HP xw4200: Part II
OK- enough is enough. I started this posting in October of 2004 and now I've decided it's time to finally wrap up my review of the HP xw4200. So- how much faster is my new workstation compared to my previous personal computer?
Thankfully a whole lot faster. That's a pretty generic answer- I know- but I'll get into specifics in a minute. I think it's first important to point out what a workstation actually is though and admit that my HP is a somewhat neutered down version due to cost considerations.
The general definition of a workstation according to webopedia is a"type of computer used for engineering applications (CAD/CAM), desktop publishing, software development, and other types of applications that require a moderate amount of computing power and relatively high quality graphics capabilities."
Fair enough. I would argue that it can be further defined by a high end single or dual configuration processor like the 64-bit AMD Opteron, 32-bit Intel Xeon or the 64-bit IBM PowerPC G5. A professional graphics card like the ATI FireGL, Nvidia Quadro, or the 3Dlabs Wildcat. A 10,000 rpm Serial ATA or SCSI hard drive (with or without a RAID configuration). And high speed DDR2 ECC memory.
Now does everyone need such a high-end machine? Of course not. While I work in apps such as Maya, Photoshop, and Painter, I chose a single 2.8 GHz Pentium IV. Yet all my model and 3D scene files render so much quicker than before. 640x480 test renders take about 3 seconds compared to around 15. So why not 2 Xeons instead to make it even quicker? Well I don't have much animated scenes to render now, and frankly the extra processor would be idle most of the time. Plus, after much searching, I found no white paper from Alias or an independent test to confirm the efficiency and performance of Maya's multi-threaded capabilities.
So what about the graphics card then? (Realtime modeling and shading performance is handled by this most important component.) Well after some additional research, I decided the multiple increase in cost over consumer cards does not justify the few "added" features they support. Plus I can't stand the fact that the pro cards share the same VPU/GPUs as the gaming cards. So since a Nvidia 6800 PCIe based card was unavailable at the time, I decided to to configure my HP with their least expensive offering, the ATI Entry 2D- AKA the ATI Radeon X300 SE. Sure it's only 64 MB and doesn't even require a cooling fan but I played Doom 3 in it. It wasn't pretty, but I played it.
Surprisingly it performs admirably in Maya. Obviously I'm not creating realtime effects with Maya's Fluid Effects, but modeling polygonal characters is certainly quick and snappy. I previously chastised ATI for creating poor OpenGL drivers and for not fixing an annoying bug which didn't allow me to use my 3D viewport in full screen, but this has been remedied in their latest Catalyst 5.1 release. It's difficult to determine whether the CPU or the VPU is responsible, but using Photoshop is like skating on ice now. Large res images are color corrected and manipulated in real time. Wonderful!
3D gaming is my biggest compromise right now until I upgrade the graphics card, but I'll live. Part of the problem is that I purchased such a large LCD that runs at 1920x1200 and there currently isn't a card on the market that can run Doom 3 or Half-Life 2 at that res with all the visual goodies cranked up. Well not at decent frame rates anyways. I give credit to Valve for making my X300 very playable at high resolution with Half-Life 2 and supporting a true 16:10 widescreen aspect ratio. Thanks Gabe!
Well that should be enough for now. Have to finish that normal map post soon!
Thankfully a whole lot faster. That's a pretty generic answer- I know- but I'll get into specifics in a minute. I think it's first important to point out what a workstation actually is though and admit that my HP is a somewhat neutered down version due to cost considerations.
The general definition of a workstation according to webopedia is a"type of computer used for engineering applications (CAD/CAM), desktop publishing, software development, and other types of applications that require a moderate amount of computing power and relatively high quality graphics capabilities."
Fair enough. I would argue that it can be further defined by a high end single or dual configuration processor like the 64-bit AMD Opteron, 32-bit Intel Xeon or the 64-bit IBM PowerPC G5. A professional graphics card like the ATI FireGL, Nvidia Quadro, or the 3Dlabs Wildcat. A 10,000 rpm Serial ATA or SCSI hard drive (with or without a RAID configuration). And high speed DDR2 ECC memory.
Now does everyone need such a high-end machine? Of course not. While I work in apps such as Maya, Photoshop, and Painter, I chose a single 2.8 GHz Pentium IV. Yet all my model and 3D scene files render so much quicker than before. 640x480 test renders take about 3 seconds compared to around 15. So why not 2 Xeons instead to make it even quicker? Well I don't have much animated scenes to render now, and frankly the extra processor would be idle most of the time. Plus, after much searching, I found no white paper from Alias or an independent test to confirm the efficiency and performance of Maya's multi-threaded capabilities.
So what about the graphics card then? (Realtime modeling and shading performance is handled by this most important component.) Well after some additional research, I decided the multiple increase in cost over consumer cards does not justify the few "added" features they support. Plus I can't stand the fact that the pro cards share the same VPU/GPUs as the gaming cards. So since a Nvidia 6800 PCIe based card was unavailable at the time, I decided to to configure my HP with their least expensive offering, the ATI Entry 2D- AKA the ATI Radeon X300 SE. Sure it's only 64 MB and doesn't even require a cooling fan but I played Doom 3 in it. It wasn't pretty, but I played it.
Surprisingly it performs admirably in Maya. Obviously I'm not creating realtime effects with Maya's Fluid Effects, but modeling polygonal characters is certainly quick and snappy. I previously chastised ATI for creating poor OpenGL drivers and for not fixing an annoying bug which didn't allow me to use my 3D viewport in full screen, but this has been remedied in their latest Catalyst 5.1 release. It's difficult to determine whether the CPU or the VPU is responsible, but using Photoshop is like skating on ice now. Large res images are color corrected and manipulated in real time. Wonderful!
3D gaming is my biggest compromise right now until I upgrade the graphics card, but I'll live. Part of the problem is that I purchased such a large LCD that runs at 1920x1200 and there currently isn't a card on the market that can run Doom 3 or Half-Life 2 at that res with all the visual goodies cranked up. Well not at decent frame rates anyways. I give credit to Valve for making my X300 very playable at high resolution with Half-Life 2 and supporting a true 16:10 widescreen aspect ratio. Thanks Gabe!
Well that should be enough for now. Have to finish that normal map post soon!
posted by Robert at February 02, 2005
3 Comments:
Great article Rob, you just forgot to mention how whisper quiet your HP is. To me that is a big feature. Now I have to get going with my Dell Dimension XPS blog....
Oh I forgot about the noise or lack of it i should say. I thought I mentioned that in Part 1 though?
Right you are! It's been so longer since you posted part 1 that I forgot you did mention the lack of noise coming from your HP.
http://saintcafe.blogspot.com/2004/10/hp-xw4200-first-look.html
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