Apart from general observations about RAID performance, we can also draw several conclusions about the merits of the Intel ICH7R and NVIDIA nForce4 RAID controllers. Which one proves better very much depends on the application. Based on our test results, the nForce4 looks like a superior RAID platform for desktop systems. The nForce4's performance in the majority of our FC-Test and iPEAK tests is better than that of the ICH7R, and in single-user tests, NVIDIA's RAID 5 implementation is less crippling than Intel's.

While the nForce4 performs strongly in single-user tasks, it's easily outclassed by the ICH7R under multi-user loads in IOMeter. We've seen NVIDIA RAID controllers hit a wall in IOMeter before, and the nForce4 has real problems scaling array performance beyond 16 outstanding I/Os. The ICH7R, on the other hand, scales beautifully under increasingly heavy loads, and it even doubles the transaction rate of the nForce4 in some cases. This stellar IOMeter performance makes the ICH7R the clear choice for servers and other demanding multi-user environments, even if it's a slightly less attractive option for desktop systems