GA-965P-DS3 SATA Controller Question

Hi all. I'm going to build my new system in a couple of weeks, and had in mind to use the Intel ICH8 chipset on the DS3, as it will be non-RAID. I thought the Gigabyte (JMicron) is only for SATA. But, I came across a few interesting things which are swaying me toward using the Gigabyte controller and wanted to check these and ask for advice/suggestions.
1. I only have two SATA drives and will not have more internally. I will have one in an eSATA enclosure (which can connect to either controller).
2. I read some people say that the Gigabyte controller cannot be used for both SATA and IDE (as the JMicron controls both) but then read that this is only true if the SATA is used in RAID mode. In non-RAID I believe mode the SATA and IDE can be use without problems?
3. Probably most importantly - the Gigabyte controller supports AHCI, NCQ etc. and is meant to be quite a bit faster than the ICH8.

I checked comparisons at Techreport showing comparisons between the ICH8 and ICH8R (the Gigabyte is similar to the ICH8R in that supports those speed-enhancing features), especially the HDD related benchmarks, and it looks like the AHCI/NCQ etc. makes quite a difference.

Is there anything wrong/bad about using the Gigabyte controller over the Intel that I may be missing? It looks like it will be quite a bit faster. Also just to double check, there shouldn't any problem or negative affects by having the Gigabyte controller handle both the SATA and IDE (optical) drives is there?

Thanks and Cheers!
X

i think your confusing things.... all the 965 mobo's with ich8/ich8r have the jmicron controller for IDE support. while the JMB363 does support these features as seen here
http://www.jmicron.com/Product_JMB363.htm

even on my motherboard i can not select the AHCI mode for the jmicron controller. the bios needs to be updated so that AHCI can be used on the JBM363. i have a feeling they wont do that since if you want that feature they want you to buy the board with ICH8R. as i said the JMB363 was meant for legacy support of IDE drives, since ICH8(r) does not natively support IDE.