Testbed Configuration and Methods

• Mainboard: ASUS P5WDG2-WS
• Processor: Intel Pentium Extreme Edition 955
• Cooler: Thermaltake Big Typhoon (1200rpm)
• Memory: 512MB DDR2 SDRAM
• Graphics card: ATI Radeon X800XL 256MB
• Hard disk drive: Seagate Barracuda 7200.8 200GB
• Power supply: Seasonic SS-401HT

There are four test modes:

• Idle
• CPU Burn (two copies of the CPU Burn program running simultaneously)
• VGA Burn (Unreal Tournament running at the highest graphics quality settings)
• HDD Burn (two file-sets are being copied simultaneously from one into another partition on the same HDD: a 7GB folder with numerous small files and a 40GB folder with movies)

The CPU and mainboard temperatures are read with ASUS PC Probe which is included with the mainboard. The temperatures of the graphics card’s GPU and PCB are reported by RivaTuner. The temperature of the hard disk is read with HDD Thermometer.

The ambient temperature during the test remained constant at 23°C. All the temperatures were read after they have fully stabilized.

Performance