Some will buy a Ferrari, others, HP's new xw8600 system. Either way, they're both fast. Screen image courtesy of Autodesk Inc. © 2002 -2007, All rights reserved.

There comes a time in every guy's life when he just wants to go fast. Some buy sports cars, some take up BASE-jumping, while others decide it's time to upgrade their workstations. If you fall into the latter category, then read on.

HP's new xw8600 system is ideal for broadcast and video editing, oil and gas exploration and 3D graphics creation, to name a few. Speed and customizability are the order of the day.

Configure to Your Heart's Content
Pricing for the xw8600 begins at $1,926, while the system I tested included two quad core Xeon 5460 processors clocked at 3.16 GHz, a 1333 MHz frontside bus, 4 GB of RAM, a 160 GB SATA hard drive and a Quadro FX 1700 video card, and costs $7,386. Aside from being the fastest system I've ever tested, it's also the most expandable, with a potential 128 Gigabytes of memory, with the addition of RAM risers. For a little perspective, the 8600's predecessor, the 8400, could address a maximum of 32 Gigabytes. Perhaps the biggest change, though, is the bandwidth provided by the second-generation PCI-E video; the dual x16 video slots offer a total of 16 GB/s throughput; 8GB/s in each direction. This, coupled with the increased memory capacity, goes a long way in eliminating bandwidth bottlenecks. Need hard drive space? HP has you covered there as well, with 14 hard drive connections in total. So many, in fact, that there won't be enough room in the case for all of them.

SpecViewPerf 9 Test Results
I ran the SpecViewPerf 9 benchmarking test on the xw8600 to see exactly what has been improved. For the sake of comparison, I've also included the SpecViewPerf results for the xw8400.

Taking a look under the hood. Unless noted, all images courtesy of Bryan Hoff.

HP xw8400
SUM_RESULTS3DSMAXSUMMARY.TXT
3dsmax-04 Weighted Geometric Mean = 29.98

SUM_RESULTSCATIASUMMARY.TXT
catia-02 Weighted Geometric Mean = 36.45

SUM_RESULTSENSIGHTSUMMARY.TXT
ensight-03 Weighted Geometric Mean = 21.83

SUM_RESULTSLIGHTSUMMARY.TXT
light-08 Weighted Geometric Mean = 34.42

SUM_RESULTSMAYASUMMARY.TXT
maya-02 Weighted Geometric Mean = 24.22

SUM_RESULTSPROESUMMARY.TXT
proe-04 Weighted Geometric Mean = 28.59

SUM_RESULTSSWSUMMARY.TXT
sw-01 Weighted Geometric Mean = 36.90

SUM_RESULTSUGNXSUMMARY.TXT
ugnx-01 Weighted Geometric Mean = 10.86

SUM_RESULTSTCVISSUMMARY.TXT
tcvis-01 Weighted Geometric Mean = 6.357

HP xw8600
SUM_RESULTS3DSMAXSUMMARY.TXT
3dsmax-04 Weighted Geometric Mean = 34.05

SUM_RESULTSCATIASUMMARY.TXT
catia-02 Weighted Geometric Mean = 39.31

SUM_RESULTSENSIGHTSUMMARY.TXT
ensight-03 Weighted Geometric Mean = 38.73

SUM_RESULTSLIGHTSUMMARY.TXT
light-08 Weighted Geometric Mean = 35.93

SUM_RESULTSMAYASUMMARY.TXT
maya-02 Weighted Geometric Mean = 140.9

SUM_RESULTSPROESUMMARY.TXT
proe-04 Weighted Geometric Mean = 34.44

SUM_RESULTSSWSUMMARY.TXT
sw-01 Weighted Geometric Mean = 56.13

SUM_RESULTSTCVISSUMMARY.TXT
tcvis-01 Weighted Geometric Mean = 23.39

SUM_RESULTSUGNXSUMMARY.TXT
ugnx-01 Weighted Geometric Mean = 25.14

As you can see, the xw8600 beat out the xw8400 in every test, with an especially jaw-dropping result in the Maya test. But how does it perform in real-world testing? Very well, thanks.