HP's New Workstations for 2010

We head to Los Angeles to check out HP's latest range of workstations for both the desktop and mobile.

By David Chieng - 27 Mar 2010

HP Workstation Global Media Event, Los Angeles

Jeff Wood, Global Marketing Director for HP Workstations, kicks off the event.

The HP Workstation Global Media Event kicked off at Santa Monica, Los Angeles with media from all over the world in tow. HP's workstation lineup is more important than ever for the American company, having recently overtaken Dell to take the number one spot in worldwide market share for desktop and mobile workstations, having started a steady upward climb all the way back since early 2002.

HP now holds the number one position in terms of market share for desktop and worldwide workstations, according to IDC.

Workstations aren't the most exciting thing to cover in tech. After all, where workstations are concerned, you don't get shiny new products every six months to a year. More often than not, workstation product lines only receive minor updates every year or so, with major overhauls coming much less frequently.

With workstations, it's what you can potentially do with all that power that makes things exciting. In today's digital world, content creators and producers are doing more than ever before. Keeping the audience interested is a never ending challenge, with new technologies such as 3D videography and advanced motion capture techniques taking the entertainment industry by storm. Doing all that also means having to deal with mountains of digital data such as the likes of high resolution textures, motion capture telemetry, edge detection and collision algorithms, complicated animations and heaps of other bits and bytes. Present at the event were notable HP partners and customers including the likes of Dreamworks, Agilent Technologies and Adobe.

Small is Big: The HP Z200 SFF Workstation

Terry Pilsner, Vice President for Global Workstation Research and Development at HP shows off the compact Z200 small form factor workstation.

Arguably the most important announcement of the event was the HP Z200 small form factor workstation. Eyeing the entry-level segment, prices start from US$739. Terry Pilsner, Vice President for Global Workstation Research and Development at HP said that the Z200 small form factor was unique on the market in the sense that it was the only one in its class to offer ECC (Error Correcting Codes) memory, for example.

The reworked machine is almost two-thirds smaller than the Z200 mini tower workstation offering, and will offer dual-core options based on Intel Core i3 and i5 series processors, as well as quad-core options with the enterprise-class Intel Xeon 3400 series processors. The smaller size could potentially be very attractive in markets where desktop real estate comes at a premium, Japan and Singapore, for instance. The space saved could then be put towards multiple monitors for simultaneous data analysis and reporting.

HP Desktop Workstation Refresh

Jim Zafarana , Vice President and General Manager for HP's Workstations Global Business Unit holds a dual-socket motherboard based on the Intel 5520 chipset which forms the base of Intel's Westmere platform.

HP's existing lineup of deskbound workstations also received a timely refresh in the form of new processors from Intel. These new six-core Intel Xeon 5600 series processors are built on the 32nm manufacturing process, and will be available on the HP Z800, Z600 and Z400 workstations. With dual 6-core processors installed, having 12 cores and 24 threads with HyperThreading enabled helps users to leverage the added horsepower for greater performance improvements in multi-threaded environments.

The new chips, formerly code-named Westmere, will feature up to 12 cores and 24 threads on dual sockets, with up to 24MB of cache. Intel also throws in better energy efficiency and improved security features.

HP will match different processors from Intel to differing levels of performance, providing business partners with a computing solution that best matches their needs and financials.

HP's lineup of Z workstations will include at least 85 percent efficient power supplies, with the Z800 having an 89 percent efficient power supply as an option. The HP Z workstations offer Energy Star 5.0 qualified configurations, are registered as EPEAT Gold, and are more than 90 percent recyclable by weight.

HP's New Mobile Workstation: HP EliteBook 8740w

Efrain Rovira, Director for Mobile Workstations at HP announces HP's 2010 mobile workstation lineup.

HP is confident in the growth potential for their mobile workstation business, and will continue to invest to that effect.

Mobile workstations has traditionally not been a strong area of growth, as the ratio of desktop to mobile workstations sold was sitting at 6:1 as little as five years ago. Today however, that ratio has grown to 3:1 according to IDC. What's more, IDC is also seeing a 26% annual growth rate for the mobile workstation market over the last five years, with 27% of the total x86 workstation market being of the mobile variety.

The Hp EliteBook 8740w will take its place as HP's high end offering for mobile workstations alongside the EliteBook 8540w at the midrange, and the EliteBook 8440w as the entry-level option.

The HP EliteBook 8740w is the company's new high-end offering to top their mobile workstation lineup for 2010. Featuring a 17-inch display that boasts HP's DreamColor technology and an IPS (In-Plane Switching) panel that sports improved viewing angles and up to 30-bit color for greater and more accurate graphics reproduction.

HP will offer AMD graphics solutions from the midrange onwards, while NVIDIA graphics solutions will be offered across the board for their mobile workstation lineup.

Efrain Rovira, Director for Mobile Workstations at HP also noted that the 8740w is the only mobile workstation available today that supports up to five displays on a single GPU, though you'll need to use a docking station to achieve that particular configuration, as well as have AMD graphics that support ATI Eyefinity technology.

The 8740w will ship with options for Intel Core i5 and i7 processors, as well as supporting up to 16GB of memory and USB3.0 connectivity.

HP Product Showcase

The HP Z200 SFF offers features and performance comparable to larger desktop workstations while being two-thirds smaller than it's recently launched Z200 mini tower cousin in Asia.

Plenty of thought was put into cramming so much hardware into such a small space. You have the option of choosing from cost-effective integrated as well as professional-class 3D and 3D graphics, as well as up to 16GB of high speed DDR3 ECC memory.

As you can see, the components within the HP Z200 SFF are also arranged in a modular fashion for easy access for maintenance and upgrades.

The HP Z400 workstation will start from US$929, and features the Intel Xeon 3500 series processors. Users will be able to configure a maximum of 24GB of ECC memory and up to 8TB of storage while graphics options will top out at NVIDIA Quadro FX 4800 or dual NVIDIA Quadro FX 1800 graphics.

The HP Z600 desktop workstation will sport Intel Xeon 5500 and 5600 series processors, with up to 48GB of ECC memory and a maximum 6TB worth of storage. Graphics options include NVIDIA Quadro FX 4800 or dual NVIDIA Quadro FX 1800 graphics. Pricing for the Z600 will start at US$1,579.

The HP Z800 is their flagship deskbound workstation offering, with the option to use Intel Xeon 5500 and 5600 series processors. Businesses will be able to configure up to 192GB of ECC memory, up to 10TB of storage and dual NVIDIA Quadro FX 5800 graphics. The asking price for a Z800 workstation will start from US$1,799.

Here's a quick look at the 12 cores and 24 threads in action, with HyperThreading enabled, of course.

For businesses who want a quieter workstation, HP also offers the option of watercooling the processors within their Z series machines.

HP Product Showcase (continued)

Shown here is the HP EliteBook 8740w, hooked up to three 24" displays. All three are hooked up via DisplayPort, one directly via the laptop and the other two from a laptop dock that the 8740w is attached to. Counting the 8740w's own display, that makes four displays in total in use for this particular example.

Here's a closer look at the dock which the 8740w is connected to.

Pricing for the HP EliteBook 8740w starts at US$1,999, with worldwide availability to be in April as well. The 8740w will be offered with the option of the ATI FirePro M7820 with 1GB of GDDR5 video memory, as well as the NVIDIA Quadro FX 2800M or NVIDIA Quadro FX 3800M – both with 1GB GDDR3 of video memory.

The HP EliteBook 8540w was launched earlier this year, but will now also be available with an optional DreamColor display, or the new ATI FirePro M7820 graphics adapter.

Shown here is HP's Performance Advisor software, which will come preinstalled on all HP workstations. This software automatically tunes the workstation, finding and installing the proper drivers as well as configuring the system based on a user's workflow.

Also demonstrated was HP's Skyroom software, also preloaded on new HP workstations. Skyroom enables live, real-time collaboration with high fidelity audio, HD video and 3D application sharing.

HP Partner Showcase

PhaseSpace

Featured at the Best Practices Lab at Raleigh Studios is PhaseSpace, a vendor of real-time motion capture solutions. The PhaseSpace team held a live demonstration of the Impulse Motion Capture System, which uses active LED technology which connects up to 48 cameras and a single server (in this case, the HP Z800). Here's a video role-play by their personnel below.

The simple demo done by the PhaseSpace team was powered by a pair of HP Z800 machines; one to process all the motion capture data coming in, and one to render the virtual scene output on a large screen for everyone to see.

The PhaseSpace sensors relay the position of their actors outfitted with special suits back to a pair of HP Z800 workstations, which not only transmit the rendered scene out to a large projector display, but also to a HP TouchSmart tm2 tablet computer via WiFi, with the tm2 acting as a virtual camera of sorts. On the tablet display, the director can adjust camera angles and other elements of the whole virtual setup.

According to a PhaseSpace representative, without factoring in the cost of the HP Z800 servers, a simple motion capture solution starts from US$50,000 - cameras included - while each suit with active LED markers goes for approximately US$350 each.

Notable applications of PhaseSpace's motion capture solutions include music videos for the Black Eyed Peas, as well games for the popular Modern Warfare franchise.

DreamWorks Animation

DreamWorks Animation is one of HP's most famous partners, with notable previous collaborations including Shrek, Madagascar and the more recent Monsters vs Aliens. Production artists at DreamWorks used the HP Z800 workstations to design everything from characters to lighting. Elsewhere in DreamWorks, HP infrastructure was also heavily involved, especially on a render farm that comprised more than 25,000 computing cores. Shrek, released in 2001, required nearly 5 million render hours. In comparison, How to Train Your Dragon took up more than ten times that, at over 50 million render hours.

If and when How to Train Your Dragon hits your local cinemas, be sure to go watch.

DreamWorks CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg was on hand to address members of the media. Katzenberg lauded the advances in computing technologies that enables companies like DreamWorks to break new ground in 3D animation, in a huge step forward for the filmmaking industry.

Luczo Dragon Racing

One of HP's customers in North America is the Luczo Dragon Racing team, who participate in the IZOD IndyCar Series. The Luczo Dragon Racing team will be powered by HP technology both on and off the track, whether for parts design, data collection and analysis, simulation or optimization. HP servers and workstations powered by multicore processors enable the team to work more efficiently by running multiple simulations and optimizations at once.

For those not familiar with the IndyCar Series races in the United States, pictured here is Davey Hamilton, who will pilot a HP Luczo Dragon car for three races this season.

One of the Luczo Dragon Racing cars was made available to press attendees for photo opportunities.

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