System Setup
We used the following hardware to power our test system:
- Intel Core 2 Duo E4300 1.80 GHz – (Compare Prices)
- CORSAIR Dominator TWIN2X2048-9136C5D 2 GB Kit – (Provided by CORSAIR)
- MSI NX7600GS 256MB PCI-E DDR2 Video Card – (Provided by MSI)
- Western Digital RaptorX 150GB SATA Hard Drive – (Reviewed Here)
- LiteOn DVD ROM Drive – (Provided by Geeks.com)
- iStarUSA 750PD-2 750W Power Supply – (Reviewed Here)
- Lacie 80GB USB2.0 Extrenal Hard Drive – (Compare Prices)
Our operating system of choice was the solid Windows XP Pro. All components were assembled onto the truly awesome HighSpeedPC Top Deck Tech Station.
Test Setup and Results
The overclocked conditions set the CPU to 3.0Ghz (9x333Mhz) with a CPU voltage of 1.425V. As you know by now, the RAM was set to 1066Mhz (2x 533MHz) with a voltage of 2.2V (1333MHz FSB/1066MHz RAM). The stock FSB/RAM settings are set for synchronous operation (800FSB/DDR2 800).
SiSoft Sandra
|
CPU Arithmetic |
Stock |
Overclocked |
| Dhrystone ALU (MIPS) |
16449 |
27481 |
| Whetstone iSSE3 (MFLOPS) |
11415 |
19040 |
|
CPU Multimedia |
Stock |
Overclocked |
| Int x8 iSSE (it/s) |
98440 |
165225 |
| FP x4 iSSE2 (it/s) |
53484 |
89220 |
|
Memory Bandwidth |
Stock |
Overclocked |
| Int Buffered iSSE2 (MB/s) |
4468 |
5401 |
| Float Buffered iSSE2 (MB/s) |
4457 |
5402 |
RMAA
| Frequency Response (40Hz-15kHz) dB |
+0.20,-0.26 |
Good |
| Noise level dBA |
-73.5 |
Average |
| Dynamic Range dBA |
73.1 |
Average |
| THD % |
0.013 |
Good |
| IMD + Noise % |
0.072 |
Good |
| stereo crosstalk dB |
-66.2 |
Good |
| IMD @ 10kHz % |
0.074 |
Good |
HD Tach
|
Burst Speed (MB/s) |
Avg. Read Speed (MB/s) |
Seek Time (ms) |
|
| RaptorX |
135.0 |
77.0 |
8.1 |
| Lacie HDD |
36.0 |
26.8 |
17.9 |
All around, the performance for the stock settings are pretty much on par with other boards we have tested in the past. Analog audio quality does take a slight hit compared to the higher end 680i, but it is usually recommended to acquire a dedicated sound board for gaming or for snobby audiophiles that don’t dig any background noise. That said, the quality of the digital connections did not introduce any noticeable problems during our DVD playback runs, so it should be adequate for an HTPC with the right video card and maybe one of those cool HD-DVD or Blu-ray drives.