System Builder Marathon, Sept. 2011: $2000 Performance PC

Benchmark Results: 3DMark And PCMark

PCMark’s hard drive test is the only synthetic benchmark that’s important to our overall performance evaluation since it factors so heavily into our assessment of storage performance. And yet, 3DMark 11 is still entertaining because it lets us know how significant our graphics upgrade really is.

Although we're using the same CPU, 3DMark shows a big boost in Direct 3D performance attributable to our graphics card upgrade.

PCMark loves the new build’s Adata S511 SATA 6Gb/s SSD.

Forget the past system’s SSD RAID 0 configuration; the single S511 is where you’ll find the most performance.

Thomas Soderstrom is a Senior Staff Editor at Tom's Hardware US. He tests and reviews cases, cooling, memory and motherboards.