Speaking of Western Digital's Raptor, I discovered a speed test under the NVIDIA MCP04 ADMA Controller and Parallel ATA Contoller properties in Device Manager (shown at bottom of page). The following are test results of the Raptor (second image) against a Western Digital Caviar SE hard drive (third image) I installed on the IDE port.
Controller Speed Test
Note that the Raptor also features command queuing, which is supported by nForce4's MediaShield Storage.
NVIDIA WHQL ForceWare Graphics Driver Version 71.84
NVIDIA nForce Driver Package Version 7.02
Audio Driver Version 4.6
Audio Utility Version 4.51
Ethernet NRM Driver Version 4.73
Network Management Tools Version 4.73
SMBus Driver Version 4.45
Installer Version 4.61
Windows XP IDE Driver Version 5.18
Windows XP RAIDTOOL Application Version 5.18
Vsync Disabled / 75Hz Refresh Rate / 70HZ at 1920x1440 / 60HZ at 2048x1536
Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 2 / DirectX 9.0c
Selected BIOS Settings
PCIE Frequency - 100MHz
FSB Speed - 800MHz
Memory Speed - 666.7 MHz
Memory Timings - Expert
TCAS (CAS Latency) - 3
TRCD (RAS to CAS Delay) - 2
TRP (Row Precharge) - 2
TRAS (Active-to-Precharge Delay) - 7
TRC (Row Cycle Time) - 2
Addressing Mode 1T - 1 Clock
Memory Voltage - 2.1V
AC97 Audio - Disabled
MAC Lan - Disabled
Games Benchmarked
Doom 3 - Version 1.01
Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory - Version 2.60
Far Cry - Version 1.31
Half-Life 2 - Version 1.0.1.0
About This Preview
The only component needing to be installed in order to begin using the test system was a processor. I used a 3.4GHz Pentium 4 from another system and was somewhat concerned as the BIOS on the reference motherboard reported a processor temperature of 56 degrees Celcius. I believe there is an issue with the retail heatsink not making proper contact with the processor and have replacement parts on order.
nTune Temperature / Fan Control Sections
The reference motherboard BIOS lacked the ability to control the processor fan speed, but I was able to do so using the latest version (2.5) of nTune.
Although this preview has been published, I am eager to continue working with this system by testing SLI performance with other games and will provide updates as necessary.
We Salute You!
Click Image to Enlarge
The following output is a partial listing from the Device Manager utility in Windows XP.