Cadalyst - July 2008 - (Page 22)

cadalystlabsreview the case, the higher the system performance, the shorter the battery life. As configured for this roundup review, the Xi PowerGo Duo XT mobile workstation carried a price of $3,299, which included a three-year warranty for parts, labor, and onsite service. @Xi Computer also has an excellent return policy — 30 days with no restocking fee. Although the Xi PowerGo Duo XT mobile workstation is decidedly on the large and heavy size, if it’s performance you want, this system delivers. Aside from the A+ scores for both system performance and return policy, the Xi PowerGo Duo XT earned the highest point score for any system in this roundup. Highly Recommended. ThinkPad T61p For this roundup review, Lenovo submitted its ThinkPad T61p system, a compact mobile workstation measuring only 14.1” x 10.0” that varies from 1.2” to 1.4” deep, depending upon where you measure the case. The ThinkPad T61p weighs a trim 6 lb as configured for this review, making it the lightest of the systems reviewed. The ThinkPad T61p features a 15.4” wide-aspect screen that has WUXGA native resolution of 1,920 x 1,200. The display is driven by an NVIDIA Quadro FX 570M graphics module that features 256 MB of integrated onboard memory. All benchmark tests were conducted under the preinstalled Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 2 installed and NVIDIA drivers v.6.14.11.5679 dated October 29, 2007. Inside the box, the Lenovo ThinkPad T61p that Cadalyst received for evaluation was based on an Intel Core 2 Duo 2.20-GHz processor that featured an 800-MHz system bus and a 4-MB Shared L2 cache. The system arrived fully populated with 2 GB of PC2 — 5300 667-MHz DDR2 RAM and included a 100-GB, 7200-rpm hard disk. Connectivity options included a FireWire connector, three USB 2.x connectors, and Bluetooth connectivity. Other features included a 4-in-1 multicard reader, a fingerprint reader, an integrated modem, an Ethernet connection, and an ExpressCard PC Card. I ran the usual benchmark suites on the ThinkPad T61p, including the Cadalyst C2008 benchmark running under AutoCAD 2008 with Service Pack 1 installed. With the native OpenGL driver selected, the T61p produced a C2008 total index score of 172 and completed the tests in 124 minutes. With the same software but using the native AutoCAD 2008 Direct 3D driver, the C2008 total index score was 208, and the tests were completed in 98 minutes. As I typically do with multicore processors, I then ran two concurrent side-by-side instances of the C2008 benchmark, each using a separate version of the benchmark test. The combined C2008 total index score for the concurrent sessions was 366, with a completion time of 108 minutes. Next, I ran the MAXBench4 benchmark with Autodesk 3ds Max 2008 — first with the native OpenGL drivers, which produced an averaged high/low score of 65.86. Lenovo 866.96.THINK www.lenovo.com Price: $1,536 22 The Lenovo ThinkPad T61p is an affordable mobile workstation that earned A+ grades for pricing and battery life. The Lenovo ThinkPad T61p’s ability to run design software — coupled with its light weight, substantial battery longevity, and highquality construction — make it very attractive. After changing to 3ds Max 2008’s native Direct3D drivers, I obtained an averaged high/low score of 129.67. Finally, I tested with NVIDIA’s MAXtreme 10.00.03 driver, which typically gives a higher performance score to one degree or another, and generated an anomalous averaged high/low score of 118.31. Next, I ran the full SPECviewperf 10 benchmark, which produced the following results: 30.11 for 3ds max-04, 38.89 for catia-02, 33.31 for ensight-03, 114.72 for maya02, 37.76 for proe-04, 54.71 for sw-01, 15.88 for tcvis-01, and 14.80 for ugnx-01. After the software tests were complete, I began the battery life tests. With the battery fully charged and the system idle — and with polling processes disabled wherever possible — time to hibernation was 4 hours, 30 minutes. With the Cadalyst C2008 benchmark running in a continuous loop, the time to hibernation was 1 hour, 45 minutes. These battery longevity scores were excellent and earned the ThinkPad T61p an A+ in this category. The ThinkPad T61p as configured upon arrival was priced at $1,536, making it the least expensive system in this roundup and earning it a second A+ in this category. The Lenovo T61p is covered by a three-year warranty for parts and labor for the laptop itself and a one-year warranty for the included lithium ion battery. Both 24-hour replacement part and 24-hour telephone support are included in the warranty coverage. www.cadalyst.com cadalyst July 2008 http://www.lenovo.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

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.