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MillimeterReview: HP Z400
May 12, 2009 12:00 PM, By Jan Ozer
New entry-level Intel Nehalem system shines in real-world tests.
Table 2. Adobe Premiere Pro/Media Encoder benchmarks.
Adobe Premiere Pro tests
I ran three tests in Adobe Premiere Pro/Media Encoder, two real-world and one synthetic. The first real-world test involved rendering a 90-minute ballet shot with two HDV cameras to DVD-compatible MPEG-2. The editing was relatively modest, so this was a good test of Nehalem's expanded data-throughput capabilities, and both Nehalem-based systems really shone. In fact, the Z400 actually outperformed the dual-CPU xw8600, a theme we'll see repeated throughout these tests. Both 32-bit workstations crashed during rendering, probably because memory usage was too much for the systems to handle.
The next test was a 10-minute single-camera SD shoot ("Loose Strings") rendered to H.264. You can tell that this test was not particularly memory-intensive because the rendering time for the xw6600—running 32-bit windows with 3GB of memory—was only about 10 percent slower than the xw8600, which was running 64-bit Windows with 16GB of memory. Compare this to the third test, which was specifically designed to stress memory usage. In that one, the xw8600 was more than five times faster than the xw6600.
Memory usage wasn't an issue in the SD-to-H.264 test, so it's a fair comparison between the Z400 and xw4600, and the Z400 rendered in just less than half the time of the older system. Again, unless you're locked into a volume-buying agreement, purchasing an xw4600 for DCC doesn't seem to make sense.
The Red One-Dynamic Link test involved a 60-second project with a greenscreen overlay imported from Adobe After Effects via Dynamic Link. It was designed to stress memory usage, and it clearly did judging from the results of the two 32-bit systems. Impressively, the Z400 again outperformed the dual-processor xw8600.
Table 3. Rhozet Carbon Coder benchmarks.
The other tests I ran involved the batch-encoding tool Rhozet Carbon Coder, which is a highly efficient multithreaded program with most formats. In the first test, I encoded 16 files to H.264, VC-1, and VP6, and again, the Z400 performed slightly better than the dual-processor xw8600. Scores were in a relatively tight range, however, which I attribute to long VC-1 rendering times. I noticed in the Windows Performance Monitor that CPU use was poor during these tests.
I encoded all 16 files to a single H.264 preset in the second test and to a single VP6 preset in the third, where CPU use was near 100 percent for the duration of encoding. As you can see, when considering the results of both tests, the Z400 outperformed the dual-CPU xw8600 and proved greatly superior to the xw4600.
There were several tests where the dual-CPU Z800 really shone, including rendering the 90-minute real-world ballet project, but the Z400 was never a slouch, beating both older dual-CPU systems in 11 out of 12 tests. That's impressive for both the CPU and the workstation that houses it.
bottomline
Company: HP
www.hp.com/workstations
Product: Z400
Assets: Intel Nehalem processors; nearly as fast as the HP Z800 in some tasks; less expensive than some older quad-core workstations; outperforms some older eight-core workstations.
Caveats: Does not share the new case design of the HP Z800 series; certain speed-enhancing technologies only available on most expensive processor.
Price: Starting at $969
Continue the discussion on “Crosstalk” the Millimeter Forum.