Test System

Processor: Intel Core 2 Quad QX6700 @ 3GHz (9x333MHz)
Motherboard: ASUS Maximus Extrmee (Supplied by ASUS)
Memory: 2x 1GB DDR3-1600XMP OCZ (Supplied by OCZ)
Hard Disk: 2x 500GB Western Digital Caviar SE16 (Supplied by Western Digital)
Graphics Card: MSI GeForce 8800GTS 640MB (Supplied by MSI)
Cooling: GIGABYTE 3D Galaxy II (Supplied by GIGABYTE)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows XP SP2
Drivers: Intel INF 8.3.1.1009, Forceware 163.21

Today’s test system is identical to the one we recently used to test the Highpoint controller, which we have also thrown in for good measure as a desktop version along with the ICH9R SATA RAID and of course the Promise Controller.

We did both RAID 0 and RAID 1 tests to see just what we got out of each setup.


HD Tach

Version and / or Patch Used: 3.0.1.0
Developer Homepage: http://www.simplisoftware.com
Product Homepage: http://www.simplisoftware.com/Public/index.php?request=HdTachBuy It Here




HD Tach has been around for a long time and is excellent when it comes to testing hard drive performance. It is also a very handy program when it comes to testing the controller used on particular motherboards. Tests such as Read, CPU Utilization and Burst are available at a click of the button and give you a good idea of how the hard drive can perform from system to system.






Our first test gave us a surprise with the Promise controller managing to outfox the Intel ICH9R; this is likely due to large cache memory on the controller and a hardware RAID engine.