Vertex Series SATA II 2.5" SSD

This now brings us to the system of choice, we have many here of which we could show off the Vertex with but, a recent  SPEC Viewperf 10 submission caught our eye.   A swift look here and the numbers are pretty spectacular to say the least with the SUN Ultra 27.   Therefore screwdriver to hand and a swift tweak to our faithful Intel X58BP system we recently reviewed and we came up with the following system specifications that near matched.  A few draw backs here was that of the NVIDIA Quadro®FX5800 the SUN used.   We popped in the reliable NVIDIA Quadro®FX4800 and hoped that this would produce some numbers that near as would match the mighty SUN submission.  

Our other differences which the eagle eyed amongst you will have spotted is that we have used Microsoft Windows XP Professional 64-bit and not Microsoft Windows Vista^® Ultimate 32-bit.  In theory we should see an approximate 5 - 7% difference in results and they should be in the favour of Windows Vista 32-bit.  We will see as the article unfolds.  Finally the CPU was that of a 3.2GHZ W3570 and not the 3.33GHz W3580 which SUN used.

Intel EU for the supply of the 3.2GHz Intel® Xeon® Processor W3570 and the Intel® Workstation Board X58BP

Crucial Memory  for the DDR3 1333MHz Unbuffered ECC Memory.  

NVIDIA for the supply of the Quadro® FX4800 professional graphics card..

Akasa for the supply of the AK967 NERO Heatsink Fan and PowerMax 850W PSU

OCZ  for the key component of this specialised test incorporating the OCZ Vertex Series SSD

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.

With the support and help of all the companies involved.   It gives you the reader a new choice on upgrade paths that
many of you look for here with the performance ratio’s each system has to provide.  One main e-tailer that can supply the EU reader readily all the parts listed you should pop over to SCAN and see what  todays best bottom dollar deal is on the parts listed.

Benchmarks and Software used in 64-bit Mode

Microsoft Windows XP Professional 64-bit SP2
SiSoftware Sandra 2009 SP4 64-bit tests only
Everest Ultimate Ver. 5.03
PCMark 2005 Advanced
Cinebench 10 64-bit
SPECapc for SolidWorks 2007™
SPECviewperf® 10.0 64-bit tests only.   Tests ran at 1280 X 1024 Resolution.

Each set of tests has been applied on the clean system hard drives shown above to ensure that no residue drivers were left installed with all updates/patches applied.   A test/render has been completed many times over different periods of the system uptime.   Maintaining the fair play rules of SPEC® and following the lead of recently submitted results - HyperThreading disabled and Turbo Boost enabled and the memory has been changed from Auto to 1333MHz.   Tests have been conducted at 1280 X 1024 @ 60Hz in 32 bit colour.   Results that have been shown within this article are from the application/benchmarks first run in accordance with the SPECviewperf® and SPECapc™ fair play rules.  Not an average of 3 runs as some places seem to think is right.