OCZ has had a speedy development with its in-house designed controller Everest after the acuisition of Indilinx. As it turns out its own controllers are actually based on silicon from Marvell, which includes the latest addition Vertex 4.
After OCZ acquired controller maker Indilinx its own Everest SSD controller appeared much faster than expected. First in the Octane series and recently in the Vertex 4 series. OCZ Technology has now confirmed that Everest and Everest 2 are in fact not creations by Indilinx but based on silicon from popular circuit maker Marvell.
OCZ and subsidiary Indilinx have developed unique firmwares for the controllers while OCZ also claims that is is running Marvell’s silicon at higher frequencies than the competition.
OCZ Octane and Petrol that use the Everest 1 controller from Indilinx is in fact a higher clocked Marvell 88SS9174 controller, the same SSD circuit found in Corsair Performance Pro, Intel 510 and Crucial M4.
The new OCZ Vertex 4 in turn is based on Everest 2 that is the market’s first SSD with Marvell’s 88SS9187 controller, a circuit that was announced only a month ago.
What this means for OCZ and its work with Indilinx in the future is hard to say, but the company has already presented the first circuits from its joint venture. Its first PCIe controller Kilimanjaro was shown back at CES.
Whether OCZ will roll out its own SSD controllers in retail soon we don’t know. We hope to see more competition, but at the same time it is hard to complain when the tweaking of the firmware with established hardware show such big gains. We would have appreciated a bit more openness with the products and the content inside, even if the performance is what counds in the end.
Source: Anandtech
