This dark alley scene was rendered in 10 seconds. All screen captures courtesy of Bryan Hoff.

XSI and 3ds Max
3ds Max has become a staple in my benchmarking process, so by popular demand, here are the results of rendering the “Displacement & DOF.max” and “Light Gallery.max” scenes:

Light Gallery
HP xw9300 2:44
HP xw9400 2:32

Displacement & DOF.max
HP xw9300 12:21
HP xw9400 11:27

The xw9400 edged out the xw9300 by 12 seconds in the mental ray render test, while it took the lead by almost a full minute in the displacement and depth-of-field render test. Raw processing power is the most likely suspect.

XSI refused to run on the xw8400 due to apparent issues with the licensing software and Intel processors, but the xw9400 had no such problems. I was able to run the 64-bit version of XSI 5.1 and render multiple test images, including LIT_e1_Dark_Alley_done.scn. I rendered the scene with sampling set to 0, 2 and it finished in a mere 10 seconds. XSI ran smoothly and with nary a hiccup on this system.

Depth-of-field scene, rendered in 1 minute, 1 second (left) and mango subsurface rendered in 45.45 seconds. 

Maya with Gelato and Mango
Since the computer came equipped with dual Quadro FX 4500 cards, it made sense to put that extra GPU power to the test. So I fired up Maya along with NVIDIA’s Gelato and ran a few test renders. I was impressed with the quick rendering speeds, especially for the depth-of-field and sub-surface scattering scenes.

Depth-of-field scene, rendered in 1 minute, 1 second (left) and the gremlin was rendered in 45.45 seconds. 

I also tested the Sorbetto relighting engine, rendering a scene featuring a gremlin invading a wine cellar. A single frame originally rendered in 35 seconds, then re-rendered with Sorbetto in a scant 26 seconds.

LP2465 Flat Panel Monitor
HP included a flat panel monitor with the xw9400 review unit: a 24" LCD with similar features and specifications to Dell’s LCDs. What sets it apart are features such as dual DVI inputs and a unique cable management system that keeps the video, power and USB cables neatly out of the way. If you’re looking for an entire system, HP has you covered with options to include a 24" or 30" display. While I experienced some tearing with higher frame rate video, DVD playback was topnotch. I’m looking forward to getting my hands on the new LP3065 model soon.

HP’s 24" LCD, the LP2465.

Time For an Upgrade?
If you’re currently using one of HP’s last generation xw9300 Opteron systems or a system that’s based on even older Athlon technology, it could very well be time for an upgrade. When it comes to rendering, four cores are certainly better than one, and two GPUs are often better than one, too. While the Opteron-based xw9400 didn’t fare quite as well as the Xeon-based xw8400 in some of the tests, it held its own on many of the SpecViewPerf tests and, thanks to the dual Quadro FX 4500 cards, surpassed it in several areas. Considering the fact that the Xeon processors were 3.0GHz and the Opterons were 2.8GHz, it makes sense. If you’re a loyal AMD user, an Opteron-based system is just what the 3D doctor ordered, especially if you specialize in fluid dynamics or oil and gas processing. And it plays a pretty mean game of Doom 3 and Half-Life 2 at the end of a hard day’s rendering.

Bryan Hoff is a multifaceted artist and writer. A web designer, digital artist and animator, his credits include movie and television effects, online games, 3D corporate animation, Flash and traditional web site design. His writing credits include articles for LinuxWorld, Element K Journals and InformIT, covering topics like Photoshop effects, Linux 3D graphics applications, Web and HTML design, RSS feeds and painting with a graphics tablet. Bryan has written ebooks on blogging and web site creation for beginners and is co-author of the book Moving from Windows to Linux.