Velocity Micro Edge Z55 Gaming System
Test Setup & SiSoft SANDRA
We tested the Edge Z55 system exactly as it came configured from Velocity Micro.
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| System 1:
Velocity Micro Edge Z55
Intel Core 2 Quad Q9450
(2.66GHz - Quad-Core, 1333MHz FSB)
Asus P5N-D
(nForce 750i SLI) 4GB Corsair XMS2 DDR2-800
2x 512MB GeForce 9800 GTX
(SLI)
1x 500GB Hitachi HDD
(7,200rpm, 16MB Cache, SATA 300 w/NCQ)
Windows Vista Home Premium 32-bit, SP1
Nvidia Forceware v175.16 |
System 2:
Dell XPS 730 H2C
Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9770
(3.2GHz @ 3.8GHz - Quad-Core, 1600MHz FSB)
Nvidia nForce 790i Ultra SLI
2GB Corsair Dominator DDR3-1333
(overclocked to 1600MHz)
2x 1024MB ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2
(Quad-Crossfire)
2x160GB Western Digital HDD
(10,000RPM, SATA)
1x1000GB Hitachi HDD
(7,200 RPM, SATA)
Windows Vista Home Premium
ATI Catalyst v8.3 |
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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 (Processor Arithmetic, Processor Multi-Media, and Memory Bandwidth).
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SiSoft SANDRA's various benchmark modules reported scores for the Edge Z55 that are right in-line with expectations. The Processor Arithmetic test measures almost pure raw CPU power, as is evidenced by the scores' parity with the processors' clock speeds (with the exception of the Athlon X2 6400 64+, which is the only dual-core processor in the bunch--the rest are all quad core CPUs). The Processor Multi-Media test is also heavily influenced by raw processor speed, but it is also impacted by the amount of CPU cache. The Edge Z55's Q9450 has 12MB L2 cache versus the QX6850's 8MB L2 cache--which is why the Edge Z55 does better on this test than the QX6850 system, even though the Edge Z55's Q9450 is slower than the QX6850. It is not immediately obvious why the Edge Z55 falls behind on the Memory Bandwidth test until you take into account that all of the Intel-based systems here are utilizing faster 1333MHz DDR3 memory, and the AMD-based systems are using faster 1066MHz DDR2 memory. The Edge Z55's memory is clocked at a slower 800MHz. Although, once again the Edge Z55 edges ahead of the QX6850 because of the Edge Z55's larger L2 cache size and updated CPU core architecture.
