty much the same across the board in either IDE or AHCI mode.
What makes my decision to stay with IDE simple is that when my box posts, and AHCI is enabled, there is about an 8-10 second pause as in initializes the controller and tries to find the drive. This 8-10 second slow down on EVERY SINGLE boot outweighs any negligible performance gain that I get back from NCQ... And with my setup, I don't have any need for hot swapping drives...so that is a moot point for me.