TheOverclocker Issue 11 - 2010.10 by Coool

October 2010 | Issue 11 rev 2.0

The World’s best Overclocking online magazine. period.

an all New r! locke overc

! e v i us s. v 9 excl D U – A 8 5 X TE XTREME E III GIGABY ASUS RAMPAGE

2.0

w e uss i c v s i d r d an inte a i s y a fly r l 3 p Su ma ing with o t o g ck We erclo gs ov n i h t l al

ed w e i v re

ASUS

pg.8

CROSSHAIR

pg.12

ULA 4 FORM

AMDm II X6 1090T Pheno

l a t i g i D dd n r e t Wes or 600Gb H rapt Veloci

pg.22

! E R + MO

A new Era In the two or so years, that this publication has existed, it has by and large improved with every issue. True enough there have been some difficult times as is always the case with just about every publication; for the most part it has proven itself to be a relevant and what we’d like to believe a much needed publication. My involvement with the magazine has changed over the years, from being a contributing writer, to a deputy editor to where I find myself now, taking the reins from a dedicated and passionate Editor. It’s beyond daunting to say the least and it’s definitely far more challenging when you are dealing with every detail as opposed to tackling specific aspects of the magazine. It is with this new found respect that I undertook the job of steering this publication further into the right direction, at the very least moving forward with what had been established while navigating new areas for the magazine. We may be a significantly smaller team now than before, but none the less we have great support structures along with a diverse group of partners (and a kickass designer) to further improve on what we already consider the most focused publication in this field. As before, we are unlikely to ever be the first with breaking news about any product, but we will give you, our readers - a mature and more objective view on any piece of kit we take the time to examine. We are aware that there may have been an irregular timing to the magazine release schedule before and this is something we will be addressing immediately. So Take it as our promise to you, that unless something drastic happens, you should expect a magazine form us every second 4 The OverClocker October 2010

month, and as this one is later than we had envisioned, we will be back in November again. Rest assured we enjoy doing this in as much as we hope you enjoy reading it.

The Overclocker is published by OCL-Media cc Editor Neo Sibeko neo@theoverclocker.com Art Director Chris Savides Chief Reviewer PRO Contributing writer Dino Strkljevic Contributing Editor Nick Ross For advertising mail: neo@theoverclocker.com

If this, as my first note reads like a eulogy or something equally exciting, ‘tis not because I lack humour, but simply because I owe you at least one Editor’s note that isn’t riddled with lamentable attempts at humour (Imagine, Kimi Raikkonen’s stand up comedy career if you will - It can only end in tragedy) With that said, I hope you enjoy this issue of “TheOverclocker”, we’d ask you to drop us a line, but we have a paralyzing fear of keyboard Rambo’s and Prehistoric Gerbils, as such we ask only you read through, if you like it, tell your friends, if not, tell them anyway. Signing off. [Neo]

“We ’d as k yo of ke u to yboa drop rd R us a only amb line, you o but w ’s an r e a d Pr tell d e ha t h ehis roug them ve a toric h, if para anyw you G lyzin e ay.” r like bils, g fea it, te as su r ll yo ch w ur fr e ask iend s, if not,

4 – Ed’s Note 6 – NEWS (Everything that’s been happening in our digital world, upcoming platform’s, hardware all exposed)

REVIEWS 10 – ASUS Crosshair 4 Formula 12 - GIGABYTE GTX460/GTS450 14- AMD Phenom II X6 1090T (Thuban, is it everything we could have possibly hoped it would be?) 18 – CORSAIR Force 120GB SSD 20 – SUPER TALENT DDR3 2200 C8 22 – SUPER TALENT RAID DRIVE 256 24 - WESTERN DIGITAL VelociRaptor 600GB

pg.10

26 – OCZ AGILITY II 60GB SSD 28 – FEATURE: GIGABYTE X58A-UD9 VS. ASUS RAMPAGE III EXTREME (PRO takes a look at two of the best X58 motherboards on the market. Read which board can claim to be the ultimate X58 motherboard)

pg.24

INTERVIEW 31- Q&A: Interview with Sup3rfly from MALAYSIA

pg.12

pg.14

October 2010 The OverClocker 5

OCZ Introduces Onyx2 range of SSDs S

AN JOSE, CA—September 27, 2010—OCZ Technology Group, Inc. (Nasdaq:OCZ), a leading provider of highperformance solid-state drives (SSDs) and memory modules for computing devices and systems, has unveiled the OCZ Onyx 2 Series, a 2.5 inch SSD with superior affordability designed for mainstream desktops and mobile systems. Offering a faster and more durable alternative to traditional hard drives in a cost-efficient solution, the Onyx 2 delivers excellent performance with lower price per gigabyte than that of other comparable drives on the market. “While we are constantly looking to push the envelope in solid state drive performance, we are also dedicated to making the technology more affordable to consumers,” said Ryan Petersen, CEO of the OCZ Technology Group. “The new Onyx 2 Series SSDs give customers the very best of both worlds when it comes to performance and value, and they are an ideal solution for mobile and desktop users that want to take advantage of all the benefits that SSDs offer over traditional rotational based drives.” OCZ continues to expand its consumer SSD lineup with the goals of not only delivering cutting-edge performance, but also of making SSDs

more affordable to help foster adoption of this game-changing technology. Designed to offer the best of both worlds, the SandForce-driven Onyx 2 delivers 270MB/s read, 265MB/s write, and up to 10,000 random write IOPS (4k aligned), without the higher costs normally associated with similar multilevel cell (MLC)-based solutions. The Onyx 2 SSD delivers an enhanced computing experience for netbooks, laptops, and home desktops with faster application loading, snappier data access, shorter boot-ups, and longer battery life and feature TRIM

support as the ultimate Windows 7 upgrade. OCZ Onyx 2 SSDs feature a durable yet lightweight housing, and because they have no moving parts are more rugged than conventional hard discs. Available in ample 120GB and 240GB capacities, the Onyx 2 is an ideal hard drive replacement for first-time SSD upgraders in need of primary laptop storage or a spacious application and OS boot drive. Designed for superior reliability, Onyx 2 Series is backed by a 2-year warranty and renowned technical support.

Kingpin Cooling F1 Gemini Pot Makes A Showing T

here’s no denying that the most widely used (and probably the most celebrated) commercial POT in extreme overclocking circles is the F1 Dragon which has been with us for some time. While no info is available on the official

6 The OverClocker October 2010

website www.kingpincooling. com, we did manage to see the POT in “limited” action over at enthusiast forum www. xtremesystems.com where, Top ranked overclocker NickShih gave a preview and spoke highly of the new F1 Gemini.

It may not be available to buy yet, but check it out anyway, looks good and if what is said is correct, it’ll be the POT to have going into this new generation of CPUs. http://www.xtremesystems. org/forums/showthread. php?t=259219

PRO takes PCmark05 record O

ur in house extreme overclocker, Pro, recently managed to take the World record in PCMark05. The new WR is now set at 35,364. In his own words, “No TWEAKS, just pure raw frequency, and the way you

love it! Gigabyte X58 GA-X58AUD3R, MSI 5870 Lightning, 4x Corsair force 60GB SSD, Corsair GTX2 RAM kit, 2x ANS-ACARD, ARECA 1280ML raid controller, 4x GIGABYTE I-RAMS, Corsair 1000W, Antec 1200OC and a

bunch of beautiful old school CORSAIR DDR1 and DDR2 sticks, the UD3R able to bring all those components together and bench the CPU at good clocks!” Well done to Pro and, keep pushing it.

GIGABYTE Previews P67 motherboard G

IGABYTE has shown off two P67 LGA 1155 Motherboards for INTEL’s upcoming Sandy Bridge CPUs. Not much to be said on the motherboards currently other than that they look to introduce a new colour scheme for the company. Both motherboards are mainly black/gun metal with gold accents on some heatsinks for the UD7 model and the traditional GIGABYTE BLUE for the UD5 model. The boards look packed with features, including what

looks to be 4 USB3.0 ports. We are unsure at present if that means there are two controllers on the board or GIGAYTE has found a vendor that has a 4-port controller. Right now the colour scheme seems to be polarizing the various online communities,

but we suspect in due time it’ll grow on us all. As far as we are concerned the new scheme is a bold move for GIGABYTE and a welcome change for us the end users. As usual, we will keep you posted on further developments. October 2010 The OverClocker 7

AMD to release new CPUs W

e would have loved to announce that AMD has pushed forward their release schedule for their next generation Bulldozer CPU’s however that isn’t the case and the “new” AMD CPUs are higher clocked versions of what we have before. What will be of interest to most readers here, will be the Phenom II 1100T BE, coming in at a 3.3GHz (Turbo up to 3.7GHz) but retaining the same 125W TDP. Lets’ hope this new CPU overclocks even better, than the 1090T. This isn’t the only new CPU in AMD’s portfolio as the company has introduced a new Quad Core Phenom II X4 975 CPU which chugs along at an respectable 3.6GHz (No Turbo as it’s based on the older Deneb core) making it the highest clocked CPU to ever come from AMD. The two remaining parts are Hex Core CPUs in the form of the 1065T and the 1045T. We will keep you posted on these “new” CPUs and take it through them through their paces once we get

our paws on them. Kingston Introduces V+ Series SSD’s using Toshiba Controller Here’s another entry into the High Performance MLC SSD market. Kingston has introduced the V+ series of SSD’s available in capacities ranging from 64GB all the way to 256GB. These Drives claim

MSI MOA 2010 Winner T

his year’s Annual MSI MOA Global final was won by none other than Team Expandable from Sweden represented by Elmor and ME4ME. The competition was tight with 2nd place team, from the Ukraine (Represented by cyclone and t0lsty) who had the fastest SuperPi 32M time of the day at 6m 20.688s but The Expendable’s 3DMark Vantage score of P37424 was far too much for all the entrants and thus they secured the victory. Well done to these two and we suspect we’ll see them again next year clocking up a storm. 8 The OverClocker October 2010

respectable speeds of 230MB/ sec (Read) and 180MB/ sec (Write). The controller comes courtesy of Toshiba T6UG1XBG controller backed with some 128MB of cache. We will be putting this drive through its paces in our next issue and give you a full report at the time.

Barts specs revealed looking good

s had been rumoured for some time, AMD (We’re still not convinced ‘AMD’ is a stronger brand than ATI in graphics, but that’s a discussion for another day) seems ready to launch their mid-range replacement for

the Juniper core that is in the current 5700 series. The Barts GPU is obviously sniping for the competitor’s GF104 and GF108 GPUs, but from the leaked specs it looks to be superior in every department (we’ll reserve tessellation

performance speculation for now). With a higher pixel-fill rate than the CypressXT, with some aggressive overclocking this could end up faster than current range topping Single GPU Radeon 5870. We await the Radeon HD6770 eagerly.

Gigabyte gooc 2010 coverd in november issue O

ur resident hardware Guru - Pro took a trip to warm Taipei, Taiwan for the GOOC 2010 World Finals that took place just a couple of weeks after MSI’s MOA. Look forward to full coverage in the November issue of the magazine.

October 2010 The OverClocker 9

Benchmarks We ran a small array of benchmarks that demonstrated performance of all aspects of the system and allow easy comparisons in future reviews. We performed these on the industry standard 3600 MHz on an un-optimized fresh install of Windows 7. SuperPI 8m, 3DMark06, Everest read: Everest write: Everest copy: Everest latency:

3m 51.894 19973 Marks SM2: 7706 SM3: 10023 CPU: 5123 10755 MBs 9264 MBs 12282 MBs 43.0

Recommended Award

ASUS CROSSHAIR 4 FORMULA RRP: $209.99 | Website: http://www.asus.com/product.aspx?P_ID=kPGmtxee5RsQVsXG&templete=2 Test Machine • Asus Crosshair IV Formula • 5870 stock using Catalyst10.2 driver • Corsair GTX2 2250 • WD VelociRaptor 600GB • AMD Phenom II X6 1090T • Antec 1200 OC PSU • Windows 7 32-Bit

or the longest time, The Republic of Gamers line form ASUS has been their flagship series. Although it has “Gamers” in the title, overclockers everywhere have no doubt in their minds these products should really be called “The Republic of Overclockers”. The features and build quality of these boards are aimed at the high end and offer all the features overclockers would need to push their systems past the design limits. The newest member of the gang is the Crosshair 4 and if the last model - the Crosshair 3 - is to be an indicator, we are in for a treat in our upcoming testing. The main difference between the CH3 and 10 The OverClocker October 2010

CH4 is that the latter is built around the 890FX chipset and is ready for the new AMD Phenom II X6 CPUs.

Analysis The benchmark results on this board looked very strong. Against last generation’s CH3 board, we could see the CH4 taking the lead in 3DMark06 and SuperPI 8M, if only by a small margin. This was to be expected though, as the new chipset was never going to mean faster or better benchmark results. It’s really meant for enabling new options and support for newer technologies, in this case, full Phenom II X6 (Thuban) CPU support. The Everest results were also decided by small margins initially. This changed when we started to increase the RAM speed on both platforms. When we got around 2000 MHz on the CH3, it crashed, yet the CH4 was happy to keep going with seemingly no end, right up to 2260 MHz. When we improved our cooling, moving onto single stage cascade at -50’C, putting our proverbial foot down

a little we saw the CH4 shine. The CH3 struggled to get past 4800 MHz but the CH4 powered the CPU past 5000 MHz towards 5100MHz using 1.55VCore. Impressive results indeed, but we were only comparing the CH4 against another ASUS board and wondered what would happen when we compared it against the competition. Comparing Pi 32M running at 3600MHz against the other top boards, we found that the CH4 had a 25 seconds advantage after the final loop. A staggering result so much so that and we had to rerun the benchmarks across all three platforms to ensure our results were not skewed in anyway. If you want to run 2D benchmarks on the AMD platform, you would be crazy to go with any other board than this. On the other hand, 3D benchmarks seemed to be similar across all three boards we had tested, with the largest difference at around 1%. Great results all around,

Summary We have had the opportunity to test a large number of 890 based boards and we can tell without prejudice, there is nothing in the same league as the CH4. The number of bios options and the way this board performs is peerless. ASUS has, for some time now, been producing the best motherboards in the AMD category and we believe this tradition continues with the CH4. We would put a warning tag on this board for subzero users, it can be amazing, but it can also be frustrating.

Would you buy it?

however there is one downside though and that’s the subzero behaviour of this motherboard. The CH3 was known to be flaky when subzero and sadly the CH4 exhibited similar behaviour. A typical scenario with a CH4 would have the board operating very smoothly, with great results then suddenly the board begins to crash. The only way to stop the problems is to cease your benching session and retry again later.

Notes on scores by others On XtremeSystems, Mad222 finally broke the 2400 MHz barrier on AMD, something that was only a pipe dream on the Deneb Core. He did so with a kit of GEIL One and hit a grand frequency of 1213MHz. At this

stage the ASUS board is head and shoulders in front of other brands where RAM clocking is concerned. Equivalent results on other boards are around the 1950 MHz mark.

Additional Information The OC Station is an available attachment for this motherboard that quite a few users might want to consider. It brings a number of valuable overclocking options out of the bios and directly into the hands of the overclocker. This enables on the fly adjustments during benchmarks which is very valuable for benchmarks like 3DMark06 or Vantage that have large differences in system requirements throughout the benchmark. This could be the difference between 1st and 2nd place.

[ Pro ]

If we were to buy any AMD 890 board this would be it. It is priced well enough to be affordable and ideal for a high end gaming system. It offers everything you could ask for except appropriate PCI-E spacing to accommodate four GPUs. It has a big brother coming later this year, the Crosshair IV Extreme; which you might consider waiting for if you need that functionality.

The Score This is a near perfect example of how to make an AMD board. Two things have cost it 10 out of 10, the first is its inconsistent performance under subzero conditions and the second is the pending release of the Crosshair IV Extreme that has the perfect slot spacing.

9/10 October 2010 The OverClocker 11

GTX 460OC-1GI

Recommended Award

GIGABYTE

GTX 460OC-1GI / N450OC-1GI RRP: GIGABYTE GTX460OC-1GI: $229.99 | GIGABYTE GTS450OC-1GI: $129.99 Website: http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3530#ov http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3593#ov Test Machine • • • •

Intel Core i7 980X Super Talent 2200 C8 OCZ AGILITY 2 50GB SSD Thermaltake Toughpower 1.5KW PSU • Windows 7 64-bit

fter having run all the tests, and several others whose results are not presented here. We came away impressed with the GTX460 as it delivered better performance than we had expected. It seems NVIDIA did some amazing work with reworking the GF104 core. It’s not quite enough to outdo the Radeon HD5850 but it is certainly a better product than the HD5830 which retails for a similar price. When overclocked it sometimes delivers numbers better than those 12 The OverClocker October 2010

of the GTX470 and the Radeon HD5850 in selected benchmarks. At $229 this is incredible value. The Heaven Benchmark results were particularly impressive because the GTX460OC delivered a marginally better score than we recorded with a Radeon HD5870 (reference model). In 3D Mark Vantage the score is equally impressive but certainly worth taking note of when the GPU and Memory have been overclocked. With a score above 18,000 it delivers numbers expected of graphics cards costing anything from $50 to $100 more. We do feel that GIGABYTE could have clocked this card a little higher, given the impressive cooler that the card comes with. Fortunately this is easily fixed with any of the available overclocking

utilities and 850MHz/2000MHz setting is easily achievable with a simple slider. As impressive as the GTX460 was, we couldn’t help but be a little underwhelmed at the performance of the GTS450. Granted it’s a $130 graphics card and meant squarely at 1680x1050 and lower, we can’t help but feel there’s some wasted potential in this graphics card, courtesy of the 128-bit bus. Against the Radeon 5770, the GTS450 struggles unless overclocked to at least 900MHz, where it makes up some ground. Given that this is the cards direct competitor, it’s puzzling why the numbers are closer to those of the Radeon 5670 instead. With that said, if the ability to use PhysX and 3D Vision is appealing to you, the GTS450 is the only DirectX11

Summary

N450OC-1GI

card that can manage all of this at this price point. For a playable frame rate in Just Cause 2 we had to disable the Bokeh-Filter, GPU Water Simulations and reduce the resolution to 1680x1050 at which point we were able to break the30fps barrier in this DirectX10 title. So if you keep the detail settings at medium to high and play at maximum resolution of 1680x1050, there’s some fun to be had with the GTS450. Overclocking this card results in limited gains, but they are easy to take advantage off because the card overclocks so well. 950MHz was our target clock and we achieved that by merely moving a slider to the right. The memory while rated at 2GHz does overclock to 2,200MHz but it doesn’t mean much with such a narrow memory

bus. With some voltage tuning we did manage 1GHz on the core, which further boosted frame rates, but not enough to make it worth the effort. The GTS450 isn’t a poor showing of the GF106 core, but rather an un-optimal one. Notes on scores by others Given that these are mainstream graphics cards, extreme overclockers are not flocking to these to break any world records, however there are a few scores on HWBOT where the a GTX460 has clocked as high as 1230MHZ on the core (Achieved by Team China’s Icw33). As the 450 is even newer and capable of even less, at the time of writing there were not any worthwhile scores we were aware of.

[ Neo ]

Gigabyte GTX460OC-1GI

Gigabyte GTS450OC-1GI

Heaven Benchmark 2.1 (1920x1080, Normal, 4xAF)

896

564

3DMark06

22888 marks SM2: 8928 SM3: 9967 CPU: 7790

17823 marks SM2: 7047 SM3: 7019 CPU: 7726

3DMark Vantage

P16322 (P18067) GPU: 13922 CPU: 33804

P11036 (P12359) GPU: 9014 CPU: 33711

Just Cause 2 (1920x1080, Max Detail, 16xAF) – Dark Tower

Average FPS: 34.24 (40.1)

Average FPS: 21.28 (23.94)

From the results, we have to conclude that, the GF104 is a better balanced graphics core than the GF106. While it’s more than likely that there’ll be more GTS450 cards sold than GT X460 cards, the truth remains that the GF104 core is an unmistakable hit, while the GF106 seems to have been crippled in a way to make it less impressive than it could have been. We would have preferred a 256-bit memor y bus, even if it made use of GDD3 as it would give a healthy boost to the frame rates and possibly give it the edge over the Radeon HD5770 As far as GIGABY TE’s offerings of these products, they may not var y from the reference design, but the WindForce coolers do make all the difference in delivering whisper quiet operation and amazingly low temperatures.

Which would you buy? Where the GTX460 is concerned, it’s an easy card to recommend. The performance is good and there is plenty of overclocking headroom. 850MHz on the core for 24/7 operation gives some good performance and because of the WindForce cooler, it’s whisper quiet. The GTS450 on the other hand is a little harder to recommend, because it’s by and large slower than the Radeon 5770 which is almost a year old and also comes in at the same price. However with some overclocking is does manage to gain some ground and does become a useful little card.

The Score The pricing for NVIDIA’s latest mainstream GPUs is really aggressive and the GPUs themselves offer great performance (at least where the GF104 is concerned). The There are plenty of faster GTX460 cards out there, but nothing an overclocking utility can’t fix. The GTS450 on the other side is a tougher sell but overclocks just as well if not better.

GTX460OC-1GI:

8/10 N450OC-1GI:

7/10

October 2010 The OverClocker 13

Benchmarks We performed these tests on the industry standard 3600 MHz on an unoptimized fresh install of Windows 7.

AMD Phenom II X6 1090T

SuperPI 8m: 3DMark06:

3m 51.255s 20803 Marks SM2: 7607 SM3: 9951 CPU: 6423

3DMark Vantage:

P17423 (GPU Score: 17056, CPU Score: 18625) GT1: 53.39 GT2: 46.41 CT1: 2420.63 CT2: 28.62

Everest read: Everest write: Everest copy: Everest latency:

10314/MBs 9353/MBs 13819/MBs 45.4/ns

Recommended Award

RRP: $295.99 | Website: http://products.amd.com/en-us/DesktopCPUDetail.aspx?id=640 Test Machine • ASUS M4A89TD Pro • 5870 stock using Catalyst 10.2 driver • Corsair GTX2 2250 and G.Skill Flare 2000 • WD VelociRaptor 600GB • Antec 1200 OC • Windows 7 32-Bit

ntel has had the performance market cornered for a while, and unless AMD can do something dramatic, it looks to stay that way for a while still. Not oblivious to this fact, AMD has been doing what they can to compete, targeting performance at specific price points over outright performance. The AMD Thuban core fits into this criteria ad understandably so because not many end-users can spend $1000 on a CPU just to benchmark, let alone for gaming. The 1090T comes in at around 30% of that price and this is great news for everyone, in particular enthusiasts. We 14 The OverClocker October 2010

have said it before and will say it again, AMD is a genuinely fun platform to overclock and the fact that the products are so affordable provides an excellent excuse for any overclocker to get involved with AMD.

Analysis The first thing we can determine from comparing 2D results directly against Phenom II X4 (Deneb) is that there is no tangible change in performance. Thuban and Deneb results are identical (clock for clock) in single threaded benchmarks but that is not the case when we take look at some multithreaded benchmarks such as 3DMark 06 and Vantage. 3DMark06 scores 20803 on the Phenom II X6 1090T up from 20003 marks on the Deneb core. We saw a huge boost in the CPU score by moving from four to six cores. Vantage was similar in scaling, the GPU scores remained near identical but the CPU

score increased by 6000 points increasing the overall score by over 2000 marks, a massive increase. It is evident the IMC (Integrated Memory Controller) on the Thuban core is much improved over the one in on the Deneb core. The improved IMC affected the NB (North Bridge) frequency as in addition to the memory frequency. Looking at the NB frequency on 1090T, we could quite easily surpass 3000 MHz using air-cooling, comfortably running LinX at 3200 MHz, in contrast to the Deneb core, where if you could run above 2900 MHz your NB would have a very strong North Bridge. This might not seem like a big shift, but in 32M, a performance gain of 300MHz can mean a reduction of 10 seconds. Moving onto memory clocking, this is where the Thuban core began to shine. Chew publically took the record for highest memory frequency on Deneb last year

Summary This CPU is leaps and bounds ahead of Phenom X4 in memory and north bridge clocking. This translates to better performance in 2D and 3D benchmarks and a step closer to Intel in the memory world. There are also big benefits for enthusiasts that wish to stay on air or watercooling, with big gains to be had in maximum stable frequencies. Overall a very good step forward by AMD. Fingers crossed that next time we see a significant performance jump in performance so the competition does not leave them behind completely.

Would you buy it? with a frequency of 1946 MHz, which at the time was quite amazing on an AMD platform. Now with Thuban, we are already looking at frequencies in excess of 2400 MHz and we are sure these results will get better as time goes on and better CPUs surface. Our experience with the CPU did not stop there, as it also seemed much easier to achieve higher LinX clocks on air-cooling, even though there are an additional 2 heat producing cores. We were able to run 20 loops of LinX with our Thuban at 4200 MHz using the reference cooler, which is approximately 200 MHz over what a good Deneb based CPU can achieve. When cooling the CPU to subzero temperatures benchmark scores over 6400 MHz seem to be possible and are a regular occurrence at HWBOT. It does seem though, that Deneb CPUS still have the

edge in the 2D benchmarks such as SuperPI 32M, where there is about 200MHz over the top Thuban frequencies. This might just be a matter of time until a great CPU is found, or it may be due to the extra heat put out by the 2 addtional cores and the inability of LN2 to achieve the temperatures required for Thuban to beat Deneb.

For a workstation or gaming machine, we would be considering this platform and this CPU. Unless you have money to burn, the 1090T really is at a great product providing all the power you need for any power workstation or gaming machine. It is worth keeping in mind that to take proper advantage of this CPU you will need to get a board based on the 800 series chipset.

The Score

Notes on scores by others Extreme overclocker Chew seems to have found some amazing CPUs; and has put up a SuperPI 32M score at 6550MHz and managed to run 3DMark Vantage at nearly 6100 MHz. We used the 1090T in our labs to push our G.Skill Flare ram kit to nearly 2400 MHz and only a few days later Mad222 pushed past the 2400 MHz barrier with a set of “Geil ONE” modules.

[ Pro ]

This is about the best score any current generation AMD part can score, and near impossible to give a higher score than this considering that Intel is a long way in front. However, the competitive price and the clock speed gains over the previous generation CPUs are more than enough to get a strong recommendation from us.

8/10 October 2010 The OverClocker 15

Recommended Award

RRP: $309 | Website: http://www.corsair.com/products/ssd_force/default.aspx

CORSAIR FORCE SERIES 120GB SSD Test Machine • Intel Core i7 960 • Gigabyte X58-UD4P • Corsair Nova Series 120GB SSD • Corsair Nova Series 128GB SSD • AMD Radeon HD5870 • Antec 1200OC PSU • WD VelociRaptor 300GB • Noctua NH-U12P • Windows 7 32-Bit

he largest gain in SSD performance over the last few years has been the Sandforce SF-1200 SSD processor. At present this controller gives the ultimate 18 The OverClocker October 2010

performance to SSDs, enabling up to 285 MB/s sequential reads and 275 MB/s sequential writes. The controller is also considered excellent for random IOPS and this is the number one reason users would consider a SSD over a magnetic disk. In competitive overclocking we don’t have a large number of uses for SSDs but they are useful for PCMark05 and Vantage which require SSDs for world records. 3DMark Vantage also benefits from faster load times and overclockers are starting to consider an SSD or two as an essential part of their toolkit.

Analysis We recorded a number of very interesting results, comparing the top of the line Corsair Force with the Nova. Taking a quick browse across all results we saw that the Force is by and large a much faster disk, but there were a few areas where the Nova was faster. Looking at the HDTUNE results, the read result was approximately 20 MB/s faster but it was the write result that was an amazing 70 MB/s faster than on the Nova. In this sequential write operation IOMETER painted a similar picture and it’s in this

Summary

Benchmarks We used a traditional benchmark such as HDTUNE but included our favourite “IOMeter”. IOMeter measures IOPS (Input Output Per Second) at different user configuration settings. We completed a set number of sequential and random tests to give a true indication of the performance on this drive. Notes

Benchmark

Result

Corsair Nova 128GB SSD Corsair Force 100GB SSD

HDTUNE read avg. HDTUNE read avg.

208.4 MB/s 238.2 MB/s

Corsair Nova 128GB SSD Corsair Force 100GB SSD

HDTUNE write avg. HDTUNE write avg.

154.8 MB/s 226.0 MB/s

Corsair Nova 128GB SSD Corsair Force 100GB SSD

IOMETER 512B RR IOMETER 512B RR

13686 IOPS 12129 IOPS

Random Read Random Read

Corsair Nova 128GB SSD Corsair Force 100GB SSD

IOMETER 512B RW IOMETER 512B RW

2319 IOPS 11136 IOPS

Random Write Random Write

Corsair Nova 128GB SSD Corsair Force 100GB SSD

IOMETER 512B SR IOMETER 512B SR

24814 IOPS 16675 IOPS

Sequential Read Sequential Read

Corsair Nova 128GB SSD Corsair Force 100GB SSD

IOMETER 512B SW IOMETER 512B SW

5530 IOPS 26769 IOPS

Sequential Write Sequential Write

Corsair Nova 128GB SSD Corsair Force 100GB SSD

IOMETER 4K SR IOMETER 4K SR

13809 IOPS 15382 IOPS

Sequential Read Sequential Read

Corsair Nova 128GB SSD Corsair Force 100GB SSD

IOMETER 4K RR IOMETER 4K RR

8719 IOPS 10532 IOPS

Random Read Random Read

Drive

sequential write result that the Force dominates. As sequential writes are fairly common types of hard drive operations, such as copying a large file from one place to another these results are of paramount importance. An even more common operation would be a random read or write operation. Random operations mimic your everyday computer usage, with lots of little read and writes to different parts of your disk as you work on a number of operations simultaneously. Looking across both random read results we saw two different results, where the Nova seemed slightly better at 512b reads while the Force better at 4K reads. This boils down to a difference in how the controllers on both disks are optimized, with the Force

better at 4K reads and for most operations a better drive for it. Perhaps for a database with a huge number of read operations you might want to consider a Nova disk over the Force, but for daily usage a Force disk has quite a few more advantage not limited to the sequential write and random write operations better handled by the Sandforce controller. We saw gains of over 500% on some of these operations and this is one of the main areas we were interested in when picking a SSD for benchmarking. The other was sequential read, as this is the type of operation that would take place when loading a game or maybe a benchmark with a large number of textures such as 3DMark Vantage. As stated before 4K sequential reads are the domain of the Force.

[ Pro ]

Corsair have quite an aggressive range of SSDs on the market and the Force is sitting right at the top of their current line using the Sandforce controller which has simply come along and conquered all in the SSD world. The advantages it shows in write operations are just phenomenal and if you take a look at the best results in a benchmark like PCMark Vantage you can see they are all achieved by using Sandforce based SSD’s. We have noticed a large number of enthusiasts moving to SSDs as system drives over the past few years and having nothing but good things to say about the performance gains they are getting from the change. We, however, still speak against using a SSD drive when benching SuperPI 32M as better Copywaza results can be achieved using traditional magnetic drives.

Would you buy it? For overclockers we would be considering this for competitive 3DMark Vantage runs or anyone remotely considering benching PCMark. Everyday users and gamers can benefit even more by reduced start up times and application and/ or game loading times. We would go as far as to recommend power users with older SSDs consider upgrading to a Sandforce based SSD.

The Score For overclockers we would be considering this for competitive 3DMark Vantage runs or anyone remotely considering benching PCMark. Everyday users and gamers can benefit even more by reduced start up times and application and/or game loading times. We would go as far as to recommend power users with older SSDs consider upgrading to a Sandforce based SSD.

9/10 October 2010 The OverClocker 19

SUPER TALENT

STT DDR3 2200 4GB CL8

Hardware Award

RRP: $225 Website: http://www.supertalent.com/products/overclock_memory_intel.php?reg=N&mtid=5&type=Core i5 Test Machine • • • • •

Intel Core i7 980X (ES) Gigabyte X58-UD7 (rev1.0) NVIDIA Geforce GTX460 OCZ Agility II 60GB SSD Thermaltake Toughpower 1.5KW • Windows 7 64-Bit

here performance DDR memory is concerned, Super Talent is no stranger as the company has over the years produced some notable kits and the WS220UX4G8 is one such kit. Super Talent kits usually retail at a more affordable price than the competitors but this shouldn’t make you think they the memory if of a lesser quality. With the WS220UX4G8, Super Talent has produced a noteworthy set featuring 20 The OverClocker October 2010

the best of both worlds. Specifically tuned for the P55 platform and it’s often more flexible memory configuration when compared to the X58 platform this is amongst the fastest sets you can buy on the market. Any set being sold at 2,200MHz with CL8-8-8-24 timings is a noteworthy kit and not surprisingly this set didn’t disappoint.

Analysis Initially we had thought about making 100MHz increments starting from 1600MHZ however, given that we knew that these were ELPIDA HYPER ICs there was no need for such as clearly evident by the 1800MHZ timings that we achieved at this frequency. While this set is optimized or rather sold as a P55

platform set, we used an X58 motherboard and CPU, if only to illustrate that this set would work equally well on both platforms. The maximum speed we could reach with the RAM at 6-6-6-18 timings was 1840MHz, regardless of the voltage applied to the memor y or V T T/QPI. Given how happy we were with the C6 results, we moved on to CL7 which we’d like to believe offers the best balance between frequency and timings. At this speed the maximum speed we could reach was 2070MHz which was great even though we had hoped for 2,100MHz. Indeed we could POST and boot into Windows at 2,100MHz, the system was not able to complete a SuperPi 1M run let alone the 32M which is what all the settings in the

table could complete. Oddly enough, for 2400MHz, only the one stick could reach this speed with such timings. The alternative stick couldn’t POST windows let alone complete any benchmark. We were surprised to see such a discrepancy between these sticks. Having said that, this set is fairly affordable and it just may be worth putting together two sets of this memory and finding the best two. With some sub-zero temperatures and some tuning we are confident that higher speeds can be achieved, add to which we maintained a B2B Latency of 2 which stressed the memory subsystem more than one would normally so there just may be some more to be had even on the X58 board. We tried relaxed settings to see if we could achieve higher speeds, but 2,400MHz seemed to be the limit for the system and we suspect this has allot to do with our particular CPU/ Motherboard combination more than the RAM’s inability

Benchmarks We per formed these tests on the industr y standard 3600 MHz on an un-optimized fresh install of Windows 7. Frequency 1800

Timings 6-6-6-18

Voltage 1.66

North Bridge 3600

2000

7-7-7-24

1.66

3600

2208*

8-8-8-24*

1.66*

3600*

2305

8-8-8-24

1.72

3840

2400

8-8-8-24

1.74

3600

Everest Copy 16560

Latency 37.7

MaxxMem Marks 1046

18622

16666

37.7

1052

19137*

17059*

37.1*

1123*

19876

17798

1206

17639

15482

36.3

1050

Everest Read 18242

to reach that speed in a dual channel configuration. As easy as it was overclocking this RAM, those on a P55 (the intended platforms) system will certainly have an easier time reaching these speeds and beyond as the set does have some headroom in it.

[ Neo ]

Summary We were more than impressed with this set, especially when looking at the entire line-up of specialized P55 i5/ i7 sets the company manufactures. This set seems to be the most balanced of the entire line-up offering high speed performance with some impressive memory settings. For gaming enthusiasts, the CL7 performance is likely what you will want to settle for, but for competitive overclockers, the ability to hit speeds above 2,300MHz will be come in handy.

Would you buy it? We would definitely fork out the money for this set, especially because given the price and the tight timings it offers. There may be even better sets out there and certainly SUPER TALENT does have a 2,400 CL9 set, however the 9-11-11-28 timings of this set do not sit well with us and we’d rather have the tight timings of this 2200 kit.

The Score We’re more than happy about the performance of the Super Talent set and are convinced it’s one of the best value-for-money kits available to power users and enthusiasts on the market. This is a definite buy if you are looking for a high performance kit at a reasonable price.

9/10 October 2010 The OverClocker 21

SUPER TALENT RAIDDRIVE GS 256GB RRP: $2299.99 | Website: http://www.supertalent.com/products/ssd_category_detail.php?type=RAIDDrive Test Machine • • • • • •

Intel Core i7 980X Gigabyte X58-UD7 (rev1.0) NVIDIA Geforce GTX460 OCZ Agility II 60GB SSD Thermaltake Toughpower 1.5KW Windows 7 64-Bit

ust about every traditional memory manufacturer has take or at least tried to take advantage of the popularity of SSDs. Some obviously more successful than others but for the most part it’s hard to find a truly disappoint SSD these days. As fast as they are, for some even more speed is required and this is where drives like the SUPER TALENT RAID DRIVEs come in as they really do deliver some impressive read/write 22 The OverClocker October 2010

numbers. They aren’t cheap, but they are pretty unmatched when it comes to reading and writing vast amounts of data at incredible speeds. What follows is our experience with the drive.

Analysis We ran the benchmarks a number of times to confirm that we were getting reliable and consistent numbers and indeed these was what we ended up with. We omitted PC Mark05 numbers but it’s worth mentioning that the only place where the drive performed better was in the Virus Scan test where it recorded an impressive 397MB/sec compared to 195MB/sec of the Corsair Drive. The rest of the results had the Corsair drive in

the lead in that benchmark. HDTune results were by far the highlight of the drive delivering some huge numbers to say the least, at more than twice the speed of the Corsair drive in both sequential reads and writes. However this was expected and in a way this is what the drive is really about. Massive amounts of data throughput over everything else. The Total IOPS results were relatively high especially against the Corsair drive which is what we used as reference drive representing a modern SSD. Once again the Super Talent drive produced results twice as fast (at the least) to our reference drive apart from in the IOMETER’s Total MB/sec test where it scored

Summary

Benchmarks We used a traditional benchmark such as HDTUNE but included our favourite “IOMeter”. IOMeter measures IOPS (Input Output per Second) at different user configuration settings. We completed a set number of sequential and random tests to give a true indication of the performance on this drive. Drive

Benchmark

Result

Super Talent Raid Drive Corsair X256 D1

HDTUNE read avg. HDTUNE read avg.

772.1 MB/s 226.5 MB/s

Super Talent Raid Drive Corsair X256 D1

HDTUNE write avg. HDTUNE write avg.

562.5 MB/s 207.5 MB/s

Super Talent Raid Drive Corsair X256 D1

IOMETER Total IOPS IOMETER Total IOPS

9052.37 IOPS 4180.11 IOPS

Super Talent Raid Drive Corsair X256 D1

IOMETER Read I/Os IOMETER Read I/Os

6063.69 IOPS 2800.63 IOPS

Super Talent Raid Drive Corsair X256 D1

IOMETER Write I/Os IOMETER Write I/Os

2988.69 IOPS 1379.48 IOPS

Super Talent Raid Drive Corsair X256 D1

Average IO Response Average IO Response

0.8835 ms 1.9134 ms

Super Talent Raid Drive Corsair X256 D1

Maximum IO Response Time Maximum IO Response Time

139.2781 ms 10.9235 ms

Super Talent Raid Drive Corsair X256 D1

IOMETER Total MB/sec Total MB/sec

35.36MB/s 87.714 MB/s

particularly low. What concerned us about the drive was in the Maximum IO response time where it was slower than the reference drive by a factor or 13, a poor showing by the Intel IOP348 controller to say the least. We also noted how significantly short off the claimed figures the drive was where numbers as high as 1.4GB/sec for read and 1.2GB/ sec for writes are stated. Even our burst speed writes could not approach anything near those numbers regardless of the

benchmark we used. Looking solely at performance, the drive is a performer of note, but when factoring in the stratospheric price we can’t help but be underwhelmed by what you eventually end up with after such a financial investment. This drive will not be breaking records or anything like that anytime soon and competitive overclockers may have to look to other solutions for their dose of record breaking SSD performance.

[ Neo ]

The RAID DRIVE from SUPER TALENT impressed us with its sequential read and write speeds, while these are lower than the stated maximum rates of up to 1.4GB/s they are faster than any other single drive we have tested to date. As mentioned earlier, the Intel IOP348 processor isn’t as impressive as we would have thought as the regardless of how many tests we ran the IOPS rate was low rather lower coming in considerably lower than the OCZ Agility II (which we have reviewed in this issue as well). What you are really paying for here is raw write and read speeds and nothing more.

Would you buy it? If outright read/write speed is a must have at all costs then this is definitely the drive for you. While we did expect better IOPS performance, for raw data transfer speeds it’s unlikely you’ll find a better PCI-Express drive than this unit. Given its retail price it is asking a whole lot and we believe any serious overclocker may be better off with two 256GB drives and a dedicated RAID controller, which would offer similar performance but at a significantly friendlier price. If we had the money to spare and didn’t feel like having to manage a RAID setup we would turn to this drive.

The Score Despite the great sequential read/write performance we can’t help but be a little underwhelmed by the product. The Performance was not particularly strong in any of our benchmarks and given its price, we expected allot more.

6/10 October 2010 The OverClocker 23

WESTERN DIGITAL

VELOCIRAPTOR 600GB HDD RRP: $279.99 | Website: http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.asp?driveid=821 Test Machine • Intel i7 960 • Gigabyte X58-UD7 • Western Digital VelociRaptor 600GB SATA3 • Western Digital VelociRaptor 300GB SATA2 • ATI Radeon 5870 Catalyst 10.2 • Antec 1200OC PSU • Noctua NH-U12P • Windows 7 32-bit

ot too long ago, Motherboard manufactures made a big deal about SATA3, encouraging enthusiasts to buy a board supporting this standard. We did a big feature article at the time evaluating the technology and we found that there was much hype but not much real world value even for overclockers. As more drives continue to support the standard it was time to have a look at the fastest Western Digital VelociRaptor 600GB drive, which supports the newer interface. We wanted to find out not only about its performance but if it can truly take advantage of the SATA3 Interface.

Analysis Immediately we saw that the new SATA3 incarnation of the Velociraptor is an impressive 22 MB/s faster in read and 17 MB/s faster in write speeds over its older SATA 3Gbps version. A good start, but it has to be said that, we were expecting a little bit more from this SATA3 disk; it is quite possible that magnetic drives are a major bottleneck for the Interface. Taking a look at a few more results we observed some interesting numbers in random operations, with a 25% gain in 24 The OverClocker October 2010

Recommended Award

Summary

Benchmark

Result

WD VelociRaptor 600GB WD VelociRaptor 300GB

HDTUNE read avg. HDTUNE read avg.

122.3 MB/s 99.4 MB/s

WD VelociRaptor 600GB WD VelociRaptor 300GB

HDTUNE write avg. HDTUNE write avg.

119.5 MB/s 102.3 MB/s

WD VelociRaptor 600GB WD VelociRaptor 300GB

IOMETER 512B RR IOMETER 512B RR

201 IOPS 158 IOPS

Random Read Random Read

WD VelociRaptor 600GB WD VelociRaptor 300GB Corsair Nova SSD

IOMETER 512B RW IOMETER 512B RW IOMETER 512B RW

422 IOPS 256 IOPS 5530 IOPS

Random Write Random Write Random Write

WD VelociRaptor 600GB WD VelociRaptor 300GB

IOMETER 512B SR IOMETER 512B SR

18888 IOPS 18086 IOPS

Sequential Read Sequential Read

WD VelociRaptor 600GB WD VelociRaptor 300GB

IOMETER 512B SW IOMETER 512B SW

14890 IOPS 13717 IOPS

Sequential Write Sequential Write

WD VelociRaptor 600GB WD VelociRaptor 300GB

IOMETER 4K SR IOMETER 4K SR

16157 IOPS 13717 IOPS

Sequential Read Sequential Read

WD VelociRaptor 600GB WD VelociRaptor 300GB

IOMETER 4K RR IOMETER 4K RR

156 IOPS 166 IOPS

Random Read Random Read

Drive

small random reads and a 40% gain in random writes. These are fairly significant and as we indicated with our initial article on the SATA3 interface, we found it increased random IOPS operations. Looking at random write results as compared to the Corsair Nova SSD, we saw that this VelociRaptor much faster than the SATA2 version but is in fact, still a long way behind a mid-range SSD for random IOPS. Moving on to sequential operations we gathered that there’s only a small difference in performance between the two drives, this could indicate that the actual speed of the drives are very similar and the main difference is the SATA3 interface. After all the testing we

wondered if there’s anything we couldn’t have expected from this drive and it turned out that the SATA2 drive is actually faster in large random read operations, this is defiantly unexpected and something we were unable find an answer for. Unfortunately for this drive, large random read operations are a fairly regular occurrence in daily use and it’s concerning that the SATA3 disk didn’t show any improvement here. When we plugged our SATA3 drive into the SATA2 interface we did see our results drop slightly, so we can definitively say there is some advantage to a high RPM optical disk using the SATA3 interface at least in most situations.

[ Pro ]

We’ve been fans of Western Digital’s range of Raptor and VelociRaptor drives for a while and this drive is another great addition to the range, bringing an increase in size, IOPS gains from the SATA3 interface as well as a 20% improvement to read and write operations. We actually use these drives as our main benchmark drives as they are quite robust, have ample room for multiple setups and allow benchmarks like 3DMark Vantage to load considerably faster than a 7200RPM drive. The main advantage of these drives over SSD’s is they work very well for Copywaza on SuperPI 32M. (Copywaza is a simple operation of copying files back and forth on the hard drive before running SuperPI. This increases the Windows system cache and results in a much faster SuperPI time. Copywaza does not work nearly as well when using a SSD drive, but when using a VelociRaptor there are still gains to be had.

Would you buy it? We would consider buying a VelociRaptor for our benching system. While it is possible to get better performance via Raid-0 setup using traditional 7200rpm drives, it requires a considerable amount of maintenance and can become difficult to manage when running a system at subzero temperatures. The VelociRaptor on the other hand gives that extra hit of performance without the trouble of Raid-0 or the negative effects on SuperPI that an SSD has.

The Score We were expecting the read and write gains to be a little more but this is still an impressive offering by Western Digital. We would recommend this drive for overclockers to use as a system drive, but for gamers we would probably suggest a SSD.

7.5/10 October 2010 The OverClocker 25

OCZ AGILITY II 60GB SSD

Recommended Award

RRP: $148 | Website: http://www.ocztechnology.com/products/solid-state-drives/sata-ii/25--sata-ii/performance-enterprise-solid-state-drives/ocz-agility-2-sata-ii-2-5--ssd.html Test Machine • • • • •

Intel Core i7 980X Gigabyte X58-UD7 (rev1.0) NVIDIA Geforce GTX460 OCZ Agility II 60GB SSD Thermaltake Toughpower 1.5KW • Windows 7 64-Bit

ere is another relatively new drive in the SSD market. It is true that the Agility series was one of the earlier mass market SSD drives, the Agility II is the latest iteration from OCZ that features the fantastic Indilix Barefoot controller (SF1200) just like many of the newer high performance drives. With Read and claims of 285MB/sec and 275MB/sec respectively there’s little doubt as to which is the controller to beat 26 The OverClocker October 2010

and this can only mean good things for the OCZ Agility II Drive.

Analysis The results of the Agility II unit speak for themselves. The drive was faster than our reference unit in every single test save for the higher Maximum IO response time and Total MB/sec in IOMETER. This was nothing short incredible and a true testament to the great effects of the Sand Force controller. In PCMark Vantage the drive remained faster than the reference drive delivering over 200 points higher in the total score. Given the results we gathered it was hard for us to justify why one would want to spend a little more on the Vertex 2 drive, because performance was virtually identical. This is truly great performance for a sub $150

SSD and without question the Agility II is amongst the fastest SSD’s we’ve tested to date. Of particular interest was the 4K writes result. In OCZ’s literature they claimed that the drive was capable of 10,000 IOPS which was not only a bold claim but one we were not expecting the drive to live up to. Surprisingly enough the drive met this claim and actually exceeded it with just over 10,600 IOPS, beating out the Super Talent RAID DRIVE that we have reviewed in this issue as well. To put that in context, it delivered more than twice the performance of the comparison drive which isn’t bad performer at all. For interest’s sake we plugged the drive into a SATA 3Gbps port and noticed a slightly lower IOPS recording but not enough

Summary

Benchmark

Result