Pictures, System Set-Up and Benchmarks Used

The next question is what system do we test this from?  To get the ultimate performance we dug out our supersonic Supermicro i7 system with its notorious 965 3.2GHz Extreme CPU.  Therefore, in theory a system that should fully stretch the hard disc with various tests, from File transfers to and from backup devices, Drive to Drive File Copies and so the list goes on.

Hardware Suppliers for the Review

Intel EU for the supply of the 3.2GHz Intel® Core™i7 CPU shown within the Test System.   Supermicro for the X8SAX mainboard. Crucial Memory  for the DDR3 Non-ECC Memory.  Western Digital for the VelociRaptor Hard Discs.  AMD for the supply of the FirePro V8700 professional graphics card.  Finally Akasa for a majority peripherals required for this review.

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 the system has to provide. 

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.

Benchmarks and Software

To maintain our target audience within the professional market place, though we are now seeing many old readers coming back who like the style we produce.   This in turn means all walks of life have a very good idea what they are about to buy.

 Test System 1

Microsoft Windows XP Professional
PC MARK 2005 Advanced
ATTO Benchmark
Everest Ultimate Ver. 4.6
HD Tach 3.0.4.0
SiSoftware Sandra 2009 with SP1
HD Tune Pro Ver. 3

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 has been completed many times over different periods of the system uptime to ensure of no anomalies.   Tests have been conducted at 1280 X 1024 @ 60Hz in 32 bit colour.   Results that have been shown within this review are from the benchmarks first run; not an average of 3 runs.

The results speak very clearly for themselves as a picture paints a thousand words; so there is no need for a running commentary of the results gained from each system. 

Page 1 - Introduction
Page 2 - Pictures, System Set-Up and Benchmarks Used
Page 3 - PC MARK 2005 Advanced, ATTO Benchmark and Everest Ultimate Ver. 4.6
Page 4 - HD Tach 3.0.4.0
Page 5 - SiSoftware Sandra 2009 with SP1
Page 6 - HD Tune Pro Ver. 3 and File Transfer Copy Speeds
Page 7 - Conclusions