Dual Core Stress Test: AMD vs. Intel

Components Under Pressure: Hard Drive

For data storage, both systems have two Western Digital WD1600SD-01KCB0 hard drives, each with 160 GB storage capacity. Note: for each computer the system and source data are located on one hard drive, while the computed data are written onto the second one.

Harddisks with active cooling

Components Under Pressure: Display

As the graphics subsystem features two graphics processors each and a total of 512 MB of frame buffer, the test is being conducted with picture resolution of 1600 x 1200 pixels. For this reason we have deployed Prolite H2010-B1 TFT monitors from Iiyama.

Components Under Pressure: Case And Power Supply

The transparent cases are available from Alternate, which are normally offered only for trade shows and demonstration purposes. The air circulation with these cases is identical to that of standard cases. Also, the towers are equipped with two fans, located in front of the hard drives on the front and underneath the power supply on the back.

Turbo-Cool 850 SSI with 850 watts

High demands are also being placed on the power supplies, as the components used are very power-hungry. Because of the bad experience we had with Tagan in the last test, we decided to go with the Turbo-Cool 850 SSI from PC Power & Cooling. No, it's not a misprint: the two power supplies achieve what is perhaps a record output of 850 Watts!