8 minute read
T120
Compared to its older siblings, the ink cartridge capacities are modest — black (80ml); black (38ml); cyan, magenta, yellow (29ml).
With 256MB memory and no hard drive to store queued jobs, the Designjet T120 is very much a ‘personal printer’. But this doesn’t mean it must be tethered to a computer via USB or Ethernet. It’s one of the first Designjets to offer WiFi built-in. WiFi is a standard feature in many desktop printers, but not wide format.
Like all new HP Designjet ePrinters, the T120 is web-connected and supports HP Designjet ePrint & Share technology. This means users can print direct from a web- browser, iPhone, iPad or Android device, or by sending an email to the machine. Documents stored on the ePrint & Share cloud service can also be accessed from the T120 using the touchscreen.
HP’s touchscreen controls has also been refined. With a clean and simple user interface the 4.3-inch screen is easy to navigate, and extremely quick to pick up and to operate. The full colour screen presents clear and useful print previews where users can pan and zoom around a drawing prior to committing to print. Conclusion The HP Designjet T120 looks to be an excellent proposition for the independent architect or engineer. It may lack the print throughput and workgroup capabilities of the more expensive members of the Designjet family, but it’s good to see HP hasn’t cut back on other key features, notably the touchscreen control, ePrint & Share and built in WiFi. The 2-in-1 print capability is also a clever way of reducing the cost and space of running two separate machines.
At under £750 the T120 seems like a great piece of equipment for small offices, but the T520, another new addition to HP’s Designjet family, will arguably be the better option for those with more print heavy workflows.
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InterPro IPW-iB
A good all round CAD / BIM workstation, though some users may demand more from their local storage
Intel’s ‘Ivy Bridge’ Core i7 3770K looks to be the processor of choice for mainstream CAD and Building Information Modelling (BIM) software. In this new workstation from Staffordbased InterPro the 3.5GHz chip has undergone ‘entrylevel’ overclocking. InterPro does not divulge the exact clock speed, but with our CPU tests running about 4% slower than Scan’s 3XS GW-MT15 (Sept / Oct 2012), we expect it’s below 4.4GHz.
InterPro’s mid-sized machine comes with a generous 16GB of memory. With all four memory slots Product spec an issue for those that mostly store data on servers, but is not filled with 4GB DIMMs there ■ Intel Core i7 3770K really sufficient for local CAD is no room for future upgrades. (3.5GHz with entry- work. A 1TB or 2TB SATA can
The IPW-iB’s secret weapon level overclock) (Quad Core) (Ivy easily be added at time of puris the FirePro W5000, one of Bridge) CPU chase without pushing the AMD’s new Southern Islands ■ 16GB (4 x 4GB) price up much. Graphics Processing Units DDR-3 1600MHz (PC3-12800) memory InterPro’s chosen SSD is a (GPUs). ■ AMD FirePro 240GB Intel SSD 330 Series.
The 2GB card performed well W5000 (2GB GDDR5) While the drive is intended in all of our graphics intensive GPU more as a retail product, there tests, though performance is ■ 240GB Intel 330 Series SATA3 SSD are many similarities with the likely to vary ■ ASUS P8Z77-V more expensive Intel SSD 520 from applicamotherboard Series. Indeed, the read and tion to applica■ Microsoft Windows 7 Professional 64-bit write speeds of 500 and tion, depend■ 3 year return to 450MB/s are only slightly slowing on AMD’s base (Incl parts and er than Intel 520’s quoted driver optimlabour) 550MB and 520MB/s. However, sations. ■ £1,195 the Intel 520 does come with a InterPro has ipworkstations.com five-year limited warranty, gone for a bold while the Intel SSD 330 Series choice in stor- only gives three years. age — a single 240GB Solid Overall, the IPW-iB is a good all round State Drive (SSD) with no CAD / BIM workstation, though some users supplementary SATA may demand more from their local storage. drive. This should not be Greg Corke
Dell Precision drives — before being expelled at the rear. The downside of this CFD-optimised T7600 design is you can really feel the hot air coming out of the back of the machine at peak loads. We pity the engineer who sits A beautifully engineered dual Xeon directly opposite. workstation with server grade storage Kitted out with two eight core 3.1GHz Xeon E5-2687W chips, our test machine is Dell first unveiled the Precision T7600 in literally brimming with processing power. April 2012. Timed to coincide with the With a total of 32 threads launch of Intel’s ‘Sandy Bridge’ (16 physical Xeon processors, the machine Product spec and 16 hyperalso heralded what was arguably the biggest re-design in ■ 2 x Intel Xeon E5-2687W (eight threading) the T7600 blitzed the history of Dell Precision core) (3.1GHz) CPU our 3ds Max workstations. ■ 16GB (4X4GB) 1,600MHZ DDR3 ECC benchmark,
With a stylish aluminium RDIMM memory rendering test. chassis, the T7600 is hot on ■ AMD FirePro Our test looks, but the most impressive V7900 (2GB) GPU machine’s thing about the design is its ser■ 146GB 2.5-inch SAS (15,000RPM) + high-end pediviceability. Hard drives that pop 2 x 600GB 2.5-inch gree does not out from the front, a rear facing SAS (10,000RPM) hard drives (RAID 0) stop with power supply that can be ■ PERC H710P SATA/ CPUs. There is replaced in seconds and well SAS controller close to £1,500 ordered internal components are the standout features. ■ Dell motherboard (Intel C600 series chipset) of storage technology inside,
A completely re-engineered ■ Microsoft Windows including a thermal-management system 7 Professional 64-bit 146GB SAS (15,000RPM) for means there is little to worry ■ 3-year ProSupport and Next Business OS and apps and two 600GB when it comes to noise. Low Day On-Site Service SAS (10,000RPM) hard drives duty fans draw air in at the ■ £7,475 (RAID 0) for data. RAID is front of the machine — cooling dell.co.uk/precision handled by a PERC H710P PCI the CPUs, memory and hard Express controller. This highperformance controller is usually deployed in data-intensive servers so may be overkill for many workstation-based design workflows.
For graphics, Dell has chosen the midrange AMD FirePro V7900. It is a solid 3D card, but will soon be replaced by AMD’s new FirePro W Series Southern Island GPUs. Nvidia’s new Kepler-based Quadro K5000 is also on Dell’s roadmap so it may be worth waiting to get the most up to date graphics technology. We are hugely impressed with the Dell Precision T7600. It is well-built, sleek, and incredibly easy to service — possibly the best dual Xeon workstation we have seen. Our test machine is probably a little too high-end for most users of CAD/BIM software but some tweaks here and there should bring the price down. Meanwhile, to learn more about the T7600’s chassis see our in-depth preview in the May / June 2012 edition of AEC.
Greg Corke
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