SATA and M.2 Performance

Website: ATTO Disk Benchmark

We tested the SATA and performance with an OCZ Vector 150 240GB, as this is one of the fastest SSDs we've ever tested, and it can saturate the bandwidth of SATA 6Gbps ports.

For M.2 port testing, we used a Plextor PX-G256M6e SSD. This is rated at 770MB/sec read and 580MB/sec write speeds - not quite saturating the M.2 interface but we've been unable to get our mitts on anything faster for long term testing as the interface is still in its infancy.

We use ATTO Disk Benchmark, and take the read and write speeds for 1,024KB data chunks.

Rightmark Audio Analyzer

Publisher: Rightmark

We've recently started testing motherboards using RightMark Audio Analyzer. We use the Playback/Recording test, first adjusting levels so they're within the benchmark parameters and then using 24-bit 192KHz tracks, we connect the line-in to the speaker/line-out jack using a standard 3.5mm audio cable. Following feedback we felt it important to include some results given that on-board audio is a hotly fought-over area with motherboards at the moment.