Test Setup And SSD Details
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| System Hardware | |
|---|---|
| Hardware | Details |
| System I | |
| CPU | Intel Core i7-920 (45nm, 2.66 GHz, 8 MB L2 Cache) |
| Motherboard (Socket 1366) | Supermicro X8SAX Revision: 1.1 Chipset: Intel X58 + ICH10R BIOS: 1.0B |
| RAM | 3 x 2 GB DDR3-1333 Corsair CM3X1024-1333C9DHX |
| System II | |
| CPU | Intel Core i7-920 (45nm, 2.66 GHz, 8 MB L2 Cache) |
| Motherboard (Socket 1366) | Asus Rampage II Gene Revision: 2.0G Chipset: Intel X58 + ICH10R BIOS: 0809 |
| RAM | 3 x 2 GB DDR3-1066 CorsairTR3X6G1600C8D |
| System III | |
| CPU AMD | AMD Phenom II X4 955 (45 nm, 3.2 GHz, 4 x 512 KB L2 and 6 MB L3 Cache, TDP 125 W, Rev. C2) |
| Motherboard (Socket AM3) | Gigabyte MA790FXT-UD5P (Rev. 1.0) Chipset: AMD 790GX, SB750 BIOS: 3L (04/08/2009) |
| RAM | 2 x 2 GB DDR3-1600 (Corsair CM3X2G1600C9DHX) |
| System IV | |
| CPU AMD | AMD Phenom II X4 955 (45 nm, 3.2 GHz, 4 x 512 KB L2 and 6 MB L3 Cache, TDP 125 W, Rev. C2) |
| Motherboard (Socket AM2+) | MSI K9N2 Diamond Revision: 1.1 Chipset: Nvidia 780a BIOS: 2.4 |
| RAM | 2 x 2 GB DDR2-1066 GeIL (GE24GB1066C5DC) |
| HDD System | Seagate NL35 400 GB ST3400832NS 7,200 RPM, SATA/150, 8 MB Cache |
| System Drive Controller | Promise SATA 300 TX4 |
| HDD | 6 x Intel X25-E 64 GB SSD |
| Graphics | Zotac Geforce GTX 260² GPU: Geforce GTX 260 (576 MHz) Graphics RAM: 896 MB DDR3 (1998 MHz) Stream Processors: 216 Shader Clock: 1242 MHz |
| Power Supply | OCZ EliteXstream 800W OCZ800EXS-EU |
| Benchmarks | |
| Performance Measurements | h2benchw 3.12PCMark Vantage 1.0 |
| I/O Performance | IOMeter 2006.07.27File Server-Benchmark, Web Server-Benchmark, Workstation-Benchmark, Database-BenchmarkStreaming ReadsStreaming Writes |
| System Software and Drivers | |
| Drivers | Details |
| Operating System | Windows Vista Ultimate SP1 |
| AMD Chipset | 9.6 |
| Intel Chipset | Chipset Installation Utility 9.1.0.1007 |
| Nvidia Forceware | 15.26 |
| Nvidia Graphics | 186.18 |
| Intel Matrix Storage | 8.7.0.1007 |
| AMD RAIDXpert | 2.4.1540 |
The Test Drives: 6x Intel X25-E Flash SSDs
Intel’s X25-E professional flash SSD has been the premier choice for high-end PC and workstation solutions due to its impressively high performance, both in throughput and I/O performance. Many other flash SSDs might be capable of delivering the same and even more than the 200 MB/s throughput, but most cannot maintain Intel’s high write performance, low latencies, and I/O performance numbers, which are still unmatched. The X25-E has a downside, though: it still costs several hundred dollars for today’s 32 or 64 GB models. Maximum performance comes at the expense of capacity.
