The next question is what system do we test this from?  

Along came a chap from MSI with a GX700 17” notebook, sporting an Intel T8300, 3GB of DDR2 memory, onboard Nvidia GeForce 8600M GT 512MB graphics and loaded in a copy Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium.  Therefore this nice system should well and truly stretch the Scorpio Black in all aspects.   A quick deviation from the topic in question, this certainly is a Notebook that catches the eye straight away with its sheen finish.

Software and Benchmarks Used.

Microsoft Vista Home Premium SP1 and complete Updates
PC Vantage Mark
MAXON Cinebench 10
SiSoftware Sandra XII SP2c
HD TACH
HD Tune Professional Ver 3.0

The object of this article is not to test the actual Notebook and it must be made abundantly clear from the onset, but the actual hard disc.  So those viewers out there that are looking for additional tests of the actual Notebook in its other performance factors should contact directly the Administrator at 3D Professor and we will in turn get the results out to you as quickly as possible.

What is noticeable is how Vista has rated the Primary Hard Disc coming in at a respectable 5.7 out of 6.  This score most certainly puts the Hard Disc up with some of the faster 3 ½” Discs.

We next followed the guidance of the PC Vantage Mark and on a nice clean installation ran the benchmark.

PC Vantage Mark

MAXON CINEBENCH 10

The ORB returned some interesting scores, though once more up there in the top end is the WD Scorpio Black.   Alongside this result we ran for our own idle curiosity MAXON Cinebench 10 to see if both the system I/O and graphic’s card could cope with the test.  Surprisingly enough they both did rather well.  For the eagle eyes out there yes the OpenGL test results are correct.  What would be interesting is to see how the whole I/O would cope with an onboard professional graphic card.