Dell XPS 730 H2C Performance Gaming System

Name: Dell XPS 730 H2C Performance Gaming System - Page 6
Brand: Dell

by Michael Lin — Tuesday, May 27, 2008, 01:30 AM EDT

Test Setup & SiSoft SANDRA

Page 6: Test Setup & SiSoft SANDRA

How We Configured Our Test Systems: When configuring our test systems for this article, we first entered their respective system BIOSes and set each board to its "Optimized" or "High performance Defaults". We then saved the settings, re-entered the BIOS and set memory timings for either DDR2-1066 (AMD) with 5,5,5,15 timings or DDR3-1333 with 7,7,7,20 timings (Intel). The hard drives were then formatted, and Windows Vista Ultimate was installed. When the Windows installation was complete, we updated the OS, and installed the drivers necessary for our components. Auto-Updating and Windows Defender were then disabled and we installed all of our benchmarking software, defragged the hard drives, and ran all of the tests.

HotHardware's Test Systems

Intel and AMD, Gaming and Non-Gaming

Intel System (non-gaming tests):
Core 2 Extreme QX9650
(3.0GHz - Quad-Core)
Core 2 Quad Q6600
(2.40GHz - Quad-Core)
Core 2 Duo E6850
(3.0GHz - Dual-Core)

Asus P5E3 Premium
(X48 Chipset)

2x1GB Corsair DDR3-1800
CL 7-7-7-20 - DDR3-1333

GeForce 8800 GTX
On-Board Ethernet
On-board Audio

WD740 "Raptor" HD
10,000 RPM SATA

Windows Vista Ultimate
NVIDIA Forceware v163.75
DirectX Redist (November 2007)

AMD System (non-gaming tests):
AMD Phenom X4 9850
(2.5GHz - Quad-Core)
AMD Athlon 64 X2 6400+
(3.2GHz - Dual-Core)

Gigabyte GA-MA790FX-DQ6
(AMD 790FX Chipset)

2x1GB Corsair PC2-8500
CL 5-5-5-15 - DDR2-1066

GeForce 8800 GTX
On-Board Ethernet
On-board Audio

WD740 "Raptor" HD
10,000 RPM SATA

Windows Vista Ultimate
NVIDIA Forceware v163.75
DirectX Redist (November 2007)

Intel Gaming System (gaming tests):
Core 2 Extreme QX9650
(3.0GHz - Quad-Core)

Asus Striker II Extreme
(nForce 790i SLI Ultra Chipset)

2048MB Corsair DDR3-1333 C7

GeForce 9800 GX2
GeForce 9800 GX2 (2)
Radeon HD 3870 X2
Radeon HD 3870 X2 + HD 3870
Radeon HD 3780 X2 (2)

On-Board Ethernet
On-board Audio

WD740 "Raptor" HD
10,000 RPM SATA

Windows Vista Ultimate
NVIDIA Forceware v174.53
ATI Catalyst v8.3
DirectX Redist (November 2007)

Preliminary Testing with SiSoft SANDRA XII SP2a

Synthetic Benchmarks

We began our testing with SiSoftware's SANDRA XII, the System ANalyzer, Diagnostic and Reporting Assistant. We ran three of the built-in subsystem tests that partially comprise the SANDRA XII suite with the XPS 730 H2C (CPU Arithmetic, Memory Bandwidth and Memory Latency). All of the scores reported below were taken with the processor running at its out-of-box clock speed of 3.8GHz, with 2GB of Corsair Dominator DDR3 RAM running at the out-of-box frequency of 1600MHz.

Processor Arithmetic

Memory Bandwidth

Memory Latency

SiSoft SANDRA's various benchmark modules reported scores right in-line with logical expectations. The XPS 730 H2C's overclocked quad-core processor and overclocked Corsair Dominator DDR3 put it ahead of all reference systems in all three tests. Even without the factory overclocking, the XPS 730 H2C's components are relatively top of the line and would be difficult to beat.