Our testing methods
All tests were run three times, and their results were averaged.

Processor Xeon 3320 2.5GHz
System bus 1333MHz (333MHz quad-pumped)
Motherboard Gigabyte X48T-DQ6
Bios revision F4D
North bridge Intel X48 Express
South bridge Intel ICH9R
Chipset drivers Chipset 8.3.1.1009
AHCI 7.8.0.1012
Memory size 2GB (2 DIMMs)
Memory type Corsair CM3X1024-1600C7DHX DDR3 SDRAM at 1333MHz
CAS latency (CL) 7
RAS to CAS delay (tRCD) 7
RAS precharge (tRP) 7
Cycle time (tRAS) 21
Command rate 1T
Audio codec Integrated ALC889A with 1.88 drivers
Graphics GeForce 8800 GT 1GB PCIe with ForceWare 169.25 drivers
Hard drive Western Raptor X 150GB
OS Windows Vista Ultimate x86
OS updates KB936710, KB938194, KB938979, KB940105

Thanks to Corsair for providing us with memory for our testing.

All of our test systems were powered by OCZ GameXStream 700W power supply units. Thanks to OCZ for providing these units for our use in testing.

We'd like to thank Western Digital for sending Raptor WD1500ADFD hard drives for our test rigs. The Raptor's still the fastest all-around drive on the market, and the only 10K-RPM Serial ATA drive you can buy.

Finally, thanks to the good folks at NCIX for hooking us up with an off-the-shelf Xeon X3320 retail box to use for testing.

We used the following versions of our test applications:

The test systems' Windows desktop was set at 1280x1024 in 32-bit color at an 85Hz screen refresh rate. Vertical refresh sync (vsync) was disabled for all tests.

All the tests and methods we employed are publicly available and reproducible. If you have questions about our methods, hit our forums to talk with us about them.