Performance Benchmarks, Bottlenecks, etc
So I’m trying to determine if I’ve got a real bottleneck somewhere in my system, or if it’s just that I’ve reached the upper performance threshold of what I’m trying to do. I wish I had an infinite cash flow to allow me to buy more hardware, and the time to test it all – I haven’t been satisfied with results I’ve searched for and found all around the web.
So here’s my current System setup:
- Vista x64 (home prem, sp1)
- Intel q9550 OC’d to 3.2GHz (400×8.0)
- Asus P5Q-Pro motherboard
- 6GB DDR2 pc2-6400 Ram (all Patriot, 2x2GB + 2x1GB) at 1:1
- Main System drive, two partitions: WDC WD3200AAKS-00B3A0 (320 GB Western Digital)
- Extra Data Drive, one partition: ST3500418AS (500gb Seagate)
- ATI FirePro v4800 1GB “professional” video card (doesn’t require extra power)
- 550W power supply
- OEM DVD burner
- LG 20.5″ screen via DVI
- Acer 20.5″ screen via DVI via DP adapter (x203w)
- basic multimedia keyboard, only for volume buttons
- standard logitech scroll mouse I’ve had forever
- Wacom bamboo Touch tablet, I sometimes use for textures
- Airport Extreme Base Station Gigabit router with 1tb attached drive
It’s a pretty solid system, overall.
Software I use:
- Adobe Photoshop CS
- Sony Vegas Platinum HD 10.0
- Autodesk 3DS Max Design 2010 x64
- Blender (2.49b up to quasi-current SVN/beta builds)
- Firefox 3.6.8 and 4.0beta
- Chrome sometimes
- Safari sometimes
- Internet Explorer (8) sometimes
- Open Office 3.2.1, or current
- Aero on/off, depending on how I feel
- NO sidebar widgets
- Panda Cloud Anti-virus
- Apache server
- Multi-mon which gives me a task bar on the second display
- wizmouse which lets me scroll windows as I hover over them without taking focus (clicking on them)
Overall, I think the firepro is less of a card than my ATI 4870 which I sold. But the firepro has a couple redeeming features (accurate transparency and really fast wireframe) which makes me keep it for now.
I also think that maybe adding a sound card would help offload some sound processes from the CPU, as I often times have sound loaded in Max for animation timing, etc.
Here are the results from HD Tune on the two drives:
Main "C/L" System Drive, two partitions:
HD Tune Pro: WDC WD3200AAKS-00B3A0 Benchmark
Test capacity: full
Read transfer rate
Transfer Rate Minimum : 18.6 MB/s
Transfer Rate Maximum : 113.3 MB/s
Transfer Rate Average : 85.1 MB/s
Access Time : 17.9 ms
Burst Rate : 109.3 MB/s
CPU Usage : 6.0%
-------------------
Extra "E" Data Drive, One Partition
HD Tune Pro: ST3500418AS Benchmark
Test capacity: full
Read transfer rate
Transfer Rate Minimum : 67.3 MB/s
Transfer Rate Maximum : 133.7 MB/s
Transfer Rate Average : 108.0 MB/s
Access Time : 14.2 ms
Burst Rate : 200.2 MB/s
CPU Usage : 8.7%
I definitely think that the WD drive I’m using for my system drive is a bottleneck. Or is it because It’s partitioned? Again, I don’t really have time to do that level of testing – if anyone has comments, feel free to add them!
I won’t be upgrading this computer anytime soon, but will be considering a new build soon – either with a 6-core AMD or 6-core Intel, depending on how the budget pans out. I’d love to build a 2P system with dual 6-core xeons… 
