Test Setup
I was a little disappointed in the system’s overclocking capabilities. I was not expecting a lot of head room on the QX9770 but I could not even get it to boot at 4 GHz without boosting the CPU’s voltage. To get it to the highest stable overclocked FSB speed of 407 MHz, I had to apply 1.3875 V to the CPU and this put the CPU right at the temperature limit, even with the fans at their highest settings.
The disappointment continued with the E8400. It could run easily at 3.6 GHz but trying to overclock it above that made it unstable without extra voltage added to the CPU. This is contrasted by the P35-based system, pushing the same E8400 with no voltage changes at all to 4 GHz by just boosting the FSB speed to 445 MHz. Finally, the E7200 was able to easily reach 3.6 GHz with a 9x multiplier at a 400 MHz FSB speed (which surprised me, but again, any FSB speed over 400 MHz made the system unstable, even with a lower multiplier). So the common thread here is that the FSB is limited to just over 400 MHz. You might be able to do better than this, but not without seriously tweaking the voltages.
Performance
The SX48P2 is an X48-based system with a QX9770 CPU and one of the fastest video cards on the market, so we would expect it to tear through the benchmarks. What we look for are weaknesses that would prevent this system from meeting our expectations.
Gaming Benchmarks
These include some game play from each level of the single-player games. Sometimes a few frames during a cut scene or when a game was loading were captured, which did not affect the overall results. However, this is why we have some exceedingly low and high numbers.
The two main games tested were Crysis and Call of Duty 4. These proved to be the more demanding games. The truth is that the Unreal 3 engine did not push this system enough to make more benchmarking worthwhile. Multiple levels of the game were played for all of the titles used for the tests and at least 30 minutes of game play were captured for each group of benchmarking results.
System configurations
Shuttle Prima SX48P2 Deluxe system
| Table 2: SX48P2 Deluxe System Hardware | |
|---|---|
| Item | Details |
| Processor | Intel QX9770 and E8400 |
| Motherboard | Intel X48 |
| RAM | Corsair 4 GB WIN3X20481600C7DHXIN DDR3 |
| Hard Disk Drive | 2 Western Digital 150 GB Raptors |
| Network | Dual On-board Gigabit Ethernet and Wireless |
| GPU | XFX GTX280, Visiontek HD 4850 and EVGA GT8800 |
| PSU | Shuttle 450 W PSU |
| Case | Shuttle XPC |
| OS | Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit with all updates |
X38-based system
| Table 3: System Hardware | |
|---|---|
| Item | Details |
| Processor | Intel QX9770 |
| Motherboard | Intel X38 |
| RAM | 4 GB of Corsair TWIN2X4096-6400C4DHX DDR2 |
| Hard Disk Drive | 2 Western Digital 150 GB Raptors |
| Network | On-board Gigabit Ethernet |
| GPU | Visiontek HD 4850 and EVGA GT8800 (GTX280 would not fit due to board components) |
| OS | Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit with all updates |
P35-based system
| Table 3: System Hardware | |
|---|---|
| Item | Details |
| Processor | Intel QX9770 |
| Motherboard | Intel P35 |
| RAM | 4GB of Corsair TWIN2X4096-6400C4DHX DDR2 |
| Hard Disk Drive | 2 Western Digital 150 GB Raptors |
| Network | On-board Gigabit Ethernet |
| GPU | XFX GTX280, Visiontek HD 4850 and EVGA GT8800 |
| OS | Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit with all updates |