WorldBench
WorldBench uses scripting to step through a series of tasks in common Windows applications. It then produces an overall score. WorldBench also spits out individual results for its component application tests, allowing us to compare performance in each. We'll look at the overall score, and then we'll show individual application results.

The Barracuda LP gets off to a good start, besting the Caviar's overall score by a few points. Let's see which individual application tests made the difference.

Somewhat surprisingly, the Caviar delivers better performance in the Photoshop test. Completion times are pretty even across the rest of WorldBench's multimedia editing and encoding tests, though.

The Caviar and 'cuda are closely matched in WorldBench's office and multitasking tests, too.

However, the Barracuda is substantially faster in the Nero test.

Boot and load times
To test system boot and game level load times, we busted out our trusty stopwatch.

I wouldn't get too worked up about fractions of a second here. Any differences in load times between the two drives are minute at best.