PC Specialist ‘Vanquish 230XT’ Gaming System Review

SSD Performance

AIDA64 Storage

AIDA64 Extreme Edition is a streamlined Windows diagnostic and benchmarking software for home users. AIDA64 Extreme Edition provides a wide range of features to assist in overclocking, hardware error diagnosis, stress testing, and sensor monitoring. It has unique capabilities to assess the performance of the processor, system memory, and disk drives. AIDA64 is compatible with all current 32-bit and 64-bit Microsoft Windows operating systems, including Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2.

CrystalDiskMark

CrystalDiskMark is a small HDD benchmark utility for your hard drive that enables you to rapidly measure sequential and random read/write speeds.

Here are some key features of “CrystalDiskMark”:

• Sequential reads/writes
• Random 4KB/512KB reads/writes
• Text copy
• Change dialog design
• internationalization (i18n)

Systems Comparison

Having reviewed the HyperX 3K SSD on its own we can see that there is a bit of a bottleneck in the drives performance. Taking the drive out of this system and testing it away from the Asus motherboard allowed us to identify that there is a bottleneck with the motherboards SATA controller. Whilst this may deter some potential buyers, we have to remember that when running at speeds of over 400MB/s, the difference in performance that one would actually experience is not as wide as the figures may suggest.