Test notes
Today we'll be comparing the three-port Revo64's performance to that of Promise's FastTrak TX4200. The TX4200 supports RAID levels 0, 1, and 10, and we'll be testing each array configuration against the Revo64 in RAID 0, 1, and 3. RAID 0 and 1 arrays were limited to two drives for both cards. The stripe size for RAID 0 arrays did differ, though. We prefer to test RAID controllers at their default block sizes, and while RAID 0 arrays on the Revo64 default to 128KB blocks, the Promise card picks 64KB blocks for RAID 0 and 10 arrays. Fortunately, both cards support 66MHz PCI, as does our test platform.

Our testing methods
All tests were run three times, and their results were averaged, using the following test systems.

Processor AMD Opteron 246 2.0GHz (1 processor)
Front-side busHT 16-bit/800MHz downstream
HT 16-bit/800MHz upstream
MotherboardTyan Thunder K8W
North bridgeAMD-8151 AGP tunnel
AMD-8131 PCI-X tunnel
South bridgeAMD-8111 I/O hub
Chipset driversAMD chipset driver pack 2.10
Memory size1GB (2 DIMMs)
Memory type Corsair CM72SD512RLP-3200/S Registered PC3200 DDR SDRAM
Graphics NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200
Graphics driverForceWare 77.77
Storage Controllers

Promise FastTrak TX4200

XFX Revo64 3-port

Storage Driver

1.00.0.36

Firmware 1.6.4.1

Storage

Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 160GB

Operating SystemWindows XP Professional SP2 with DirectX 9.0c

Our test system was powered by OCZ PowerStream power supply units. The PowerStream was one of our Editor's Choice winners in our latest PSU round-up.

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.