Testing (continued):
PassMark's Performance Test v6.1 offers a whole suite of tests which can analyze the performance of an entire system. The complete suite was executed and a few composite scores were recorded in order to provide an overview of system performance. In addition to "Marks" for CPU, Disk, Memory, and 3D Graphics, the overall PassMark Rating is shown in the chart below. Higher numbers are better for these unitless values.
While the performance relative to other systems may be hard to gauge, what we can see is that overclocking the processor and memory provides quite a boost to all components. While the 3D graphics will be tested in more depth later in the review, this test does reveal that the onboard graphics are the weakest link in the system's performance.
HD Tune is a quick and easy test that analyzes the performance of a hard drive in terms of burst rate (MB/s), average transfer rate (MB/s), access time (ms), and CPU utilization (%). Higher is better for the burst rate and average transfer rate, while lower is better for access time and CPU utilization.
Even though I did not expect for there to be any difference in performance, HD Tune was executed with the system at stock speed as well as overclocked. The results were about the same in either condition, but it was interesting to note that three of the four results were actually better with the system overclocked. Of more interest is that the 3Gbps capable hard drive isn't performing at a level anywhere close to what it is capable of. The hard drive controller is rated for 3Gbps operation, but the burst rate of 123.9MB/s is more like 1.5Gbps operation.
One nice feature, especially on a board at a lower price point, is that a few varieties of RAID are made available through the AMD SB700 chipset.
