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On this
final outing with the last of the new
ATI FireGL professional graphic cards
and maintaining the entry level
workstation stability we adhered to the
well established system utilised in
previous tests on the new ATI FireGL
Cards. This in house built system
configuration has most certainly proven
and earned and maintained its golden
spurs. One point of interest and for
peace of mind to some readers; for those
of you looking for that added security
of ECC memory, the
MSI K8N
Diamond Plus does support it. For
those of you thinking about new builds,
the direction we have taken here
certainly will help if budgets are of
concern, but you are looking for that
extra bang and your SI/VAR will be able
to provide the same system we have shown
below.
1
X MSI K8N
Diamond Plus SLI Mainboard
2 X 1GB (2GB Total) 4400PRO Corsair
TwinX Memory
1 X AMD Opteron 180 with AKASA EVO 120
AMD HEATPIPE COOLER
HSF
utilising Akasa HI-Spec
Pro-Grade + 5022
Thermal
Compound
1
X ATI FireGL V7200
2 X Western Digital 150GB 10K Raptor
with 16MB Buffer Configured to Raid 0
1 X AKASA
ECLIPSE-62
Chassis
1 X AKASA
POWERPLUS iQ 650W
1 X
AKASA 120MM
Ultra
Quiet Amber Series
for the Intake Fan
1 X AKASA 120MM
Ultra
Quiet Amber Series
for the
Exhaust Fan.
Throughout the tests
we also hooked the Akasa EVO 120
Heatpipe Cooler directly up to the Akasa
ALLInONE Controller leaving the CPU, and
system fans under its direct control of
the Auto Setting. Ambient room
temperature was a constant 22C. During
installation of Windows we once saw the
CPU temps creep up past 33C, thereafter
under the control of the ALLInONE the
CPU remained steady between the temps of
28.2C to 29.8C, under load of heavy
renders in 3D Studio Max 7. The fans
and system remaining astonishingly
silent! A true testament to Akasa’s
skilled engineering teams. You can now
fully understand why now we have chosen
this system configuration for such heavy
tests. Not withstanding MSI UK’s
contribution of the new
K8N
Diamond Plus this mainboard has shown
remarkable trustworthy stability
throughout.
Hardware
Suppliers for the Review
The ATI
FireGL V7200 came courtesy of ATI and
may also be purchased from
Man and Machine UK.
CPU paste and a majority of the
components making up Test System were
sourced from
Akasa UK
. AMD for the supply of the new AMD
Opteron 180, MSI UK for the K8N Diamond
Plus Mainboard. Corsair Memory, for
the supply of their new 4400PRO TwinX
Memory, this has made significant
increase in the systems overall
performance. More performance would be
gained under the hood of the mainboard
and this memory as the notorious tweaks
in the bios would only further increase
performance to the overclocker.
Finally but by no means least; Western
Digital for the Supply of the new 150GB
10K Raptor which allowed us to enhance
system performance in Raid 0 with the
new drives.
Our
thanks to all for making this an
interesting but exciting review
Systems
Integrators, OEM’s and VAR’s should
contact all companies directly for
pricing and availability of all
components. Members of the public
should contact their respective
suppliers requesting the parts directly
from
Akasa UK,
Boston and
Man and Machine.
Diskeeper can be purchased from most
leading Distributors and software retail
outlets. Or those of you wishing a try
before buy, a 30 day trial version maybe
downloaded direct from
www.diskeeper.com
This review was severely hampered by
very tight time constraints as these new
cards are in extremely high demand.
However, we have managed to squeeze in
as much as possible from the system
showing off as the relevant tests and
benchmarks. This though will give the
reader an indication at what to expect
actually expect.
Benchmarks, Software Used and
Conclusions (32 Bit Mode)
To complete all of the above tests on
the system has taken some considerable
time. Maintaining the fair play rules
we did not manipulate any of this
mainboards superb overclocking
facilities just to see how fast this
board is at the default settings.
To
further improve and maintain optimal
hard disk performance throughout we
utilised before each Benchmark /
Software application was run the system
had all the temporary folders and logs
dumped with the drives completely
defragged using the latest version
(Build 593) of
Diskeeper 10 Professional Premier
Edition which incorporates its new
I-FAAST technology.
The benchmarks were each run several
times over to ensure that no anomalies
or discrepancies were to be seen. All
tests have been conducted at 1280 X 1024
@ 70Hz in 32 bit colour.
Microsoft Windows XP Professional SP2
with full Updates
Diskeeper 10 Premier Edition
PCMark 2005 Advanced with patch 1.1.0
Cinebench 9.5 (New)
SPECapc for 3ds max™ 7
SPECviewperf® 8.1
SPECviewperf® 9
With this
complete we move onwards to the actual
results obtained. |
