How To Identify a SATA III mobo?

For what system model?

Just about everything released after 2010 is SATA 6G (often mis-named SATA III) capable.

I don't have a specific model in mind. I own some older Dells that will house an ATX or mATX board & I would like to be able to  identify SATA III mobo's on sight...provided there is a standard I can see visually. Thanks.

SInce you can add PCI-E sata controllers just about every PCI-E 2.0 or better system has SATA3 capability.   Most older systems are SATA 1 or SATA 2.   When you get back to 2004 and earlier these are ATA/IDE not sata.   Early SATA 1 boards like Optiplex GX260 are AGP.   Later Systems Like the GX620 have SATA 2 but can use a pci-e SATA 3 card like the Velocity Pro or Rocket 620 Card that western digital paired with their 3TB drive.  There is no physical or visible difference on the connectors between sata 1 2 or 3.

http://www.highpoint-tech.com/PDF/RR600/HighPoint%20Product%20Support%20and%20Warranty%20Announcement%20for%20Rocket%20620-OEM%20SATA%20Host%20Bus%20Adapter.pdf

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816115072

Is there a distinct advantage to install a pci-e SATA III card onto a mobo that only supports SATA II? I assumed SATA 1 & 2 & 3 connectors  were visually the same. So....is the diffeference built into the chipsets, bridges & cpu's?  Thanks, marcie6

For a solid state drive, yes - you will see up to twice the speed from a SATA 6G drive on a PCIe card vs one running on a SATA 3G controller.  For a single hard drive, no - no hard drive, regardless of what the interface can support, will deliver anywhere near 3G -- let alone 6G in performance.

As for native support, yes - it's the chipset that determines the SATA support revision.

Mechanical hard drives you are correct but SSD's is something else entirely.  There are Systems Like Precision T3500 and others that have X8 slots that can take a Velocity Solo X2 or an Axcelsior S card which has close to 500 meg data transfer.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00WUZPMHE/ref=twister_B075RWM6VC

https://www.amazon.com/Apricorn-Velocity-Extreme-Performance-VEL-SOLO-X2/dp/B0090IA3GY/

But will the board  boot from a drive connected to a SATA 3 PCI-e card...? That's a key question...

And the other thing to keep in mind is Dell typically uses a custom connection between the motherboard and front panel for each PC model. So unless you or somebody else has mapped (or can map) that connector, you may have problems using an old Dell case for anything other than the original board it was designed for, regardless of whether the new board is Dell or not.

The velocity solo card is well before windows 8 and has XP drivers and is bootable.   It requires an X2 or X4 or X8 slot for the X2.

THIS CARD IS NOT NVME ITS SATA

https://www.apricorn.com/upgrades/vel-solox2