VERDICT:Buy this only if you can really afford to—at around Rs 25,000 for just the board, it’s one of those luxuries that’ll just add to your collection of nice things, right beside the Rolex and Porsche!
| Benchmarks |
|
| W Prime (32M) |
6.562 |
| PC Mark 2005 |
|
| CPU |
10208 |
| Memory |
5452 |
| Graphics |
11918 |
| SiSoft Sandra 2007 |
|
| CPU Arithmetic (Dhrystone) |
114876 |
| CPU Arithmetic (Whetstone) |
90840 |
CPU Multimedia (Integer)
CPU Multimedia (Floating) |
682306
372881 |
| 3D Mark 2006 |
|
| Doom 3 (640×480, 1600×1200, 4xAA, 4xAF) |
247.6 |
| Doom 3 (1600×1200, 4x AA, 8x AF) |
200.6 |
| Far Cry (640×480) |
317.67 |
| Far Cry (1600×1200, 4x AA, 8x AF) |
154.59 |
While you won’t really appreciate the power of two processors with most regular tasks, if you’re a 3D designer, animator or hardcore gamer, you will definitely appreciate the sheer horsepower at your fingertips. With multi-tasking or even multi-threaded applications, the difference astonishes—especially with the two QX9775 Core 2 Extreme processors, which are basically 45nm, 3.2 GHz quad-cores. Note that the pin layout on the board is slightly different—Socket 771 (LGA) CPUs are supported. (Regular Desktop CPUs are in the LGA 775-pin format.)
Check out our benchmarks (above) to see how this monster kicked hindquarters.
We don’t expect the D5400XS to break any sales records—just benchmarks. This platform may just kick off in the workstation market, particularly for rendering machines, where the enormous multiprocessing CPU and GPU power will be harnessed better.
The entire platform is power-hungry. If you’re looking at SLI, two quad-cores, and around three hard drives, opt for a 1000-watt power supply… Also invest in a decent air conditioner—and/or good aftermarket CPU coolers; these babies dissipate 150 watts each.
Buy this only if you can really afford to—at around Rs 25,000 for just the board, it’s one of those luxuries that’ll just add to your collection of nice things, right beside the Rolex and Porsche!
