Tom's New Reference System

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Hard Drive: Western Digital WD5000AAKS (500 GB)

Western Digital provided the 15 test hard drives for our test systems. We would have opted for a Raptor hard drive, but its 150 GB doesn't provide sufficient capacity to provide our raw benchmark data and the Windows installation, including the necessary applications. The WD5000AAKS is a Caviar SE16 drive with 16 MB cache, Serial ATA/300 and a 7,200 RPM spindle speed. Though it cannot compete with the latest hard drive generation (Samsung Spinpoint F1 or Seagate Barracuda 7200.11), it is a solid performer and a reliable workhorse. Thanks to its under $120 price tag, this model offers an exceptional price/performance value.

The Editors of Tom's Hardware
4 Comments Comment from the forums
  • prodevel
    I happened to buy smart or dumb enough to pretty much buy this rig a few - several months after it came out... I'm just now looking into OC'ing it. If anyone's got good links to tut's I'm game
    Reply
  • prodevel
    *I bought this rig several months ago and have LOVED it. I'm just now looking into OC'ing it. If anyone's got good links to tut's I'm game.*

    THANKS!

    Not sure what happened there w/the prev...
    Reply
  • Hothr
    Why do you use awful color schemes like this in your graphs? Yesterday's $1,250 machine benchmark graphs were the first I had actually been able to easily read. Light/Dark + Blue/Green/Red makes SO much sense. I can easily tell which system is which, and which bar is the overclocked bar. Blue, Green, Red, Purple shows no information on whether it is overclocked or not, and does not provide an easy way to tell which system is which.
    To make things worse, the key at the bottom of every graph (that I have to look at every time) is always in a different order.

    Can we please have more graphs like the $1,250 build?
    Reply
  • Hothr
    wrong article, sorry.
    Reply