Multimedia
Blogs
Forum
Affordable HD
Whitepapers
Newsletters
Events
Advertisers
Blogcast
MillimeterReview: HP Z800
Apr 1, 2009 12:00 PM, By Jan Ozer
Workstation integrates the Intel Nehalem processor into a brand-new toolless chassis.
Table 3. Rhozet Carbon Coder benchmarks.
Rhozet Carbon Coder
I tested with Rhozet’s Carbon Coder because it’s the most efficient multithreaded program I’ve ever worked with. That generally translates to excellent performance with multiple-core processors. After a brief hiccup at the start of the testing, the Z800 didn’t disappoint.
Specifically, the first test involved 16 1-minute files encoded to VP6, H.264, and VC-1 formats. As you can see, though the Z800 was comfortably the best performer, the advantage wasn’t particularly earth-shaking. Note that, as with all tests, I tried the Z800 and Z400 with HTT enabled and disabled and used the fastest score. As mentioned, in the first test, the Z800 was about 9:30 (min:sec) slower with HTT enabled.
During this first test, I noticed that all computers got bogged down while encoding into VC-1 format, meaning slow encoding and particularly inefficient CPU utilization. So I encoded all 16 files to a single H.264 preset in the second test and to a single VP6 preset in the third. As you can see, in these latter tests, the Z800 really started to shine. So if you’re producing exclusively in these two formats, you could really see significant benefits from moving over to the Nehalem-based Z800.
What’s it going to cost you? As tested, the Z800 costs $10,787, while the Z400 would cost $5,873. I haven’t done the comparisons, but HP tells me that these prices reflect only a small premium over prices for systems based on the older-style Xeon technology. Any way you look at it, with the Z800, you’ll be getting a whole lot more for your money than with any other computer that I’ve reviewed to date.
The other point is that if you’re a content producer who’s still working in 32-bit Windows, you really are making it hard on yourself—particularly with CS4. If memory limitations on your current system prevent you from upgrading to 64-bit Windows, you should strongly consider the Z800.
bottomline
Company: HP
www.hp.com/workstations
Product: Z800
Assets: Intel Nehalem; easily accessible toolless chassis.
Caveats: Performance benefits from the new Nehalem CPU are application-dependent, but they should be considerable for most video editing and encoding tasks.
Price: Starting at $1,999
Continue the discussion on “Crosstalk” the Millimeter Forum.