SATA, USB and FireWire Speeds
Using HDTach 3.0.1.0 and a few handy peripherals, we were able to get some benchmark numbers off the USB and FireWire connections.
USB Performance
Taking a 7200 RPM IDE external hard drive from Western Digital we use HDTach to find the top transfer speeds on both motherboards.
FireWire Performance
This external drive has both USB 2.0 and FireWire support so these results are from the same drive with the FireWire connection.
The USB performance on the Alienware Aurora 7500 using the NVIDIA nForce 590 SLI chipset is better than that used on our DIY FX-62 system, though the FireWire results are slightly faster on the opposing system. Both configurations are top notch for accessory performance though.
