HP’s First Entry-Level Workstation: Z210
HP Z210 entry-level workstation, shown here in mini-tower model.
Conventional wisdom in computing is, if your PC is an entry-level machine, it’s not a workstation, and if it’s a workstation, it’s more expensive than an entry-level PC. But this season, HP, Dell, and other hardware makers may try to disprove this notion by releasing units that are powerful enough for CAD and visualization, priced below $1,000.
Today, HP debut its first product in this category, the entry-level workstation Z210, priced beginning at $569 (small form factor unit) and $659 (convertible mini-tower model). CPU choices for Z210 includes Intel Xeon E3 and second-generation Intel Core i3/i5/i7 processors.
The Xeon E3 1200 processors contain Intel HD Graphics P3000 technology, providing you both general processing and graphics processing on a single die. The new processor series is part of Intel’s strategy to elbow its way into the market traditionally dominated by NVIDIA.
According to Anthony C. Neal-Graves, general manager of Intel workstation unit, “That means visual and 3D graphics capabilities that were once only available to entry workstation users with discrete graphics cards will now be accessible to anyone with an entry workstation powered by Intel Xeon E3 family with Intel HD Graphics P3000.”
To paraphrase, Intel is essentially saying, if you have a workstation running on Intel Xeon E3 1200, you don’t need to buy a professional-grade graphics card. I have not done any benchmark testing, so I can’t offer insights into performance comparison. However, if your graphics needs are not intense enough to justify purchasing a professional GPU (for example, an NVIDIA Quadro card or an ATI FirePro card), but you’d still prefer to get some graphics boosts for your visualization and rendering jobs, HP’s new Z210 with Intel Xeon E3 1200 may be the workstation with the right mix or computing and graphics horsepower.
Like other HP workstations, Z210 comes with HP’s Performance Advisor software, which lets you configure your machine’s hardware environment and drivers to get the best from your design and engineering software. HP’s tool-free chassis lets you reach into the heart of the machine to add, remove, and upgrade hardware without using screw-drivers and pliers (quite literally, it prevents you from screwing up).
HP Z210 goes on sale this spring.
For more on Intel Xeon E3 processors, read my previous blog post, “Intel’s New Carrot: HD Graphics for Entry-Level Workstations,” March 8, 2011.
More images of HP’s new products in the album below:
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I hope you move this topic forward in the near future with comparative benchmarks and more details on the “On Chip” graphics addressing things like: if the graphics portion of the chip needs to be upgraded can you flash it like a Quadro or will it be a driver that gets updated? How does the graphic ram of a Quadro compare to the E3? I would suspect that having the graphics on-board would have the potential to be faster (vs almost as fast) than using a Quadro and I’d really like to get you to elaborate on why that is not the case. When you look at the transitions that the data has to go through from the CPU’s core to its I/O then onto the buss and off the buss into the Quadro, I would seem to we that each of those jumps/translations/speed changes involves hardware and firmware that each by themselves represents a link in a data integrity ladder. If so, I would be extremely hopeful that the new E3′s would move the stability of the Workstation as a whole to a MUCH higher plateau. It would be great if you or Intel could provide more indepth discussion on this topic that seems to be popular weak link in most solid modeling packages. Tied at the hip will also be subjects like “How well does Solidworks and Inventor work with the E3 and if not well, what are the forecasts that offer for sweet compatibility? Not withstanding, with both Inventor and Solidworks offering a mind numbing quantity of add on modules like simulation, rendering, PDM, and on and on, it would seem to me that in reality, the users can have a very bad experience if only ONE of the supplemental modules has heartburn with the graphics (regardless of on chip or PCIE).
In the world where stability and speed are the key features of a 3D workstation, I think this will be one of the hottest topics for the next few years and I look forward to your detailed articles about it. I believe that this transition will be similiar to when the math coprocesser was a separate chip or card and how putting it in the CPU revolutionized number crunching on PC’s. Thanks for keeping us posted.
Jay
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