intel E6600 Core2 Duo 4MB @ 3.30 GHZ : CoolIT Eliminator
ATi Radeon X1900XTX 512MB : Arctic Cooling Accelero S1
Corsair 2x1GB DDR2-667 4-4-4-12
Creative SoundBlaster X-Fi XtremeMusic : Logitech X-530
WD 74GB Raptor (10K), WD 250GB Caviar (7.2K), WD 500GB Caviar (7.2K)
Thermaltake Toughpower 850W
Lite-On 20x DVD±R/W sATA,NEC 16x DVD±R/W IDE
NZXT. Apollo Orange Chassis
To test the performance of the drives, I measured average and maximum data transfer rate as well as random access time with three different benchmark programs: HD Tune, HD Tach, and SiSoft Sandra. All of the tests were performed after a fresh formatting of the drive at system idle. For comparison, tests were also run on my two other Western Digital drives: the WD Raptor 74GB 10k drive and the WD Caviar 250GB 7.2k (8MB cache in comparison to the 16MB on the drive up for review). To measure temperature, I used SMART temperature sensors to record temperatures during disk load. All three drives were in the case's three-drive internal cage with a 120mm fan blowing cool room-temperature air over them. Ambient temperature was 72F for all testing.
