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Edit Expertise: Test Drive: HP xw4600

Dec 1, 2007 12:00 PM, By Jan Ozer

Single-socket, quad-core workstation is a general-purpose workhorse.

3D design tests

I ran two types of 3D design tests on the xw4600: the SPECviewperf 10 benchmark to test the OpenGL graphics performance, and two rendering trials in Autodesk 3ds Max 8. I couldn't get the SPECviewperf tests to finish running on the 8710p, which is why it's not included in Table 4.

While both workstations had PCIe x16 slots, the xw8400 came with a Quadro FX 1500 card, which is a PCI Express-only card, while the FX 1700 supported the full bandwidth of the PCIe x16. Although both cards are mid-range products in the Quadro product line, the xw4600 outperformed the xw8400 by 38 percent.

SPECviewperf tests graphics performance almost exclusively, and I'd guess that if I swapped graphics cards and ran the tests again, the xw8400 would win by the same 38 percent. Clearly, to maximize OpenGL graphics throughput, get the fastest graphics card your system will support.

To test processing power, I ran two rendering trials in 3ds Max 8 (Table 5). I rendered two tutorial files from the installation disk: Shop Daylight from the mental ray folder, and Commander Lake from the Character Animation folder. I rendered both to 1920×1080i resolution, outputting in MOV using the Apple Animation codec.

In the Shop Daylight project, which incorporated complex lighting, 3ds Max proved wonderfully efficient with using multiple cores. The four-core xw4600 exceeded the theoretical maximum by rendering in 2.78X, and the xw8400 come close to its potential, rendering 4.18X faster than the notebook. In the Commander Lake character animation tutorial, 3ds Max wasn't nearly as efficient, and neither system doubled the performance of the notebook. Obviously, when it comes to rendering performance, the benefit of the additional cores will vary by project type.

Streaming media encoders

The third leg of my testing involved three streaming media encoders (Table 6). First was On2 Flix Pro, where I rendered a 3.5-minute test file to the same Flash parameters on the three test computers. Flix Pro proved a complete dud when it came to multithreaded rendering performance. The xw4600 performed at 131 percent of the 8710p's speed, which pretty much amounts to the differential I would expect between two single-processor systems running at 2.2GHz and 3.0GHz. Similarly, the 13-percent differential between the 2.66GHz xw8400 and 3.0GHz xw4600 corresponds to the 13-percent differential between the processor speeds.

On the xw4600, Flix Pro uses only 25 percent of overall processor potential, indicating a dearth of multiple-processor efficiency. On the xw8400, overall use was 13 percent. If you're buying a workstation primarily to produce Flash videos with Flix Pro, buy the fastest single- or dual-processor system you can find, because four and eight cores are clearly a waste.

The results for Grass Valley ProCoder and Sorenson Squeeze are for a 1-minute file that is encoded to four different output types: Flash, RealMedia, Windows Media, and H.264. It's important to note that with these encoding programs, however, the results and comparative performance are almost completely dictated by the number of files in the batch and the formats produced. For example, ProCoder is glacially slow when producing Flash files, especially compared to Squeeze. The situation reverses with Windows Media, especially on the xw8400. Therefore, one test does not represent the universe of potential results.

Overall, however, both programs clearly leveraged the xw4600's four cores to some degree, and neither proved the case for an eight-core system. When buying for streaming encoding, buy speed first, then multiple cores, but don't go beyond four cores unless you're sure that your particular parameters warrant it. With the QX6850 processor, the xw4600 is the fastest quad-core system around, making it a safe choice — if not as clear as the results shown for Adobe CS3 Production Premium and Sony Vegas.

The envelope, please

Overall, this leaves the xw4600 as a great choice for editing. The tested programs seem wonderfully optimized for its high-speed, quad-core processor. Suitability for streaming media production and 3D design and rendering is not nearly as clear-cut, and it will depend upon the program used and project type.

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