Our array of “in house” test systems has now been fully completed as over the forth coming months, many exciting things will be happening here that will have you aghast with awe. Intel has certainly pulled out the stops with these excellent parts which in turn means we can now demonstrate with the newer peripherals that are coming online the best possible results. This in turn will demonstrate to you the end user just what to fully expect when you purchase systems of the like we have here in situ.
With the supplied parts on show today these main parts now form part of our “mainstay in house” test system supplied courteously by Intel, Crucial Memory and ATI; which could be found in most high-end studios and enthusiast workstation scenarios. This is a very reliable and sound workstation platform which has plenty of scope for upgrading.
Component | Sandy Bridge Test Systems |
CPU | 1 X 3.4GHz Intel® Core™ i7 2600K Processor |
Mainboard | Intel® Mainboard DP67BG |
Memory | |
Hard Drive | 1 X 250GB Intel® Solid-State Drive 510 |
Graphic Card | 1 X ATI FirePro® V7900 |
Operating System | Windows 7 Professional 64-Bit SP1 |

Hardware Suppliers for the Review
Intel EU for the supply of the 3.4GHz Intel® Core™ i7 2600K Processor, the Intel® Mainboard DP67BG and the 250GB Intel® Solid-State Drive 510
Crucial Memory for the DDR3 PC3-17000 2133MHz Unbuffered Non ECC Memory, thank you for pulling out the stops here.
AMD for the supply of the FirePro™ V7900 professional graphics card.
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 the system has to provide and notwithstanding the new AMD FirePro™ V7900 professional graphic card from AMD.
What we also have to take into due consideration is that the card is also aimed squarely at studio’s that have several types of Intel Xeon set-ups and Multimedia Systems. In the forthcoming weeks we aim to show off the card upon these types of systems so that the reader has better understanding on how much raw performance can be gained from their own individual systems.
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. One main e-tailer that can supply the EU reader readily all the parts listed you should pop over to SCAN and see what today’s best bottom dollar deal is on the main parts listed.
Benchmarks and Software Used 64-bit Mode
Microsoft Windows 7 Professional 64-bit
SiSoftware Sandra 2011 (Latest Build)
Redway Turbine Benchmark
Bentley MicroStation Benchmark
Cinebench 11.5 64-bit
SPECapcSM for Maya 2009
SPECapc for SolidWorks 2007™
SPECviewperf® 11.0 64-bit
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. Whilst maintaining the fair play rules of SPEC® HyperThreading and Turbo Boost have been enabled, with the memory being left in its default status of Auto. Tests have been conducted at 1920 X 1020 @ 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 seem prudent to think that this is correct.
Page 1 – Introduction
Page 2 – The V7900 Part I
Page 3 – The V7900 Part II
Page 4 – The Differences and Pictures
Page 5 – System Set-up and Software Used
Page 6 – SiSoftware Sandra 2011 Part I
Page 7 – SiSoftware Sandra 2011 Part II
Page 8 – Miscellaneous Professional Benchmarks
Page 9 – SPECviewperf® 11.0 and SPECapc’s
Page 10 – Conclusions and Award