Cadalyst - May 2008 - (Page 16)

cadalystlabsreview DDR3 1,333 MHz RAM was installed, out of a total 4 GB possible when the system board is fully populated. The front-side bus speed was the full 1,600 MHz. The included hard disk was a speedy 15,000 rpm Seagate serially attached SCSI 150 MB drive. The optical drive included was an 18 x 10 x 40 x 12 Lite-On drive. Graphics were handled by an NVIDIA Quadro FX 4600 graphics card with 768 MB of onboard RAM. All the systems in this roundup used Quadro graphics cards, but this system is the only one that used the FX 4600. The system featured PCIe2 slots, and I used NVIDIA drivers v.6.14.11.6939 (dated February 1, 2008) for testing. The Xi MTower PCIe system Cadalyst received was housed in a squat but deep case that measured 17.2” x 8” x 19.2” (H x W x D) that I hadn’t seen @Xi Computer use previously. The case offered room for future expansion, with a total of nine 5.25” drive bays, five of which were externally accessible. The system had a total of 10 USB 2.x connectors, two FireWire 1394 connections, and a parallel printer port. Expansion potential was enhanced by the 850 W Cooler Master power supply, which also resulted in relatively quiet system operation. On the test bench, the Xi MTower PCIe system did extremely well — the Cadalyst C2008 total index scores for AutoCAD 2008 with Service Pack 1 were 312 with the native OpenGL drivers, 432 with the native Direct3D drivers, and 868 for the combined C2008 total index score for the concurrent sessions. The concurrent C2008 benchmarks for the Xi MTower PCIe were completed in 58 minutes. This system also produced high numbers for the MAXBench4 benchmark running under Autodesk 3ds Max 2008, generating an averaged high/low score of 122.84 with the native OpenGL drivers and an averaged high/low score of 272.72 for the native Direct3D drivers. The AutoCAD and 3ds Max scores for this system are the highest in this quad-core roundup. Although the Xi MTower PCIe system produced high scores on the complete SPECviewperf 10 benchmark suite, they were not the highest in this roundup. Benchmark scores were 49.76 for 3ds max-04, 59.82 for catia02, 46.86 for ensight-03, 171.33 for maya-02, 56.79 for proe-04, 110.91 for sw-01, 24.59 for tcvis-01, and 27.07 for ugnx-01. Including the AutoCAD and 3ds Max scores, this system earned an A+ in the performance category. All this excellent performance does come at a price — $5,499, to be exact. The pricing reflects the high cost of components, such as the processor, the graphics card, RAM, and the 15,000 rpm SCSI drive. The Xi MTower PCIe system as configured for testing was at least $2,000 more than other systems in the roundup. This disparity resulted in the system receiving a grade of B for pricing, which ultimately kept this specific configuration from being awarded Cadalyst’s Highly Recommended rating. Even so, the dazzling A+ performance almost brought the overall ratings high enough to achieve this recommendation. If your budget has the requisite depth and you need the performance, the Xi MTower PCIe quad-core system configured as reviewed here delivers. The system price for the Xi MTower PCIe includes 36 months of warranty coverage for both parts and labor and 12 months of on-site service. @Xi Computer offers a 30-day money back guarantee on the system with no restocking fee, which earned the system an A rating in this category. HP xw4600 Workstation Hewlett-Packard 800.289.6947 www.hp.com Price: $3,129 The HP xw4600 workstation arrived dressed in an HP Desktop skin, a 3M vinyl skin that is one of thousands of designs offered by SkinIt for HP workstations (see http://hp.skinit.com). You can also upload a company logo, photos, or unique messaging and have them made into a skin for the HP xw4600 and several other devices. These skins simply are another way that the HP xw4600 can be customized. Overall, the system offers extensive opportunities for customization in terms of the options you can order at the time of purchase. The system is based on a single Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550 (Yorkfield) 2.83 GHz processor, which was plugged into a proprietary HP xw4600 motherboard that used the Intel X38 Express chipset and featured a front-side bus speed of 1,333 MHz. The system can accommodate a total of 8 GB of RAM when fully populated, but it included 3 GB of DDR2-800 ECC RAM for this roundup. HP uses a variety of vendors for the 16x optical drive within this system. The hard disk was a SATA-II NCQ 250 GB model with a 16 MB cache — HP also uses a variety of vendors for the hard drives used in its systems. The HP xw4600 was housed in a remarkably compact 6.6” x 17.9” x 17.7” (H x W x D) case that offered exceptionally good acoustic engineering for extremely quiet system operations. The case had three externally accessible The HP xw4600 has a remarkably compact 6.6” x 17.9” x 17.7” case that provides exceptionally good acoustic engineering for extremely quiet system operations. www.cadalyst.com cadalyst May 2008 16 http://www.hp.com http://hp.skinit.com http://www.cadalyst.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Cadalyst - May 2008

Cadalyst - May 2008 Contents Editor's Window Cad Central A Solid Job in AutoCAD Today’s Power — Quad-Core Workstations Performance — Tomorrow’s Possibilities Reverse Engineering an Antique Italian Treasure Trends in Reverse Engineering NextEngine 3D Scanner — Reverse-Engineering Tool Setting CAD Standards Fight for Your Hardware Rights The Jack and Jill of Ergonomics Technology for Civil Infrastructure Cad Cartoon Issue Indexes Shortcuts and Solutions

Cadalyst - May 2008

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