The Dual-Core Promise

By David Cohn

There’s a growing move to dual-core CPUs, and this summer HP joined inwith the release of a new entry-level workstation that can comeequipped with either single- or dual-core Pentium processors. Weinitially received an evaluation unit equipped with a single 3.6GHzsingle-core Pentium 4 CPU. After testing that system, we returned it toHP in exchange for an identical system equipped with a 3.2GHz Pentium DCPU. This proved to be an excellent opportunity to see firsthand howwell the new dual-core CPU lives up to its hype.

The HP xw4300 is housed in what has now become a familiar black andgray convertible minitower case. No tools are required to open orupgrade HP workstations and the system easily converts from tower todesktop by rotating the optical drive bays.

The front panel provides two USB 2.0 connectors, headphone andmicrophone jacks, and a FireWire connector. The rear panel adds sixmore USB connectors, for a total of eight, as well as a 9-pin serialport, a 25-pin parallel port, two more FireWire connectors, keyboardand mouse ports, an RJ45 LAN connector for the integrated Broadcom10/100/1000 network, and audio-in, audio-out, and microphone jacks.

The audio capabilities of the xw4300 are new to the HP workstationline. The system incorporates Intel High Definition Audio, whichimproves on the previous generation of integrated audio and soundcards. The sound system also supports jack retasking, allowing thecomputer to sense which device is plugged into an audio jack so thatany jack can act as an audio-in, audio-out, microphone, or headphonejack.

The case provides plenty of room for expansion. The HP motherboard isbased on the Intel 955X chipset. It provides four DIMM sockets and canaccommodate up to 8GB of memory using 2GB DIMMs. Our evaluation unitcame with 2GB of 677MHz DDR2 ECC memory, installed as two 1GB DIMMs.The motherboard also provides an integrated serial ATA 3.0GbpsRAID-capable hard drive controller that can support up to four SATAhard drives and is RAID 0/1/5/10 capable. Our evaluation unit came witha Western Digital 74GB 10,000 rpm IDE hard drive installed in one ofthe two available internal drive bays. The front panel provided three5.25-inch drive bays, one of which was filled with a 48X CD-RW/DVD-ROMcombo drive, and one 3.5-inch drive bay that held a floppy drive.

The motherboard provides a total of six expansion slots: a single PCIExpress x16 graphic slot, three legacy PCI slots, a PCI Express x1slot, and a PCI Express x4 (x8 connector) slot. The graphics card slotwas filled with an NVIDIA Quadro FX 3400 graphics accelerator with256MB of video memory. One of the PCI slots contained a FireWire card.The systems’ 460-watt power supply should be able to handle anyadditional components a user could want to install.

As initially supplied, the xw4300 came equipped with a 3.6GHz IntelPentium 4 CPU with 2MB of L2 cache and support for hyperthreading. HPsubsequently swapped out the CPU for a 3.2GHz Pentium D CPU with two16KB Level 1 data caches and two 1MB L2 caches, one for each core. BothCPUs support Intel EM64T and an 800MHz front-side bus, but the PentiumD CPU lacks hyperthreading.

The Pentium D is actually two CPU cores situated together on a singlepiece of silicon. Whereas hyperthreading speeds some computations byproviding two execution paths, the dual-core CPU really is two CPUs. Ofcourse, the differentiation is moot unless you’re running applicationsthat are multithreaded, that have been written specifically to takeadvantage of multiple CPUs or cores, or are running multipleCPU-intensive applications, in which case each core can handle adifferent application. Most 3D rendering programs and video- andaudio-encoding applications are multithreaded. For example, when usingAutodesk’s 3ds max to render 20 frames of a sample scene, the systemequipped with a 3.2GHz Pentium D completed the task in 319 secondswhile the system equipped with a 3.6GHz Pentium 4 took 512 seconds tocomplete the same task.

Unfortunately, few CAD applications and almost no business applicationscurrently take advantage of multithreading or multiple CPUs. For thatreason, when running our standard SPECviewperf 8.1 and SPECapcSolidWorks 2005 benchmarks, the system equipped with the Pentium Ddelivered essentially the same performance as a standard Pentium 4running at the same clock rate. So, as expected, the HP xw4300 equippedwith the 3.6GHz Pentium 4 turned in slightly better performance on thevarious benchmarks than the otherwise identical system equipped withthe 3.2GHz Pentium D CPU. But, when running multi-threadedapplications, the system equipped with a dual-core Pentium D has adecided advantage. The question now becomes, will more vendors take itupon themselves to rewrite their applications to leverage thisadvantage.

HP rounds out the xw4300 with its excellent 104-key keyboard and a2-button wheel mouse. Either Windows XP Professional (32-bit or x64Edition) or Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 3 Update 5 (64-bit)come preinstalled, or buyers can choose the HP Installer kit for Linuxwhich includes both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of the operating system.For Windows-based systems, the HP Performance Tuning Framework, asystem optimization application, is also preinstalled. The entiresystem is backed by a three-year warranty that includes parts, labor,and on-site service as well as 24/7 telephone support. And like otherHP workstations, most MCAD and DCC applications are tested andcertified on the xw4300.

Another advantage Intel’s new dual-core CPUs provide is lower cost. The3.6GHz Pentium 4 now costs approximately $417, but when first releasedit sold for $637. The 3.2GHz Pentium D was released at a price of $530.As a result, although prices for the HP xw4300 currently start at $849(sic), our evaluation unit would cost $3,898 as configured with the3.6GHz Pentium 4 and $3,998 as configured with the 3.2GHz Pentium D.That $100 premium places your bet on the advantage of dual-core. If youbelieve in the future of dual-core, that may be a very good bet.

David Cohn is a computer consultant and technicalwriter based in Bellingham, WA. He has been benchmarking PCs since1984. He’s a Contributing Editor to Desktop Engineering, the Editor-in-Chief of Engineering Automation Report and CADCAMnet published by Cyon Research Corp., and the author of more than a dozen books. You can contact him via e-mail at [email protected] or visit his website at www.dscohn.com. You can also send your thoughts on this article through e-mail by clicking here. Please reference “Dual Core, November 2005” in your message.

Price
$3,998 as tested with 3.2GHz Pentium D CPU
$3,898 as tested with 3.6GHz Pentium 4 CPU
Size
8.22 x 18.62 x 19.02 inches (WxDxH) tower
Weight
44 pounds
CPU
Pentium 4 or Pentium D
Motherboard
ATX form factor based on Intel 955X chipset
Memory
34002GB (8GB max)
Graphics
NVIDIA Quadro FX 3400
Hard Disk
Western Digital 74GB 10,000 rpm ATA
Floppy
3.5-inch floppy
Optical
48X CD-RW/DVD-ROM
Audio
Integrated Intel High Definition Audio with microphone, line-in, headphone, line-out jacks
Network
Integrated Broadcom 10/100/1000 LAN
Modem
None
Other
One 9-pin serial, one 25-pin parallel, eightUSB 2.0, three IEEE-1394 FireWire, PS/2 keyboard, PS/2 mouse
Keyboard
104-key HP PS/2-style keyboard
Pointing device
Two-button HP mouse

Contact Information

HP
Houston, TX

Intel Corporation
Santa Clara, CA