HP xw4200: First Look
After transferring my files and installing some of the more important software applications this past weekend, I finally had the chance to put my new HP workstation through it's paces. My review will be a two part series focusing on two areas- design and performance.
Out of the box, the first thing that struck me was how thin the HP was compared to my previous Antec enclosure.
I'll miss the electric blue LED and Piano Black finish of my Antec.
The slim form factor is mentioned as a highlight in their product literature, and I certainly agree. It's nice to see computers grow smaller after each generation. The overall weight is significantly less too. The low height fits easily inside my Ikea computer desk without modifications and there is plenty of room on either side to store my Wacom tablet.
The outer enclosure is constructed out of steel with a textured matte finish and the front sports an industrial looking black plastic bezel. There is a ridge on the top part of the bezel that I thought worked nicely as a handle for moving the workstation around but later discovered this warning in their support manual:
Oops! Guess I was accustomed to the ease of my Power Mac.
The back of the case is pretty standard stuff.
Notice the analog VGA connection for the graphics card- I certainly did. Arrg! My all digital video interface solution alludes me! In case you were wondering, yes my card is in fact an ATI Radeon X300 SE- the lowest card on ATI's PCIe's totem pole. But more on that later.
So let's take a peak inside. I especially liked the fact that HP offers such a robust, tool-less design. The access panel is easily opened with a handle on the door and everything from system memory and expansion cards to floppy, hard and optical drives can be serviced or replaced with no tools at all.
Reminds me of the PC comparison photo on Apple's Power Mac G5 page.
The first thing I noticed on opening the case was a CPU heatsink that uses a new copper heatpipe design. According to HP, this design was used to allow the fans to run slower and help reduce system noise.
Copper heatsink manufactured by Foxconn.
If I were ever to remove the heatsink in the future (to upgrade my CPU for instance) there is a special setup in the BIOS that I need to run for five minutes. This action warms the thermal goo/grease between the processor and heatsink so it can more easily be broken.
Here's what the world's first 0.11-micron graphics processor card looks like using the PCI Express interface. This baby is so cutting edge it doesn't require a fan. ;)
Not everything in HP land is a bed of roses however. Here are a few thorns to pick at.
The stubborn continuation of legacy parallel/serial/PS2 connections. Note to HP: With the dominance of USB and FireWire peripherals, there isn't a need for the older connections anymore- at least not on the high end workstations. Get rid of them. And while you're at it, how about integrating FireWire on the motherboard? I don't want to pay an extra $50 and use up a PCI slot just for this functionality. ABIT, ASUS, and Tyan are all integrating IEEE 1394 into their motherboards using the same Intel 925X chipset.
The optical drive -in my case a 8x DVD+RW drive is an older generation product being offered in a next generation workstation. HP should have bundled their workstations with at least the $100 dvd530i which features double-layer recording technology. This is pretty standard nowadays. Their upcoming dvd630 drives promise even faster performance in addition to +/- compatibility.
My optical scroll mouse is just your basic Logitech wheel mouse with the HP logo silk-screened onto it. I knew it wouldn't be anything fancy but I immediately missed my former InteliMouse Explorer with the extra thumb buttons for quick navigation of web pages. Looks like I'll be keeping the Micosoft mouse instead of selling it with the rest of my older system. I do love the look and feel of my keyboard though. Keys are much quieter compared to my older Microsoft board.
That's about it as far as criticisms of the design go. I didn't talk about the one design feature that had me the most surprised though. That's the system noise or I should say the lack of it. This is one amazingly silent workstation! If I had to rate the last last two PC enclosures I owned with this one on a scale of 1-10: ten being jetliner loud, I'll say the Atacom case was a 9, the Antec a 4 and the HP a 0.1. The loudest component is the Seagate Barracuda 7200 hard drive when it's being written on but if I'm working in RAM it's completely silent. Hat's off to you on that one HP.
Well next post will be on the performance. I promise no bar graphs or pie charts on this one, just my thoughts and observations.
Out of the box, the first thing that struck me was how thin the HP was compared to my previous Antec enclosure.
I'll miss the electric blue LED and Piano Black finish of my Antec.
The slim form factor is mentioned as a highlight in their product literature, and I certainly agree. It's nice to see computers grow smaller after each generation. The overall weight is significantly less too. The low height fits easily inside my Ikea computer desk without modifications and there is plenty of room on either side to store my Wacom tablet.
The outer enclosure is constructed out of steel with a textured matte finish and the front sports an industrial looking black plastic bezel. There is a ridge on the top part of the bezel that I thought worked nicely as a handle for moving the workstation around but later discovered this warning in their support manual:
Oops! Guess I was accustomed to the ease of my Power Mac.
The back of the case is pretty standard stuff.
Notice the analog VGA connection for the graphics card- I certainly did. Arrg! My all digital video interface solution alludes me! In case you were wondering, yes my card is in fact an ATI Radeon X300 SE- the lowest card on ATI's PCIe's totem pole. But more on that later.
So let's take a peak inside. I especially liked the fact that HP offers such a robust, tool-less design. The access panel is easily opened with a handle on the door and everything from system memory and expansion cards to floppy, hard and optical drives can be serviced or replaced with no tools at all.
Reminds me of the PC comparison photo on Apple's Power Mac G5 page.
The first thing I noticed on opening the case was a CPU heatsink that uses a new copper heatpipe design. According to HP, this design was used to allow the fans to run slower and help reduce system noise.
Copper heatsink manufactured by Foxconn.
If I were ever to remove the heatsink in the future (to upgrade my CPU for instance) there is a special setup in the BIOS that I need to run for five minutes. This action warms the thermal goo/grease between the processor and heatsink so it can more easily be broken.
Here's what the world's first 0.11-micron graphics processor card looks like using the PCI Express interface. This baby is so cutting edge it doesn't require a fan. ;)
Not everything in HP land is a bed of roses however. Here are a few thorns to pick at.
The stubborn continuation of legacy parallel/serial/PS2 connections. Note to HP: With the dominance of USB and FireWire peripherals, there isn't a need for the older connections anymore- at least not on the high end workstations. Get rid of them. And while you're at it, how about integrating FireWire on the motherboard? I don't want to pay an extra $50 and use up a PCI slot just for this functionality. ABIT, ASUS, and Tyan are all integrating IEEE 1394 into their motherboards using the same Intel 925X chipset.
The optical drive -in my case a 8x DVD+RW drive is an older generation product being offered in a next generation workstation. HP should have bundled their workstations with at least the $100 dvd530i which features double-layer recording technology. This is pretty standard nowadays. Their upcoming dvd630 drives promise even faster performance in addition to +/- compatibility.
My optical scroll mouse is just your basic Logitech wheel mouse with the HP logo silk-screened onto it. I knew it wouldn't be anything fancy but I immediately missed my former InteliMouse Explorer with the extra thumb buttons for quick navigation of web pages. Looks like I'll be keeping the Micosoft mouse instead of selling it with the rest of my older system. I do love the look and feel of my keyboard though. Keys are much quieter compared to my older Microsoft board.
That's about it as far as criticisms of the design go. I didn't talk about the one design feature that had me the most surprised though. That's the system noise or I should say the lack of it. This is one amazingly silent workstation! If I had to rate the last last two PC enclosures I owned with this one on a scale of 1-10: ten being jetliner loud, I'll say the Atacom case was a 9, the Antec a 4 and the HP a 0.1. The loudest component is the Seagate Barracuda 7200 hard drive when it's being written on but if I'm working in RAM it's completely silent. Hat's off to you on that one HP.
Well next post will be on the performance. I promise no bar graphs or pie charts on this one, just my thoughts and observations.
posted by Robert at October 19, 2004
1 Comments:
Wow you are one tough critic! Regarding the legacy ports, my guess is that since this is a workstation there is a good chance a buyer would want to run Linux on it. Yes there is USB support with the latest Linux kernels but some distro's work better with a standard PS/2 keyboard. I agree about the lack of Firewire ports, gee wiz this is a pro machine!
So what are you going to do with your old case? I like the piano black finish. :) How about a trade for my PCI Firewire card?
Post a Comment
<< Home