Nehalem-Based Workstations Hit The Market

At least three vendors -- Apple, Hewlett-Packard and Lenovo -- released high-end graphics workstations based on the "Nehalem" Xeon 5500 processor on Monday.

These vendors are taking advantage of the performance, power management and system management of the processors to offer workstations that run increased workloads while cutting back significantly on energy consumption and noise compared to earlier models.

Hewlett-Packard on Monday unveiled its new HP Z family of workstations based on the new "Nehalem" Xeon 5500 processor.

The three new models offer significantly increased performance combined with unique internal designs that help keep the workstation running cool while cutting down on power requirements and noise, said Jim Zafarana, vice president and general manager of workstations at HP.

These include a power supply that runs the entire length of the chassis to draw cool air in from the front and pass it out the back, as well as an interior cowling that creates separate airflows to take cool air to the processors and cut the noise, Zafarana said.

The chassis also features new variable-speed fans and an easily-removed hard drive cage. The power supply, fans and drive cage all connect with no cables, and can be pulled out for access. The chassis also features bright green spots to show users where they can access the components.

On average, the new workstations consume about 35 percent less power than previous models, and offer four operation modes that run from a maximum of 102 watts at full operation to about 0.8 watts in full hibernation.

The top of the line is the Z800, which has capacity for up to 192 GB of memory and 7.5 TB of storage, and can be configured with dual Nvidia FX5800 graphics cards.

The Z600 can be configured with up to 24 GB of memory and 4.5 TB of storage, as well as up to eight 2-D display units or dual Nvidia FX1800 graphics cards.

The Z400 can be configured with up to 16 GB of memory and 6.0 TB of storage, as well as one or two Nvidia FX1800 graphics cards.

Pricing for the Z400 starts at less than $1,000, while the Z800 starts at less than $1,800, Zafarana said.

Lenovo is jumping on the Intel Nehalem bandwagon, citing a large technological leap as the impetus for its new workstations.

The Lenovo S20 ThinkStation is equipped with Intel Xeon 5500 and Intel X58 Express chipsets. The ThinkStation is a tightly bundled workstation with advanced computing capabilities, designed to harness Intel's Nehalem processor as well as the latest advances in graphics, with a choice of Nvidia chips or an ATI FirePro graphics card.

Designed with demand-intensive jobs such as graphic design or computer-aided drafting in mind, the ThinkStation S20 uses Intel's Nehalem to deliver the performance customers need.

The Lenovo ThinkStation will start at about $1,550.

Earlier this month, Apple jumped on the Intel Nehalem bandwagon, upgrading the chips in its Mac Pro.

The Apple Mac Pro with Xeon processor runs at speeds up to 2.93GHz with an integrated memory controller and three channels of 1,066MHz DDR3 EEX memory.

For handling graphics, an Nvidia GeForce GT 120 high-performance graphics card with 512 MB of GDDR3 memory is standard.

The Mac Pro with Intel technology starts at $2,499.