T'was just over a month ago that Compaq and Microsoft touted a "record-breaking" benchmark of 227,079.15 tpmC obtained on an aggregation of a dozen eight-way ProLiant servers running Windows 2000 and SQL Server 2000. Bill Gates capitalised on the benchmark results at the Windows 2000 rollout-cum-dog-and-pony show, but the fact of the matter is that Team Redmond had little to do with the actual TPC run. Au contraire, the deed - code-named Big Foot - was done by Compaq ISSD and SPD performance mavens in the Q's supersecret lab on the eighth floor of Building CCA15 in Houston, Texas. Until the beginning of February, 200k tpmC remained an elusive goal. At the eleventh hour, the SPD folk came out with a SmartArray driver on steroids that goosed performance by 16 per cent on the first run. With a little more tweaking, the Big Q was able to wring 227k tpmC out of the hardware, thereby garnering TPC bragging rights. As every good benchmarketeer knows, your mileage may vary. ®