The Need For Speed - The ATI Choice With The Power of Two

System Set-Up

In the production of an article like this we try whenever possible to get a huge array of systems together to demonstrate what can be achieved from systems most likely to be used in the community.   We took out our mainstay test systems supplied from Intel and  Supermicro.  We have as will be seen below a gracious array of some of the best equipment to hand for the modern studio and artist.  Notwithstanding the CrossFire Pro™ test have been completed on Single Socket mainboards and Dual Sockets mainboards.      Our explanation of choice will be shown within the conclusions.   And, in maintaining this run of "The Need for Speed" the hard discs in all but one configuration are SSD's.    The recent announcement of the new SSD's from Intel,  OCZ, Crucial and the likes has not only made them more affordable, but in higher capacities as well.  But is the wear leveling algorithms sufficient - time will tell.   Coming back to todays article, the systems we have shown are all readily available from many good S.I.'S. and VARs.  There will also be a substantial amount of solo studio's that build their own systems and rely heavily upon what has been shown here today.   So to reiterate. There are many points of focus that the suppliers can push these systems into, though primarily it’s as we said in the onset a good workstation that can be used in just about ever scenario you can possibly think of.   Which in turn means the corporate user, many small offices will benefit greatly and of course the high-end SoHo user that just needs a good all in one system that they can safely surf the net, play a video and of course most importantly safely produce those high-end drawings or scenes needed for the clients.  All of these systems shown are extremely functional and meet that all important mission critical scenario.

Hardware Suppliers for the Review

Supermicro for the supply of the X8DAi Mainboard and X8SAX Mainboard with the additional 2 X 32GB Intel Enterprise SSD's

Intel EU for the supply of the 3.2GHz Intel® Xeon® W5580 Nehalem EP® CPU's and the associated Intel® Server Chassis SC5650WS.  The Intel® Core™ i7 Processor Extreme Edition CPU's - i7 975 (3.33GHz) and i7 965 (3.2GHz) Nehalem's shown within the single socket test systems and lastly the sound workhorse the DX58SO Mainboard

Crucial Memory  for the DDR3 1333MHz Unbuffered ECC Memory and ECC Memory, thank you for pulling out the stops here, currently DDR3 ECC memory is a very limited supply option from most memory makers.  Validated memory modules may be found on both respective companies websites that has been tested.  Our advice here is don't cut the corner on this important part of the system build as it could turn out to be a very costly mistake.  On going to print we have been advised by Micron/Crucial that their is a good supply of these memory modules.

ATI for the supply of the 2 FirePro V8700 professional graphics cards.

Akasa for the supply of the Chassis (Omega and Infiniti ZOR), AK 965 Plus Heatsink Fan and PSU

Noctua for the supply of the 2 new NH-U9DX 1366 EP heatsink fans

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 both 32-bit and 64-bit Mode

The test system shown within will be readily found within many arena's soon, therefore those just wishing the simple upgrade of this new technology in combination with the ATI FirePro V8700 ran as a singular card then moved up a gear into CrossFire they can see readily how much performance gain has been achieved

Microsoft Windows XP Professional 32-bit SP3
Microsoft Windows XP Professional 64-bit SP2
HD Tach 3.0.4.0
PCMark 2005 Advanced
SiSoftware Sandra 2009 SP3
SPECviewperf® 10.0 – 32 & 64-bit.   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® fair play rules.  Not an average of 3 runs as some places seem to think is right. 

Page 1 - Introduction
Page 2 - Build Pictures
Page 3 - Build Pictures Continued
Page 4 - Systems Set-Up and Benchmarks Used
Page 5 - HD Tach 3.0.4.0 and PCMark 2005 Advanced
Page 6 - SiSoftware Sandra 2009 SP3
Page 7 - Intel DX58S0, i7 975 3.33GHz and SPECviewperf® 10.0 32-bit
Page 8 - Supermicro X8SAX i7 965 3.2GHz and SPECviewperf® 10.0 32-bit
Page 9 - Intel Shady Cove, Dual W5580 3.2GHz and SPECviewperf® 10.0 64-bit
Page 10 - Supermicro X8DAi Dual W5580 3.2GHz and SPECviewperf® 10.0 64-bit
Page 11 - Conclusions and Award