The high mortality associated with blood stream infections (BSI) calls for improved and timely diagnosis. This will ensure early initiation of appropriate antimicrobial agents as advocated by several international bodies including the surviving sepsis campaign. Blood culture remains the most important diagnostic method for detection of BSI. The study sought to evaluate a new automated blood culture monitoring system from BD (BD BACTEC™ FX). Twenty commonly isolated microorganisms including fungi and anaerobes were inoculated into blood culture bottles containing 10mls of sheep blood. Both the BD BACTEC™ FX and BacT/Alert™ systems were loaded with their respective blood culture bottles for comparison. The BD BACTEC™ FX system generally shows earlier time to detection of microbial growth than the BacT/ALERT™ system. Time to positivity was clearly defined with the BD BACTEC™ FX system. The BD BACTEC™ FX instrument was found to be as user friendly as the current BacT/ALERT™ system. Although the workflow was more efficient with the BD BACTEC™ FX instrument. The early time to positivity may improve patient morbidity and mortality as it may facilitate early initiation of appropriate antimicrobial agent. This ability to influence patient care by the BD BACTEC™ FX means that it may be the better of the two systems. However, a larger study utilizing clinical specimen is required to confirm this.