Intel still hasn’t planned to integrate native USB 3.0 and SATA 6 Gbits/s within its chipsets, and now the inclusion of SATA 6 Gbits/s on P55 motherboards for socket 1156, originally planned for the autumn, also seems compromised.
The additional Marvell 88SE9123 that offers this support is suffering from a fault that will require a new revision of the chip, which means that manufacturers have had to put it on hold for now. Marvell says that the problem isn’t with support for SATA 6 Gbits/s but with PATA!
Does this mean that SATA 6 Gbits/s is going to be sacrificed on the altar of PATA ? This is the curious choice that would seem to be being made by motherboard manufacturers, unless of course Marvell isn’t telling us everything in terms of the bugs that are affecting the chip. If the problem does indeed concern PATA, high end motherboards in 2010 could simply have not used this feature on the chip!
In any case, if the manufacturers want PATA support, they are going to have to find a solution quickly: lets hope that the previous version of the chip (SATA 3 Gbits/s) was pin to pin compatible as this would avoid having to rework the design of motherboards at the last minute.
