Durango, AlphaStation 500, Personal Workstation 200i,
APRI-31M/P200, Vectra XA 6/200, TDZ-410, Millennia Pro2 360 Plus
NT Graphics Workstations Roundup
As more people undertake home-grown 3D animation projects and engineers
embrace Windows NT as a new standard for 3D CAD, more vendors are penetrating
the graphics workstation market. Silicon Graphics MIPS once ruled the 3D virtual
roost, then Digital Alphas and Intergraph Pentium Pros began to make inroads
into the market. Now every manufacturer with a high-end Pentium Pro (or even a
Pentium) system with a 3D accelerator card claims substantial offerings in this
field. The
Windows NT Magazine Lab picked seven representative machines well-
suited for CAD, 3D render-farms, video editing, 2D compositing, or other
compute-intensive graphics work, and reviewed their features and performance.
The Lab chose some beefy systems--both Intel Pentium Pro and Digital 21164 Alpha
platforms--with 64MB to 128MB of RAM, graphics accelerators, and fast SCSI
disks. (For a summary of the systems the Lab tested, see "What We Tested."
Because not all the systems had NT 4.0 drivers at the beginning of the Lab's
tests, we tested everything under NT 3.51. All systems now offer NT 4.0
drivers.
One remarkable feature about all these powerful systems stands out:
reasonable price. Barely six months ago, machines with this kind of power cost
in the $8000 to $40,000 range. Now, you can get 500MHz Alpha systems or
dual-processor 200MHz Pentium Pros for less than $5000; a single Pentium Pro or
466MHz Alpha costs less than $3000. With the price of memory and disks dropping
significantly every month, you can build the ultimate desktop computer without
taking a second mortgage on your house.
Alpha or Pentium Pro?
Because the Lab tested both Intel and Alpha-based systems, you might wonder
which kind to buy. The decision used to be easy: If money was no object and you
absolutely had to have the best possible performance, you bought an Alpha-based
workstation; if performance was important but compatibility and affordability
were paramount, then you went for a Pentium Pro. Not so anymore. Digital's FX!32
solved the Alpha's compatibility problem by providing a high-performance
emulator/translator for Intel Win32 programs. (Some applications run faster in
translation on the Alpha than they run native on the Pentium Pro--and the list
of programs verified as functional under FX!32 is almost endless.) In the next
six months, Alpha systems will continue to drop in price, and you'll see faster
versions of existing chips, dual-processor workstations, and new chip designs
such as the 21264 and 21164PC. You can look forward to 600MHz systems in the
$5000 to $10,000 range, based on a new motherboard design from Digital
Semiconductor.
In short, for 2D graphics work that requires a wide variety of software
(such as Photoshop, Fractal Design Painter, or Adobe Premiere), you're better
off with a well-equipped Pentium Pro system. For 3D animation or CAD work, an
Alpha is your best bet because its native software blows the doors off the
equivalent Intel versions. If you do a lot of simulation work (OpenGL for
virtual reality or animation previews), then either Pentium Pro or Alpha with an
OpenGL accelerated display card is fine.
Review Me
Each system possesses unique features, high points, and low points. The
reviews that follow describe these items and provide general information about
architecture, upgrade capability, and performance (plus some personal
observations about these boxes). In "Over the Long Haul," page 65, we
summarize the usability and reliability of other systems we've used in the Lab
for six or more months. Although no longer considered top-of-the-line models,
these machines and their long-term performance may surprise you.
—Joel Sloss
Aspen Systems Durango
(All prices are without monitor)
The market offers a new breed of Alpha-based computers at price/performance
points far below last year's models. For example, the high-end 300MHz Alpha
workstation from Aspen Systems, the Summit, priced out at more than $17,000 last
year (see "Experience Alpha!," March 1996). The Durango, a new
high-end 433MHz 21164A system from Aspen Systems, costs less than $6000 with
128MB of RAM, a Dynamic Pictures OpenGL accelerator card, and an Ultra-SCSI hard
disk.
Aspen Systems (an OEM for Digital Equipment) designs and builds reliable,
high-performance system boards. The Durango, based on Digital's Alpha PC 164
motherboard, is Aspen Systems's latest-generation uniprocessor system. (Twin
Peaks, Aspen's own dual-processor 500MHz system--with upgrade potential to
700MHz when the chips become available--will be out by the time you read this
review.)
Aspen Systems offers the Durango in minitower, rack-mount, and server-tower
cases. The Lab's test Durango came in a full-tower case. It includes a 433MHz
CPU, 128MB of RAM, a Seagate 2GB UltraSCSI Hawk hard disk, a Teac 6X CD-ROM
drive (the Durango now ships with an NEC 8X CD-ROM drive), a Cogent (now
Adaptec) Ethernet 10/100Mbps NIC, and a Dynamic Pictures V192-D02 OpenGL 3D
video card. Not bad for less than $6000.
You can choose among several CPU speed options--from 366MHz to 500MHz--at
different prices, of course (a $1300 disparity separates the 366 and 500). The
system board can accommodate up to 512MB of parity RAM, with a user-selectable
128- or 256-bit data bus width. Aspen Systems and most other Alpha partners have
switched this class of workstation from large (2MB or more) asynchronous Level 3
cache modules to 1MB synchronous cache (with a 128-bit path)--a move that offers
less performance, but slightly reduces price.
System-wise, you get four PCI slots (two 64-bit, two 32-bit), four
front-accessible 5.25" half-height drive bays (one taken by the CD-ROM),
and two internal 3.5" bays. You have several PCI SCSI options, ranging from
standard Fast to Ultra Fast and Wide. Your 3D OpenGL video card options include
the Dynamic Pictures cards with 1MB to 32MB of texture memory.
The Windows NT Magazine Lab has had good luck with Aspen Systems
computers. The Durango is a top performer for the price (its overall SYSmark/NT
score--604--was second highest among the systems tested), and the computers make
excellent 3D animation, CAD, video-editing, or all-around high-performance
systems. The Durango systems can function as low- to midrange application
servers (if you use Alpha-native software, such as SQL Server or Oracle). The
full-tower and server-tower cases contain enough drive bays to accommodate a
substantial amount of data, and if you add a RAID controller card, you have a
reasonably powerful, fault-tolerant database server.
—Joel Sloss