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HP Unveils Mini Workstation

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Re: HP Unveils Mini Workstation

#201

Post by microcolonel »

roel_v wrote: post #196
to3m wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you've got enough displays, cable length can become a factor! This is much easier to solve if you've got your PC on your desk, and it's much easier to fit your PC on your desk if it's smaller rather than larger.

I use 20m active DisplayPort cables to have my workstation rack-mounted in the basement. I love it.

If I ever work from home or build an office space, that will be the way to go.

A whole team's worth of blazing workstations on half a rack in a cabinet out of the way. Sounds like heaven.

Re: HP Unveils Mini Workstation

#202

Post by microcolonel »

shmerl wrote: post #163
nextos wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does support ECC, but I don't understand its thermal design. Probably it's like NUCs, a small box for the sake of prettiness and a tiny-n-cheap fan that will be noisy. It's a shame, because you can passively cool things like a i7-6700T these days without much effort and without ever falling into throttling [1]. Plus, Calyos is about to release a loop heat pipe that will be able to cool massive systems without any…

Airtop is silent, but it's rather large: https://airtop-pc.com/airtop/natural-airflow-technology/

Do you know if they have standard space for a discrete card? They only offer NVIDIA options, but I prefer AMD.

Re: HP Unveils Mini Workstation

#203

Post by jlgaddis »

dingo_bat wrote: post #189
24gttghh wrote: post #27

Clickbait. Title should read: "HP Unveils its [1] First-Ever Mini Workstation" It's certainly not an Industry first, nor a "World's First" as the press release claims. [1]Based on publicly available information of workstation competitors as of October 3, 2016 with volume of at least 1 million units annually as of October 3, 2016 having < 3 litres volume, professional graphics, Intel® Xeon® quad core processor, ISV ce…

I'm just curious how hp can claim something completely opposite to what is obvious to many people. Isn't that false advertising?

Ever see something being advertised as "new and improved"? It can't be both.

I learned -- a long time ago -- to immediately ignore about half of anything in a press release or coming from a marketing/sales person. I skipped reading probably half of this press release just because I don't care that the VP of the division responsible for the product thinks it's great (of course he does, he's being paid to say that).

Give me facts: data sheets, technical specifications, etc. Personally, I have a (possible unhealthy?) extreme level of "contempt" for the average marketing/sales droid.

Re: HP Unveils Mini Workstation

#204

Post by shmerl »

microcolonel wrote: post #202
shmerl wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Airtop is silent, but it's rather large: https://airtop-pc.com/airtop/natural-airflow-technology/

Do you know if they have standard space for a discrete card? They only offer NVIDIA options, but I prefer AMD.

They have DIY variant without CPU and GPU installed. So you can use other GPUs. See http://fit-pc.com/download/airtop/documents/airtop-owners-ma...

Better contact their support for exact specification on the compatible size.

Re: HP Unveils Mini Workstation

#205

Post by ComputerGuru »

yuhong wrote: post #198
ComputerGuru wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, I was being less pedantic than I should have been. Thanks for the correction and have an upvote. They're "incompatible" in the sense that the pinouts differ, but an ECC-capable DDR3 machine can use both ECC and non-ECC memory; however, the pinout incompatibility means that a non-ECC-capable machine cannot use ECC RAM (but then, who would want to spend the extra $$ for ECC RAM when their machine doesn't support…

The SO-DIMM pinouts are different enough that this is not true either.

What can I say? I have two, identical TS140s sitting in the next room. One is running G.Skill non-ECC and the other is running Kingston ECC modules.

Re: HP Unveils Mini Workstation

#207

Post by jclulow »

ianai wrote: post #151
jpt4 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also have the Skullcanyon, as a laptop replacement machine. None of my previous personal computers have had ECC RAM, but none have had more than 16GB either. What is your use case that benefits from error-correction, if you please?

It can mess up graphics work and zfs pools.

It can mess up _any_ file system. ZFS is, under some conditions, more likely to _tell_ you that you've had a problem.

That said, if a bit flips in the wrong place in RAM, even a checksumming file system will not protect you. The file system will happily write out the corrupted data if the checksum is calculated after the bit flip occurs.

Re: HP Unveils Mini Workstation

#208

Post by Splines »

Matthias247 wrote: post #84
petepete wrote: post #9

So how much RAM could be stuffed in one of these? Edit: The Z2 Mini supports Intel Core i3, i5 and i7 processors, in addition to Xeon E3 processors. It also supports up to 32GB of DDR4 SO-DIMM memory, and the unit can be equipped with Nvidia Quadro M620 graphics with 2GB of memory. (from http://www.tomshardware.com/news/hp-z2-mini-g3-workstation,3... )

Any idea to which consumer card the Quadro M620 correlates? If it's something halfway decent then it might be a also a much better ultraportable gaming solution for some people than e.g. a NUC. However that also depends on if the Quadro drivers are suitable for gaming or not.

Your best bet, other than building your own, is probably a Steam Machine. For around the same price as this workstation you can get one with a better video card.

Re: HP Unveils Mini Workstation

#209

Post by rodgerd »

croon wrote: post #23

By pre-defining specs for the device, you can obviously create a sleak box for it with no wasted space, but I would claim it will always be impossible to create something as powerful as something 4 times its size, given the larger components are still produced, just going off physics. Otherwise no one would still build towers and just use laptops. (Of course more people use laptops, but it's not because of performanc…

Four times the size can also be tremendously counter-productive, in terms of having a big empty space that air swirls around in. Cooling is a pain in the arse.

Re: HP Unveils Mini Workstation

#210

Post by tcdent »

dingo_bat wrote: post #188
tcdent wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Liquid circulation doesn't actually cool, just transfers the energy to another interface for eventual dissipation into the air.

I mean that's exactly what every cooling system does.

Duh. OP suggests liquid cooling would give some benefit to acoustic performance.

Really, it just adds complexity and bulk; it's not some magic solution to efficiency or increased performance. Especially in a compact form factor.

If volume is not a constraint, sure the availability of added surface area to dissipate the heat collected from a smaller surface area is beneficial. Most high performance, low resonance liquid cooling systems take advantage of increased surface area using oversized radiators and multiple low-speed fans.

I have successfully designed and implemented my own custom water cooling loops to pull concentrated heat from multiple components, but there is most definitely no benefit to the volume occupied by the entire system.

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