First test are looking ok so far.. need todo some benchmarks 

Use gathering writes when using java >= 7
We disabled gathering writes because of some java bug. The problem is now fixed in java7 and above, so we should use it of we detect a java version >= 7.

See
http://bugs.sun.com/view_bug.do?bug_id=6812202
http://bugs.sun.com/view_bug.do?bug_id=6210541

src/main/java/org/jboss/netty/buffer/CompositeChannelBuffer.java src/main/java/org/jboss/netty/channel/socket/nio/SocketSendBufferPool.java
src/main/java/org/jboss/netty/buffer/CompositeChannelBuffer.java src/main/java/org/jboss/netty/channel/socket/nio/SocketSendBufferPool.java
src/test/java/org/jboss/netty/channel/socket/NioGatheringWriteBenchmark.java
diff --git a/src/main/java/org/jboss/netty/buffer/CompositeChannelBuffer.java b/src/main/java/org/jboss/netty/buffer/CompositeChannelBuffer.java
index fc72fd7ea48..66d1cd0da9e 100644
--- a/src/main/java/org/jboss/netty/buffer/CompositeChannelBuffer.java
+++ b/src/main/java/org/jboss/netty/buffer/CompositeChannelBuffer.java
@@ -26,6 +26,8 @@
 import java.util.Collections;
 import java.util.List;
 
+import org.jboss.netty.util.internal.DetectionUtil;
+
 
 /**
  * A virtual buffer which shows multiple buffers as a single merged buffer.  It
@@ -275,6 +277,9 @@ public void getBytes(int index, ChannelBuffer dst, int dstIndex, int length) {
 
     public int getBytes(int index, GatheringByteChannel out, int length)
             throws IOException {
+        if (DetectionUtil.javaVersion() >= 7) {
+            return (int) out.write(toByteBuffers(index, length));
+        }
         // XXX Gathering write is not supported because of a known issue.
         //     See http://bugs.sun.com/view_bug.do?bug_id=6210541
         //     This issue appeared in 2004 and is still unresolved!?
diff --git a/src/main/java/org/jboss/netty/channel/socket/nio/SocketSendBufferPool.java b/src/main/java/org/jboss/netty/channel/socket/nio/SocketSendBufferPool.java
index 14f5f96c415..6fec6306bcf 100644
--- a/src/main/java/org/jboss/netty/channel/socket/nio/SocketSendBufferPool.java
+++ b/src/main/java/org/jboss/netty/channel/socket/nio/SocketSendBufferPool.java
@@ -20,11 +20,14 @@
 import java.net.SocketAddress;
 import java.nio.ByteBuffer;
 import java.nio.channels.DatagramChannel;
+import java.nio.channels.GatheringByteChannel;
 import java.nio.channels.WritableByteChannel;
 
 import org.jboss.netty.buffer.ChannelBuffer;
+import org.jboss.netty.buffer.CompositeChannelBuffer;
 import org.jboss.netty.channel.DefaultFileRegion;
 import org.jboss.netty.channel.FileRegion;
+import org.jboss.netty.util.internal.DetectionUtil;
 
 final class SocketSendBufferPool {
 
@@ -65,6 +68,9 @@ private SendBuffer acquire(ChannelBuffer src) {
             return EMPTY_BUFFER;
         }
 
+        if (src instanceof CompositeChannelBuffer && DetectionUtil.javaVersion() >= 7) {
+            return new GatheringSendBuffer(src.toByteBuffers());
+        }
         if (src.isDirect()) {
             return new UnpooledSendBuffer(src.toByteBuffer());
         }
@@ -249,6 +255,80 @@ public void release() {
             }
         }
     }
+    
+    class GatheringSendBuffer implements SendBuffer {
+
+        private final ByteBuffer[] buffers;
+        private final int last;
+        private long written;
+        private final int total;
+
+        GatheringSendBuffer(ByteBuffer[] buffers) {
+            this.buffers = buffers;
+            this.last = buffers.length - 1;
+            int total = 0;
+            for (ByteBuffer buf: buffers) {
+                total += buf.remaining();
+            }
+            this.total = total;
+        }
+        
+        public boolean finished() {
+            return !buffers[last].hasRemaining();
+        }
+
+        public long writtenBytes() {
+            return written;
+        }
+
+        public long totalBytes() {
+            return total;
+        }
+
+        public long transferTo(WritableByteChannel ch) throws IOException {
+            if (ch instanceof GatheringByteChannel) {
+                 long w = ((GatheringByteChannel) ch).write(buffers);
+                 written += w;
+                 return w;
+            } else {
+                int send = 0;
+                for (ByteBuffer buf: buffers) {
+                    if (buf.hasRemaining()) {
+                        int w = ch.write(buf);
+                        if (w == 0) {
+                            break;
+                        } else {
+                            send += w;
+                        }
+                    }
+                }
+                written += send;
+                return send;
+            }
+        }
+
+        public long transferTo(DatagramChannel ch, SocketAddress raddr) throws IOException {
+            int send = 0;
+            for (ByteBuffer buf: buffers) {
+                if (buf.hasRemaining()) {
+                    int w = ch.send(buf, raddr);
+                    if (w == 0) {
+                        break;
+                    } else {
+                        send += w;
+                    }
+                }
+            }
+            written += send;
+
+            return send;
+        }
+
+        public void release() {
+            // nothing todo
+        }
+        
+    }
 
     final class FileSendBuffer implements SendBuffer {
 

diff --git a/src/test/java/org/jboss/netty/channel/socket/NioGatheringWriteBenchmark.java b/src/test/java/org/jboss/netty/channel/socket/NioGatheringWriteBenchmark.java
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..409a0457910
--- /dev/null
+++ b/src/test/java/org/jboss/netty/channel/socket/NioGatheringWriteBenchmark.java
@@ -0,0 +1,133 @@
+package org.jboss.netty.channel.socket;
+
+import static org.junit.Assert.assertTrue;
+
+import java.io.IOException;
+import java.io.InputStream;
+import java.net.InetSocketAddress;
+import java.net.ServerSocket;
+import java.net.Socket;
+
+import org.jboss.netty.bootstrap.ClientBootstrap;
+import org.jboss.netty.buffer.ChannelBuffer;
+import org.jboss.netty.buffer.ChannelBuffers;
+import org.jboss.netty.channel.Channel;
+import org.jboss.netty.channel.ChannelFuture;
+import org.jboss.netty.channel.socket.nio.NioClientSocketChannelFactory;
+
+public class NioGatheringWriteBenchmark {
+    
+    final static byte[] first = new byte[1024];
+    final static byte[] second = new byte[1024 * 10];
+
+    final static ChannelBuffer firstDirect = ChannelBuffers.directBuffer(first.length);
+    final static ChannelBuffer secondDirect = ChannelBuffers.directBuffer(second.length);
+
+
+    
+    static {
+        for (int i = 0; i < first.length; i++) {
+            first[i] = (byte) i;
+        }
+        
+        for (int i = 0; i < second.length; i++) {
+            second[i] = (byte) i;
+        }
+        
+        firstDirect.writeBytes(first);
+        secondDirect.writeBytes(second);
+    }
+    
+    final static ChannelBuffer firstHeap = ChannelBuffers.wrappedBuffer(second);
+    final static ChannelBuffer secondHeap = ChannelBuffers.wrappedBuffer(second);
+
+    public static void main(String args[]) throws IOException {
+        if (args.length != 2) {
+            System.err.println("Give argument direct|heap|mixed $rounds");
+            System.exit(1);
+            
+        }
+        final ServerSocket socket = new ServerSocket();
+        socket.bind(new InetSocketAddress(0));
+
+        Thread serverThread = new Thread(new Runnable() {
+            public void run() {
+                while(!Thread.interrupted()) {
+                    try {
+                        final Socket acceptedSocket = socket.accept();
+                        new Thread(new Runnable() {
+                            
+                            public void run() {
+                                InputStream in = null;
+                                try {
+                                    in = acceptedSocket.getInputStream();
+                                    int i = 0;
+                                    
+                                    while ((i = in.read()) != -1) {
+                                        //System.out.print(i);
+                                    }
+                                } catch (IOException e) {
+                                    if (in != null) {
+                                        try {
+                                            in.close();
+                                        } catch (IOException e1) {
+                                            // ignore
+                                        }
+                                    }
+                                }
+                            }
+                        }).start();
+                    } catch (IOException e) {
+                        // ignore
+                    }
+
+                   
+                }
+            } 
+        });
+        serverThread.start();
+        
+        ClientBootstrap cb = new ClientBootstrap(new NioClientSocketChannelFactory());
+        ChannelFuture future = cb.connect(socket.getLocalSocketAddress());
+        assertTrue(future.awaitUninterruptibly().isSuccess());
+        Channel channel = future.getChannel();
+        
+        
+        ChannelFuture f = null;
+        long start = System.currentTimeMillis();
+        
+        ChannelBuffer firstBuf;
+        ChannelBuffer secondBuf;
+        
+        String type = args[0];
+        if (type.equalsIgnoreCase("direct")) {
+            firstBuf = firstDirect;
+            secondBuf = secondDirect;
+        } else if (type.equalsIgnoreCase("heap")) {
+            firstBuf = firstHeap;
+            secondBuf = secondHeap;
+        } else if (type.equalsIgnoreCase("mixed")) {
+            firstBuf = firstDirect;
+            secondBuf = secondHeap;
+        } else {
+            throw new IllegalArgumentException("Use direct|heap|mixed as arguments");
+        }
+        
+        int rounds = Integer.parseInt(args[1]);
+        
+        for (int i = 0; i < rounds; i++) {
+            f = channel.write(ChannelBuffers.wrappedBuffer(firstBuf.duplicate(), secondBuf.duplicate()));
+        }
+        assertTrue(f.awaitUninterruptibly().isSuccess());
+        long stop = System.currentTimeMillis() - start;
+        ChannelFuture cf = channel.close();
+        assertTrue(cf.awaitUninterruptibly().isSuccess());
+        socket.close();
+        serverThread.interrupt();
+        
+        System.out.println("Execute " + rounds + " in " + stop + "ms");
+
+
+    }
+
+}
