Are You Ready for HP's Compaq NW8240 Mobile Graphics Workstation?

[bgerber]

Endurance, compactness, performance, and professional graphics capabilities—these terms aptly describe HP's new NW8240. Join us as we show you what a $3,000 mobile workstation can do for you.

 

[killernotebooks]

$3,000?!!

Where does the mobile graphics workstation part come in... the anemic x700 based 128 MB graphics card?

And where does the mobile graphics workstation part come in... the price?

An 80 gig 5,400 rpm hard drive standard,
Intel 32 bit - 770: 2.13 Ghz
and 1 Gig of memory???

Then they throw native wUXGA 1920x1200 resolution on a 15.4" notebook? Sounds good on paper when you're just looking at the size of the numbers, but it grinds this little video card into fine powder once you try to render something at those resolutions, and wait... I think I can ALMOST see that... Is that an icon? Yea, if I'm 18 years old with 20/20 vision and sitting 3 inches away from my screen! wSXGA 1680x1050 is borderline difficult to see on a 15.4" but 1920... come on HP. I'm sure a 128 MB x700 based video card renders some great frame rates for games at those resolutions too. Who designed this thing?

They're getting to the party about a year late!
So to answer the question, "Are you ready..."No, I'm not ready to pay twice as much for half the system.
Of course you could wait for the $4,100 verision with the 32 bit core duo, that's a bargain.

Could Mobility Guru do an article on the Killer Notebooks Eliminator?
Turion MT-40 64 bit 2.2 Ghz
x1600 256 MB SXGA+
2 Gigs CAS 2.0 2-2-2-5 timing RAM
Hitachi 100 Gig 7,200 rpm Hard Drive
802.11g/G+ 108 Mbps wireless
Less than 2 grand!

 

[Luscious]

I have to agree. 1920 on a 15 inch screen is kind of stupid, considering that most 17 widescreens do 1680x1050 already, and reserve the 1920 version for the 17 inch size format only.

You are right about the x700 as well. Most top-of-the-line machines I have seen already offer the Quadro FX Go 1400 256 MB, designed specifically for workstation graphics applications.

Likewise, these machines would also offer dual sata drives in RAID 0, giving the user workstation speed where they need it.

And they already come with a dual core 64-bit CPU!!!

You can probably guess which machine I am talking about...

 

[Jookie]

I would have to say I agree with most of what was said here and have to add a little for myself.

Why weren't other mobile workstation solutions included in the benchmarks such as the old nVidia Quadro FX Go 1400 or the newer Quadro 1500M and 2500M? All this thing was compared to were desktop solutions... these are Apples and Oranges man!

 

[killernotebooks]

Same reason why Mobility Guru came on and said, "Are notebook manufacturers affraid of mobility guru?" and I said, "bring it on! Where do I send my Eliminator?!!!" and that post is still the last one on that thread.

 

[MikeBJr]

I'm not sure I get the point of this article. Evaluate a mobile graphics workstation and then compare it against run-of-the-mill business notebooks. What a surprise that it gets editor's choice!

Its like evaluating a new Dodge Charger and then comparing it against Dodge Neons and Ford Focuses. It's not saying much when the Charger gets the Fastest Car Award.

I was hoping to see it stack up against other contenders in the mobile graphics workstations segment like a Dell Precision M90 (which I just bought for a user at the company I work for).

The NW8240 looks like a reasonably spec'd mobile graphics workstation, but at the end of the article I don't come away with any insight as to whether this would be the best bang for my buck when looking to purchase a machine like it.

-Mike

 

[killernotebooks]

Mike, when you are looking at your next mobile graphics workstation take a look at my