Cadalyst - July 2008 - (Page 20)

cadalystlabsreview To maximize battery longevity, components such as wireless network polling and Bluetooth polling were turned off when possible to avoid excess battery drain during testing. Although turning down the monitor brightness would tend to give longer battery life, I feel that in most realworld scenarios this situation is not a factor — battery rundown typically is a result of either actively using the system until the battery runs down or of sitting idle. In the real world, the life of the battery charge you’ll get on one of these mobile workstations will likely fall somewhere between these two longevity figures — both of which test extremes in demand on the tested system. Cadalyst’s tests generally produce shorter times than those specified by the individual vendors, partly as a result of testing after a variety of applications (and background processes) have been installed on the system. Cadalyst test numbers are closer to what one might expect of a given mobile workstation in a working environment. My objective was not to get the absolute maximum battery life but rather to simulate common usage for a more reasonable criterion of what might reasonably be expected. There is, unfortunately, no free lunch — the more powerful the system and the harder it gets used, the shorter the battery life. Depending upon your needs, you can get good performance while away from your desktop workstation and have enough battery life to be productive. Although there’s still a performance gap between desktop and mobile systems, these new portables have enough horsepower to get the work done anywhere. The Xi PowerGo Duo XT mobile workstation is big but powerful. It weighs in at 11.8 lb but makes up for its bulk with A+ performance. Xi PowerGo Duo XT @Xi Computer is no stranger to making speedy computers, and the Xi PowerGo Duo XT mobile workstation submitted for this roundup is no exception. Based on an Intel Core 2 Duo E6850 processor rated at 3.0 GHz with a 4-MB L2 cache, the system arrived with 2 GB of DDR2 800 MHz RAM installed, although it will accommodate 4 GB when fully populated. Graphics on the Xi PowerGo Duo XT are handled by the capable NVIDIA Quadro FX 1600M, which features 512 MB of integrated onboard memory. The system, as requested, came with Microsoft Windows XP with Service Pack 2 preinstalled and included NVIDIA drivers v.6.14.11.7433, dated March 5, 2008. This system configuration is almost identical to the one submitted by Polywell, although Polywell elected to use older drivers that didn’t provide the level of performance that newer drivers obviously are capable of producing. The display is a 17” wide-aspect ratio glass view panel with WUXGA resolution of 1,920 x 1,200, although the benchmark testing was done at a resolution of 1,280 x 1,024. The Xi PowerGo Duo XT was, at 15.6” x 1.8” x 11.5” (W x H x D), decidedly on the large side and, at 11.8 lb, also on the heavy side. It’s not the largest or heaviest mobile @Xi Computer 800.432.0486 www.xicomputer.com Price: $3,299 20 workstation I’ve ever seen, but I would be conscious of its size and weight after carrying it around for a while. The given weight includes the lithium ion battery. The system is relatively quiet in operation and features one FireWire connector, one Bluetooth 2.0, and four USB 2.x connectors. With the Cadalyst C2008 benchmark running under AutoCAD 2008, I tested the Xi PowerGo Duo XT in two different configurations. With the AutoCAD 2008 native OpenGL drivers, the C2008 total index score was 223, completed in 93 minutes. With AutoCAD 2008 configured to use the native Direct 3D drivers, the C2008 total index score was 267, and the test ran to completion in 74 minutes. With the Direct 3D drivers, I tested two concurrent sessions of AutoCAD 2008 side by side, with each running a separate version of the C2008 benchmark. The combined C2008 total index score was 551, and the time for completion was 75 minutes. Next, I ran the MAXBench4 benchmark under Autodesk 3ds Max 2008 with several iterations in three different configurations. With the native OpenGL drivers, the averaged high/low score was 94.39. Using 3ds Max 2008’s native Direct3D drivers, the averaged high/low score was 178.98. Finally, with the NVIDIA MAXtreme 10.00.03 accelerated driver, the averaged high/low score was 190.35. The full SPECviewperf 10 benchmark was run with Xi PowerGo Duo XT, which produced the following results: 39.01 for 3ds max-04, 44.67 for catia-02, 30.65 for ensight-03, 105.07 for maya-02, 39.69 for proe-04, 63.95 for sw-01, 15.26 for tcvis-01, and 13.55 for ugnx-01. These scores, in addition to the AutoCAD and Autodesk 3ds Max scores above, earned the Xi PowerGo Duo XT an A+ for performance. Battery performance was generally good for the Xi PowerGo Duo XT system, with an idle rundown time of 1 hour, 43 minutes, and an active rundown time of 1 hour, 22 minutes running a continuous loop of the Cadalyst C2008 benchmark under AutoCAD 2008. As is usually www.cadalyst.com cadalyst July 2008 http://www.xicomputer.com http://www.cadalyst.com

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

Cadalyst - July 2008 Editor’s Window CAD Central FIRST Robotic Beasts Draw Students to Engineering Power! Speed! Action! — Mighty Mobile Workstations are Packed and Ready for Adventure! Vico Virtual Construction Suite 2008 AMD ATI FireGL V8600 and FireGL V8650 — 1-GB and 2-GB Graphics Cards Gaining Independence and Influence The Current State of MCAD Rewriting the Rules of PDM BIM Goes Residential CAD Cartoon Issue Indexes Pleasures of Customization

Cadalyst - July 2008

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