HP Professional Workstation gets Six-Core AMD Opteron Processor

Anyone looking at getting a HP xw9400 Workstation has a couple of extra processor options to consider with the company announcing the high-end workstations are now being offered with the Six-Core AMD Opteron 2400 Series processor. According to HP, the extra grunt provided by the new AMD Opteron processors will make the xw9400 a better option for 3-D digital content creation and areas that attract lots of “mega” and “multi” prefixes - “multi-threaded applications, multi-tasking and mega-tasking environments.”

The xw9400 Workstation can accommodate up to two Six-Core AMD Opteron processors to provide a total of 12 cores when the two processors are paired together. The new CPU’s offer up to 34 percent more performance per watt over previous generation quad-core processors and employ AMD HyperTransport 3.0 technology (HT3) to increase interconnect rates from 2 gigatransfers per second (GT/s) up to a maximum 4.8 GT/s.

Hard to please power users can also chose to configure their xw9400 with the ATI FirePro V7750 3-D workstation graphics accelerator to give dual DisplayPort outputs, Dual Link DVI-I and support for 18, 24 and 30-bit displays with a resolution of up to 2,560 x 1,600.

The HP xw9400 retains its tool-less chassis design and includes an 80 PLUS power supply to reduce energy usage. It is also more than 90 percent recyclable by weight, helping it achieve an Electronic Products Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT) Gold rating.

The HP xw9400 Workstation starts at USD$1,899, but expect to pay a tad more for the Six-Core AMD Opteron processor option.