DEVELOP3D workstation special report – February 2019

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WORKSTATION SPECIAL REPORT THE GPU UNLEASHED MAKING GIANT ASSEMBLIES FLY IN SOLIDWORKS

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WORKSTATION SPECIAL REPORT

Nobody ever thinks their workstation is too fast – it can always go quicker.

Speed is usually addressed with bigger processors, but developers are now looking at smarter ways to harness the power inside, writes Greg Corke

F

exist to allow it to do so.

With the new OpenGL 4.5 graphics engine in SolidWorks 2019, assemblies that previously only used 5% to 10% of the GPU’s processing resources are now maxing out high-end graphics cards. The performance increase is quite phenomenal, breathing new life into old hardware. You can read all about it in on page WS4.

While this is a case of taking good advantage of modern APIs, other software developers are exploring new ways to get more out of a workstation’s GPU. In 2017, Ansys shook up the world of simulation software with Ansys Discovery Live, a brand new tool that promised ‘instantaneous simulation results’ by accepting a small manageable trade-off in accuracy. Importantly, it used the GPU in a different way to other simulation tools.

Instead of focusing on absolute precision, the development team asked the question ‘what would be good enough for design exploration?’, and harnessed the power of the GPU accordingly.

Similar developments are happening in design visualisation. Nvidia has built ‘AI denoising’ into its Optix ray tracing engine.

So instead of having to wait for the GPU to compute thousands of passes, it conducts a few passes and then uses deep learning to remove the noise. It essentially gives a best guess as to what a fully resolved image would look like. This technology has already been implemented in SolidWorks Visualize, which we reviewed in the December 2018/ January 2019 edition of DEVELOP3D. We were very impressed with the results one Nvidia RTX uses bespoke GPU hardware to deliver ‘real time’ ray tracing can achieve in a much shorter timescale.

Nvidia is now taking ray trace rendering one step further by actually changing the architecture of its GPUs. AI denoising in SolidWorks Visualize

or years, product development and visualisation software has relied on a brute force approach to boosting performance. If you want renders back quicker or models to move more smoothly in the viewport, simply throw more processing power at the problem.

And why not? In many cases it works extremely well. You only have to see what AMD’s 32-core Threadripper CPU can do for render times (tinyurl.com/AMD-ripper) to know there’s plenty of mileage in this ‘bigger equals better’ approach.

But it doesn’t always work. Take, for example, the long-standing issue of poor 3D performance when working with large assemblies in mature CAD and BIM software: no matter how powerful your workstation’s GPU is, frame rates will simply not go up. Much of this is down to the fact that the code in mature CAD software is old and simply not designed to take advantage of modern GPU hardware.

Rather than tackle the issue head on, many CAD software developers have chosen to simplify the way models are represented in the viewport. But things are now changing. The new beta graphics engine in SolidWorks 2019 allows users to move huge 3D models smoothly without compromising visual quality. It works by putting the GPU centre stage.

For years, the GPU took a supporting role when it came to 3D graphics. When modern CAD software was first developed, the GPU didn’t have the power to take on so much responsibility, nor did the graphics APIs

works on most modern Nvidia GPUs, but the new Nvidia RTX graphics cards are specifically architected for ray trace rendering. They include three different types of processing cores – RT cores for ray tracing, Tensor cores for deep learning and CUDA cores for shading. Together with software specifically written to take advantage, RTX promises to massively reduce the time it takes to deliver ray traced images. Indeed, Nvidia has demonstrated this happening in ‘real time’. But so far, it’s only been demos. We hope to see commercial applications appear in 2019.

(We had planned to review the first Quadro RTX GPUs in this Workstation Special Report, but there have been delays.)

Of course, we can’t expect things to change overnight. It took DS SolidWorks two years to develop its new graphics engine using an API that works with most graphics cards six years old or less. Nvidia RTX demands a change in both software and hardware.

Big transformations like this often need to happen for our industry to truly advance, but the challenges Nvidia faces with RTX adoption are nothing like those of CPU manufacturers looking to introduce revolutionary new technology.

For years, we’ve stored information in bits – either a 1 or a 0 – but quantum computing introduces the notion of qubits, which can represent both 1 and 0 at the same time. By offering multiple states inside the CPU, the technology promises to deliver computers that are thousands of times faster than those currently available and we expect exciting applications for simulation in particular.

While IBM has just unveiled its Q System One, the first commercial quantum computer, to much fanfare, don’t go holding off on your workstation purchase quite yet.

A shift in CPU architectures will likely take decades and there’s still plenty of life in the x86 architecture. All eyes are already on Intel’s monster 28-core Xeon CPU, which is due to launch soon, and there’s also AMD’s 64-core Epyc to come.

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SOLIDWORKS 2019 GETTING MORE OUT OF YOUR GPU SolidWorks 2019 includes a brand new graphics engine based on the modern OpenGL 4.5 graphics API. Greg Corke explores how it can transform 3D performance dramatically, particularly when working with large assemblies, and enable you to get more out of your workstation hardware solidworks.com

GPUs have become phenomenally powerful processors, great for moving huge 3D models around the viewport. But raw graphics horsepower is not enough to deliver a smooth, fully interactive 3D experience; the software also has to be tuned to take full advantage of the graphics hardware. Owning a Ferrari is great, but not if you only get to drive it in the 30mph zone.

SolidWorks, like most 3D CAD applications, is notoriously CPU-limited. By this, we mean the CPU becomes the bottleneck before the GPU can get anywhere near full speed.

Sometimes, the GPU never even gets out of first gear. Indeed, with certain SolidWorks models, it’s not uncommon to use around 5% of the GPU’s resources, even when your giant assembly is limping around on screen at a few frames per second (FPS).

In such CPU-limited workflows, it doesn’t matter how much GPU hardware you throw

at your CAD models; 3D performance will not increase, or will only increase a tiny bit. The only way to really boost frame rates in such cases is to increase the frequency (GHz) of the CPU. And with frequencies reaching a plateau in recent years, this is simply not a viable solution most of the time.

3D performance hasn’t been so much of an issue for those who work with small to medium assemblies, as most GPUs are able to deliver a good viewport experience.

But when models reach a certain size and complexity, the viewport can become choppy, which is frustrating as you struggle to move your model into position.

What should be a simple, instinctive flick of the mouse, actually becomes a battle against over-compensation, much like a novice captain steering an ocean liner. The GPU simply can’t respond quickly enough to the movement of the mouse, so the model

jumps about on screen.

To circumvent this issue and improve viewport performance, SolidWorks users have historically needed to compromise on visual quality. When models reach a certain size, Large Assembly Mode automatically kicks in, disabling RealView and setting Level of Detail (LoD) to fast. It means that, as soon as you start to move the assembly in the viewport, certain parts are displayed as simple blocks, only returning to their fully rendered state seconds after the model stops moving. This has been the established workaround for years. And while it can increase frame rates to an acceptable level, it does significantly impact the user experience, particularly when trying to impress in a slick presentation.

A couple of years ago, Dassault Systèmes (DS) SolidWorks decided to address this and develop a brand new graphics engine for

Seadoo model

Seadoo model (1,920 x 1,080)

Model statistics

Shaded with Edges

Number of components = 73 Number of triangles = 506,936

Current graphics engine (OpenGL 2.0) GPU memory load @ FHD = 453MB GPU memory load @ 4K = 850MB

New beta graphics engine (OpenGL 4.5) GPU memory load @ FHD = 870MB GPU memory load @ 4K = 1,757MB

Current graphics engine (OpenGL 2.0)

FHD

New beta graphics engine (OpenGL 4.5)

1.23

Frames Per Second (FPS)

185.34

FirePro W2100

70.01 178.63 173.79 167.00 194.92 161.94 214.83 146.08 193.89 184.28

Radeon Pro WX 4100 Radeon Pro WX 5100 Radeon Pro WX 7100 Radeon Pro WX 8200 Quadro M2000

364.36

Quadro P2000

187.51

Quadro P4000

194.33

349.47 364.36 2424 FPS FPS 0

50

100

150

200

250

Black Owl PC model

Black Owl PC model (1,920 x 1,080)

Model statistics

Shaded with Edges

Number of components = 295 Number of triangles = 3,634,648

Current graphics engine (OpenGL 2.0)

Current graphics engine (OpenGL 2.0)

New beta graphics engine (OpenGL 4.5)

300

350

400

FHD

1.23

Frames Per Second (FPS)

21.00 39.71 21.13

FirePro W2100

GPU memory load @ FHD = 659MB GPU memory load @ 4K = 1,530MB

Radeon Pro WX 4100

New beta graphics engine (OpenGL 4.5)

Radeon Pro WX 7100

19.85

GPU memory load @ FHD = 899MB GPU memory load @ 4K = 2,357MB

Radeon Pro WX 8200

19.88

100.99 20.44

Radeon Pro WX 5100

114.92 128.77 127.55 25.85

Quadro M2000

190.86

Quadro P2000

26.97

Quadro P4000

26.34

182.44 185.34 0

50

100

150

200

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a specialist 120Hz or 240Hz monitor, which 4.5, which pretty much the case with all SolidWorks. Based on OpenGL 4.5, it uses are mainly designed for hardcore gamers. a much more modern implementation of professional GPUs released since 2012. the popular graphics API than SolidWorks This includes Nvidia Quadro GPUs based currently does. It is tuned to take full on the Kepler, Maxwell, Pascal or Turing THE NEW GRAPHICS ENGINE advantage of modern GPUs and allows architectures and all AMD FirePro W Series The new OpenGL 4.5 graphics engine models to be manipulated smoothly in the and AMD Radeon Pro WX Series GPUs. is currently a beta feature of SolidWorks viewport without having to compromise on 2019, so is not enabled by default when Those with older GPUs will have to rely visual quality by reducing the LoD. on the current graphics engine, which will SolidWorks first launches.

“With the older rendering engine, we were continue to be developed even after the new “We wanted to give our users the largely CPU-bound,” says Justin Kidder, engine comes out of beta. When it eventualy opportunity to try out the new render director of graphics at DS SolidWorks. “With engine, get a feel for its performance, give becomes an integral part of SolidWorks the new render engine we’ve really moved to us feedback on pros and cons of what we’ve – which could be with a SolidWorks 2019 a place where we are GPU-bound, which is service pack or in SolidWorks 2020 – the been doing, while we continue to wrap up exactly where we want to be.” software will automatically By reducing the reliance identify your graphics on the CPU, DS SolidWorks hardware and enable the most Big numbers on charts look impressive but has been able to increase suitable engine. it all boils down to your experience in the frame rates dramatically viewport and the level of performance that and it is aiming high. As GPU MEMORY Kidder explains, 60 FPS feels Historically, SolidWorks has works for you and the datasets you create “silky smooth” but anything not needed that much GPU less than 30 FPS starts to memory. Most models sit feel a little jumpy. “So our goal was to developing the functionality,” says Kidder. comfortably within 2GB. Even the biggest get performance up to 30-60 FPS for all The new engine is enabled through assemblies only use a touch more when assemblies,” he says.

SolidWorks options – simply go to Tools viewed at 4K resolution. But in order to At DEVELOP3D, we’re a little less > Options > Performance and tick the deliver new levels of performance and open demanding and find anything above 20-24 checkbox at the bottom of the page. up the CPU bottleneck, GPU memory FPS to be adequate for 3D modelling. Even SolidWorks will then need to be restarted. needed to play a much more important role. lower frames can be acceptable, but going As it’s a beta feature, users are advised not The new graphics engine is built around below 10 FPS is undesirable. It’s certainly to use it on live projects.

OpenGL’s ‘retained rendering’ mode, where worth asking what’s good enough for your more data is stored on the GPU than in the needs. Importantly, when you go above 60 previous engine’s ‘immediate’ mode.

GPU COMPATIBILITY FPS, it’s almost impossible to notice any For many years, SolidWorks has used an In order to use the new graphics engine, your difference on a 2D display. You’ll also need OpenGL feature called VBOs (Vertex Buffer workstation’s GPU must support OpenGL

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

Seadoo model (1,920 x 1,080)

FHD

RealView + Shadows + Ambient Occlusion (AO) Current graphics engine (OpenGL 2.0)

New beta graphics engine (OpenGL 4.5)

Frames Per Second (FPS)

1.23

132.63

Radeon Pro WX 4100

125.37 101.47 122.27 136.59 107.64 166.67 135.58 125.01 141.10 209.23 146.41

Radeon Pro WX 7100 Radeon Pro WX 8200 Quadro M2000 Quadro P2000 Quadro P4000

Quadro P4000

50

150

200

250

300

Black Owl PC model (1,920 x 1,080) RealView + Shadows + Ambient Occlusion (AO) Current graphics engine (OpenGL 2.0)

New beta graphics engine (OpenGL 4.5)

1.23

350

FHD

Frames Per Second (FPS)

Radeon Pro WX 4100

86.14

103.98

17.19

Quadro P2000

Quadro P4000

16.70

0

136.73

50

175.21 100

150

200

250

300

1.23

350

Quadro P4000

400

4K Frames Per Second (FPS)

135.79 87.19 138.81 140.32 145.75 95.71

Current graphics engine (OpenGL 2.0)

Radeon Pro WX 7100

94.17

Radeon Pro WX 8200

New beta graphics engine (OpenGL 4.5)

Quadro P2000

Quadro P4000

26.09

100

183.22 187.51 150

200

120

150

4K

Frames Per Second (FPS)

1.23

12.36 4.26 13.19 18.46 12.95 23.01 12.65 40.29 13.69 66.32 18.06

Quadro M2000

133.60

90

RealView + Shadows + Ambient Occlusion (AO)

88.94

26.05

26.91

60

Black Owl PC model (3,840 x 2,160)

Radeon Pro WX 5100

19.80

50

30

Radeon Pro WX 4100

76.75

0

0

FirePro W2100

19.94

Quadro M2000

79.17

200

55.88

Radeon Pro WX 8200

18.14

Quadro M2000

Quadro P2000

20.37

Radeon Pro WX 7100

13.59

Radeon Pro WX 8200

Quadro M2000

21.59 17.92 21.19

Radeon Pro WX 5100

62.72 12.51

Radeon Pro WX 7100

150

New beta graphics engine (OpenGL 4.5)

Radeon Pro WX 4100

48.22

Radeon Pro WX 5100

Radeon Pro WX 8200

123.44

24 FPS24 FPS 100

Shaded with Edges

FirePro W2100

12.91

50

Black Owl PC model (3,840 x 2,160) Current graphics engine (OpenGL 2.0)

12.41 9.06 13.18

FirePro W2100

0

134.86 132.91

51.38

31.92

55.31

2424 FPS FPS 100

22.18

28.06

Radeon Pro WX 7100

356.27

Frames Per Second (FPS)

1.23

37.20 6.21

Radeon Pro WX 5100

163.38 126.11 176.30 137.17 182.70 153.05 186.42 237.07 192.00

Quadro P2000

New beta graphics engine (OpenGL 4.5)

Radeon Pro WX 4100

107.60

Quadro M2000

24 24 FPSFPS 0

184.28

4K

RealView + Shadows + Ambient Occlusion (AO)

FirePro W2100

171.47

Radeon Pro WX 8200

Seadoo model (3,840 x 2,160) Current graphics engine (OpenGL 2.0)

74.48

Radeon Pro WX 7100

330.56

Frames Per Second (FPS)

95.43

Radeon Pro WX 5100

1.23

23.00

Radeon Pro WX 4100

77.03

Radeon Pro WX 5100

New beta graphics engine (OpenGL 4.5)

FirePro W2100

21.05

4K

Shaded with Edges Current graphics engine (OpenGL 2.0)

102.77

FirePro W2100

Seadoo model (3,840 x 2,160)

27.86

Quadro P2000

17.14

Quadro P4000

16.72

48.04

0

80.66 20

40

60

80

100

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Objects), where model geometry is stored on the GPU to increase performance. The new engine now takes this one step further, as Kidder explains: “We also have the ability to store things like colours and textures and component transforms and lighting information.”

The net result of buffering more information on the GPU is less time waiting for the CPU to feed in data, resulting in much better performance. This is one of the major reasons why the current graphics engine is CPU-limited, as a significant amount of data still needs to be fed from the CPU on demand.

To take full advantage of retained rendering, DS SolidWorks has developed new GPU-centric versions of key algorithms. These include Ambient Occlusion, for more realistic shadows; Anti-Aliasing, for smoother edges; Order Independent Transparency (OIT), for faster and more accurate transparent objects; and Occlusion Culling, which doesn’t render objects that are obscured by others.

By using more GPU memory, users may find that older GPUs with 2GB or less may struggle with larger models. SolidWorks will still run, but performance could be impacted as the graphics driver will need to continually move data between the workstation’s system memory and GPU memory.

Our tests show that 4GB should be adequate for even the largest models,

but this doesn’t take into account other applications being used at the same time, particularly a GPU renderer like SolidWorks Visualize or AMD’s Radeon ProRender for SolidWorks. If you do intend to use the GPU for ray trace rendering, 8GB should be considered an absolute minimum.

VISUAL FIDELITY The primary goal of the new graphics engine is to improve performance, but moving to OpenGL 4.5 also gives DS SolidWorks an opportunity to dramatically improve the visual quality in the viewport.

Viewing a model in the new graphics engine with RealView, Shadows and Ambient Occlusion enabled looks pretty much the same as it has done for years. But you only need to look at a modern design viz focused application like Autodesk VRED Professional (OpenGL 4.3) to see what’s possible. Rendering a model in the viewport, instantly, with much more realistic lighting and materials, can really bring a product to life and reduce the need for ray trace rendering.

Kidder acknowledges the potential, but is not able to share any details of where things might be heading. “We’re currently in the process of working with our customers to identify different areas for improvement and understand where they’d like to see improvement,” he says.

ON TEST To compare the performance of the new graphics engine against the old graphics engine, we tested with a variety of real-world SolidWorks models and a wide range of professional GPUs, old and new.

These included two current generation Nvidia Quadro ‘Pascal’ GPUs – the midrange Quadro P2000 (5GB) and high-end P4000 (8GB) – and four current generation AMD Radeon Pro GPUs – the entry-level Radeon Pro WX 4100 (4GB), mid-range WX 5100 (8GB), mid-range WX 7100 (8GB) and high-end WX 8200 (8GB).

To see the performance one might expect to get out of older hardware, we also included the Nvidia Quadro ‘Maxwell’ M2000 (4GB), the predecessor to the Quadro P2000, and the AMD FirePro W2100 (2GB), a sub entry-level CADfocused GPU released in 2014, which was the only GPU we tested that had less than 4GB of memory.

Our test machine was a typical midrange workstation with the following specifications: •

• • •

Intel Xeon W-2125 (4.0GHz, 4.5GHz Turbo) (4 Cores) CPU 32GB 2666MHz DDR4 ECC memory 512GB M.2 NVMe SSD Windows 10 Pro for Workstation

For AMD GPUs, we used the 18.Q4 driver.

Production machinery model

Machinery model (1,920 x 1,080)

Model statistics

Shaded with Edges

Number of components = 591 Number of triangles = 5,752,670 Current graphics engine (OpenGL 2.0) GPU memory load @ FHD = 791MB GPU memory load @ 4K = 1,622MB New beta graphics engine (OpenGL 4.5) GPU memory load @ FHD = 1,232MB GPU memory load @ 4K = 2,291MB

Current graphics engine (OpenGL 2.0)

New beta graphics engine (OpenGL 4.5)

FHD 1.23

Frames Per Second (FPS)

7.43 15.07 7.27

FirePro W2100 Radeon Pro WX 4100

52.76 6.90

59.16 7.27

68.66 6.99

80.36 8.05

8.11

7.92

Radeon Pro WX 5100 Radeon Pro WX 7100 Radeon Pro WX 8200 Quadro M2000 Quadro P2000 Quadro P4000

Confidential model. For illustration purposes only

116.17 112.70 117.77

24 FPS 0

20

40

60

MaunaKea Spectroscopic Explorer telescope

Telescope model (1,920 x 1,080)

Model statistics

Shaded with Edges

Number of components = 8,149 Number of triangles = 58,979,233 Current graphics engine (OpenGL 2.0) GPU memory load @ FHD = 1,425MB GPU memory load @ 4K = 2,230MB New beta graphics engine (OpenGL 4.5) GPU memory load @ FHD = 2,553MB GPU memory load @ 4K = 3,475MB

Current graphics engine (OpenGL 2.0)

New beta graphics engine (OpenGL 4.5)

80

100

120

FHD 1.23

Frames Per Second (FPS)

N/A

FirePro W2100

Radeon Pro WX 4100

3.21 3.32 17.46

Radeon Pro WX 5100

3.31

Radeon Pro WX 7100

3.32

Radeon Pro WX 8200

17.41 17.67 3.17 18.04

Quadro M2000

3.55

Quadro P2000

3.80

Quadro P4000

3.71

19.40 19.70 19.82 24 FPS

0

5

10

15

20

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model, there appeared to be very little benefit from the new graphics engine. Surprisingly, at 4K resolution with RealView enabled, frame rates were actually slower. However, all GPUs delivered adequate performance.

With the more demanding Black Owl PC model, which can be downloaded as part of the SPECapc for SolidWorks 2017 benchmark, we started to see some big benefits of the new graphics engine. This real-world engineering dataset doesn’t just up the ante in terms of number of components and triangles, but the aluminium chassis features hundreds of punched holes The primary goal of the new graphics engine is which puts an even bigger demand on the GPU. TEST MODELS to improve performance but it also gives With the old graphics We used a variety of DS SolidWorks an opportunity to dramatically engine, 3D performance was SolidWorks models, ranging pretty flat across all GPUs, from the simple to the improve the visual quality in the viewport since the Black Owl PC model downright ridiculous in is relatively CPU-limited. terms of size and complexity.

However, the new graphics engine delivered Ambient Occlusion (AO) enabled, which The details of each model, including the much faster frame rates and demonstrated adds realistic lighting and materials. We number of components (as reported by the good scaling across the range of GPUs. To also tested at FHD (1,920 x 1,080) and SolidWorks Performance Evaluation tool), put this in perspective, GPU-Z showed that 4K (3,840 x 2,160) to give an idea of how the number of triangles (as reported when resource utilisation on the Quadro M2000 resolution impacts performance, which in exporting to STL) and how much GPU went from 12% with the old graphics engine some cases can be considerable. memory each consumes (as reported by to 99% with the new engine, when testing at While many CAD users still rely on FHD graphics card utility GPU-Z), can be seen in FHD resolution with RealView switched on. displays, 4K displays are becoming more the charts below.

When fully loaded at 4K resolution, and popular and have become standard issue in To measure frames per second – the rate at which the GPU can render the model as it some mobile workstations. Prices have also with RealView, shadows and Ambient Occlusion (AO) enabled, only the Quadro dropped dramatically in the past year. is moves around in the viewport – we used P4000 and Radeon Pro WX 8200 were able to Starting with the relatively simple Seadoo Spin500, a simple SolidWorks macro that For Nvidia GPUs, we used the 416.16 driver.

Wait for vertical refresh was set to ‘always off’.

For all tests, we turned off Level of Detail (LoD) in SolidWorks (Tools > Options > Performance), so the model would be viewed in full detail at all times.

Finally, it is important to note that all of our testing was done on beta software, so one always expects a few issues and the results should not be taken as gospel. With AMD Radeon Pro GPUs, for example, when models were loaded with RealView already enabled, they did not display correctly. If RealView was enabled after loading, everything was fine.

was developed by DS SolidWorks some time ago to measure 3D performance.

Spin500 is not a perfect test, as it renders a frame statically 500 times, instead of dynamically rotating the model, as one would do when pushing down the middle mouse button. However, it should still give a good indication of relative performance of the two graphics engines and of the various GPUs. We tested each model using two different display modes – shaded with edges (by far the most popular way to view 3D CAD models) and with RealView, Shadows and

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Machinery model (1,920 x 1,080) RealView + Shadows + Ambient Occlusion (AO) Current graphics engine (OpenGL 2.0)

New beta graphics engine (OpenGL 4.5)

1.23

FHD

Frames Per Second (FPS)

4.63 5.73 4.00

FirePro W2100 Radeon Pro WX 4100

3.90

Radeon Pro WX 7100

4.16

Radeon Pro WX 8200

4.43

4.20

41.59

Quadro M2000

Quadro P4000

New beta graphics engine (OpenGL 4.5)

6.42

Radeon Pro WX 7100

6.75

24 FPS 0

20

40

60

80

100

RealView + Shadows + Ambient Occlusion (AO)

FirePro W2100 Radeon Pro WX 4100

New beta graphics engine (OpenGL 4.5)

1.23

Radeon Pro WX 7100

0

120

FHD

Frames Per Second (FPS)

N/A 1.30 1.42

Radeon Pro WX 5100

1.44 2.34

17.02 17.98

Quadro P2000

2.70

Quadro P4000

2.51

106.44

5

4.01

17.26 26.86 3.95

3.93

40.36 21.03

3.70

4.52

Quadro P4000

35.53 57.46 24 FPS

40

60

80

100

Current graphics engine (OpenGL 2.0)

New beta graphics engine (OpenGL 4.5)

10

15

1.23

Frames Per Second (FPS)

N/A

2.41

Radeon Pro WX 8200

2.32

Quadro M2000

2.66

Quadro P2000

2.77

19.07

2.70

19.23

Quadro P4000

10

20

30

40

50

Telescope model (3,840 x 2,160) Current graphics engine (OpenGL 2.0)

Radeon Pro WX 4100

12.62

Radeon Pro WX 5100

New beta graphics engine (OpenGL 4.5)

1.23

Frames Per Second (FPS)

N/A 1.03 1.18 8.86 1.21

10.08

Radeon Pro WX 7100

1.85

13.06

Radeon Pro WX 8200

1.87

13.73

12.96 14.30 1.67

15.25

Quadro M2000

15.01

Quadro P2000 1.32

15.23

Quadro P4000

15.09 15.19

2.10 15.15

24 FPS 0

5

10

15

20

60

4K

RealView + Shadows + Ambient Occlusion (AO)

12.41 2.42

Radeon Pro WX 7100

0

FirePro W2100

2.38 2.35

19.44

20

120

4K

24 FPS 0

Radeon Pro WX 7100

Quadro P2000

96.51

Telescope model (3,840 x 2,160)

Radeon Pro WX 5100

13.55

Radeon Pro WX 8200 1.39

20

Radeon Pro WX 4100

12.05

2.65

3.61

Quadro M2000

60.24

Shaded with Edges

FirePro W2100

Quadro M2000

13.77

Radeon Pro WX 5100

Radeon Pro WX 8200

68.51

Frames Per Second (FPS)

1.23

4.33 3.21 4.01

24 FPS

Telescope model (1,920 x 1,080) Current graphics engine (OpenGL 2.0)

New beta graphics engine (OpenGL 4.5)

Radeon Pro WX 4100

6.45

7.45

7.46

7.39

4K

RealView + Shadows + Ambient Occlusion (AO)

FirePro W2100

53.06

Quadro P4000

Machinery model (3,840 x 2,160) Current graphics engine (OpenGL 2.0)

44.41

Quadro P2000 112.11

Frames Per Second (FPS)

34.55

Radeon Pro WX 5100

Quadro M2000 80.61

1.23

6.92 9.57 6.65

Radeon Pro WX 8200

56.50

49.50 3.96

4.94

Quadro P2000

Current graphics engine (OpenGL 2.0)

Radeon Pro WX 4100

32.85

4K

Shaded with Edges

FirePro W2100 27.10

Radeon Pro WX 5100

Machinery model (3,840 x 2,160)

24 FPS 0

5

10

15

20

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WORKSTATION SPECIAL REPORT

AMD FirePro W2100

AMD Radeon Pro WX 4100

AMD Radeon Pro WX 5100

AMD Radeon Pro WX 7100

AMD Radeon Pro WX 8200

Nvidia Quadro M2000

Nvidia Quadro P2000

Nvidia Quadro P4000

Price *

N/A

£210 (Ex VAT)

£310 (Ex VAT)

£521 (Ex VAT)

£790 (Ex VAT)

N/A

£350 (Ex VAT)

£675 (Ex VAT)

Memory

2GB DDR3

4GB GDDR5

8GB GDDR5

8GB GDDR5

8GB HBM2

4GB GDDR5

5GB GDDR5

8GB GDDR5

Ports

2 x DisplayPort 1.2

4 x Mini DisplayPort 1.4

4 x DisplayPort 1.4

4 x DisplayPort 1.4

4 x Mini DisplayPort 1.4

4 x DisplayPort 1.2

4 x DisplayPort 1.4

4 x DisplayPort 1.4

Max power consumption

26W

50W

75W

130W (6-pin connector)

230W (8-pin + 6-pin connectors)

75W

75W

105W (6-pin connector)

Form Factor

Low-profile, single-slot

Half-height/halflength single-slot

Full-height/halflength single-slot

Full-height/fulllength single-slot

Full-height/fulllength dual-slot

Full-height/halflength single-slot

Full-height/halflength single-slot

Full-height/fulllength single-slot

*price taken from scan.co.uk on 19/12/18

It’s only when RealView is enabled and deliver what Kidder considers to be a “silky more demands are put on the GPU that the smooth” 60 FPS, but in reality, most of the higher-end cards start to make a difference. graphics cards gave a very fluid viewport In saying that, there is virtually nothing experience. The exception was the FirePro between any of the three Quadro GPUs. W2100, where frame rates actually went Putting GPU scaling to one side, there is a down when using the new engine at 4K. noticeable performance benefit from the new In this case, it appears the W2100 simply graphics engine. From an unworkable 1 to doesn’t have the raw power to go it alone when released from the shackles of the CPU. 3 FPS, which makes it virtually impossible to position the model quickly Our production machinery MaunaKea Spectroscopic and accurately, we were able to model was very CPU-limited Explorer telescope get between 15 and 19 FPS and when using the old graphics retain the full image quality. engine, showing virtually no This isn’t perfect, but it difference between all of the does mean you can get GPUs. The new graphics an adequate viewport engine appears to experience without reduce this bottleneck having to fall back on significantly, making LoD trade-offs, where better use of the parts of the model are higher-end GPUs. dramatically simplified GPU-Z showed that during dynamic view resource utilisation operations, such as with a Quadro P4000 zoom, pan and rotate. went from 5% with The FirePro W2100 is the old graphics woefully underpowered engine to 39% with for a model of this size, not the new engine, least because the massive when testing at 4K assembly would happily fill resolution with 3.5GB of GPU memory given RealView enabled. the chance and the W2100 only All of the Radeon Pro has 2GB. The graphics driver is left and Quadro GPUs delivered good to do its best, swapping between system performance in shaded with edges mode memory and GPU memory. but the Radeon Pro WX 4100 and WX 5100 dropped below the minimum ideal 20FPS at 4K resolution with Real View enabled. The CONCLUSION FirePro W2100 was notably off the pace, but If you’ve suffered from 3D performance the 15FPS it delivered at FHD resolution in issues in SolidWorks in the past, or too shaded with edges is adequate. much of your model goes blocky when With 8,000+ components and 59 million moving it on screen, you may have thought triangles, the MaunaKea Spectroscopic this would be remedied with a more Explorer telescope is the largest SolidWorks powerful GPU. And why wouldn’t you? It’s a assembly we have ever seen. Because of its graphics issue, after all. The fact is, for many sheer size, the model still appears to be CPU- years, SolidWorks has been bottlenecked limited when using the new graphics engine by the CPU, particularly when viewing and there is very little scaling between GPUs very complex models. And those who have when displayed in shaded with edges mode. invested in faster GPUs to boost frame rates

may have been sorely disappointed.

This changes with the new OpenGL 4.5 graphics engine. DS SolidWorks appears to have done an excellent job of reducing the CPU bottleneck and delivering considerably better 3D performance.

This is evident not only in the significant increase in frames rates and improved scaling across families of GPUs, but also when monitoring GPU utilisation.

With the old engine, GPU utilisation was very low and, with many of our test models, hovered around 10%, a complete waste of resources. With the new engine, utilisation rises significantly, and the GPU is finally able to get out of first gear.

With some of our test models, there is a clear advantage to the higher-end GPUs like the Quadro P4000 and Radeon Pro WX 8200, particularly when viewing models with RealView, Shadows and Ambient Occlusion at 4K resolution. However, by and large, our tests show that most mid-range GPUs, even some of the older ones, will do a great job for most workflows. In our experience, anything over 20 FPS is acceptable. Big numbers on charts may look impressive, but it all boils down to your experience in the viewport and the level of performance that works for you and the datasets you create.

We strongly encourage you to try out the new engine with your current workstation to see what difference it makes. And if you want to measure frame rates, we suggest you use a free benchmarking utility called FRAPS (fraps.com). Even the FirePro W2100 does an acceptable job with most models in shaded with edges mode at FHD resolution, although we’d generally recommend a GPU with 4GB or more.

In the past, we’ve heard of design and engineering firms switching CAD applications simply because others offered better 3D performance for large assemblies.

With the new engine, DS SolidWorks certainly looks to be throwing down the gauntlet to the other CAD vendors.

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WORKSTATION SPECIAL REPORT

AMD RADEON PRO WX 8200 AMD’s new high-end professional GPU may be power-hungry and slightly off the pace in some applications, but its trump card is multitasking, which means you can render in the background and still get a fully responsive 3D viewport. Greg Corke reports Price £790 + VAT amd.com/en/graphics/workstations It’s been two years since AMD launched its Radeon Pro WX family of GPUs, starting with the Radeon Pro WX 4100 & WX 5100, focused on 3D CAD and the Radeon Pro WX 7100 for entry-level GPU rendering and VR. Last year, it extended this to the high end with the Radeon Pro WX 9100, the first professional GPU to feature the company’s long-awaited Vega GPU architecture.

The Radeon Pro WX 9100 fell a little short of expectations. Our tests showed it generally sat somewhere between the Nvidia Quadro P4000 and Quadro P5000 but performed well in select workflows such as OpenCL-based ray trace rendering and immersive VR in DirectX applications.

This summer, AMD added a new highend model to the fold, the Radeon Pro WX 8200. On paper, this GPU is very similar to the WX 9100, but it costs considerably less. At launch, AMD claimed that for real-time visualisation, virtual reality (VR) and photorealistic rendering, it offered the best workstation graphics performance for under $1,000. However, this bold claim was qualified in the footnotes, having been tested under select workflows including Adobe Premiere Pro, Autodesk Maya, Radeon ProRender and Blender Cycles.

SPECIFICATIONS

less. On scan.co.uk, it is currently going for £790 (ex VAT), whereas the WX 9100 will set you back £1,220 (ex VAT).

The big difference between the two GPUs is memory. The WX 8200 has 8GB of fast HBM2 memory with ECC support, while the WX 9100 has double that at 16GB. This is a key consideration for GPU rendering, as memory plays a crucial role. It is also becoming much more important for VR and real-time visualisation, particularly at 4K resolution and above. If you plan to multitask and work in 3D as you render a scene in the background, it’s even more critical and 8GB is likely to be too little. In saying that, the WX 8200’s High Bandwidth Cache Controller (HBCC) can help you work beyond the physical memory limits of the GPU, by allocating a portion of the workstation’s system memory for it to use, but more on this later.

In terms of competition, the Radeon Pro WX 8200 is naturally pitted against the Nvidia Quadro P4000 as they have similar price points. On scan.co.uk, the P4000 is currently available for £675 (ex VAT), £115 less than the WX 8200.

The P4000 features 8GB of GDDR5 memory but is very different in terms of its physical packaging. It’s a single-slot GPU

AMD’s mid-range single-slot pro GPU, which has 8GB of GDDR5 memory and costs £521 (Ex VAT).

Both Nvidia GPUs are set to be replaced imminently with the Turing-based Quadro RTX 4000 (8GB GDDR6) and Quadro RTX 5000 (16GB GDDR6), which should offer significant performance increases. The Quadro RTX 4000 and Quadro RTX 5000 are currently available on pre-order at scan.co.uk for £808 (Ex VAT) and £1,832 (Ex VAT) respectively .

TESTING Our test machine is a typical midrange workstation with the following specifications: •

• • •

Intel Xeon W-2125 (4.0GHz, 4.5GHz Turbo) (4 Cores) CPU 32GB 2666MHz DDR4 ECC memory 512GB M.2 NVMe SSD Windows 10 Pro for Workstation

For AMD GPUs we used the 18.Q4 driver.

For Nvidia GPUs, the 416.16 driver. To cater to our key audience of designers, engineers, design visualisers and architects, we focused on five professional applications in the areas of 3D CAD, real time visualisation, VR and ray trace rendering. The applications used a variety of APIs, including OpenGL, Nvidia might currently be the Usain Bolt of 3D DirectX and OpenCL. graphics and the favourite in a flat race. But if you Wherever possible, we real-world design and want to juggle circus balls, while powering down used engineering datasets.

The Radeon Pro WX 8200 is very similar to older sibling the WX 9100 both in terms of looks and specifications. Both are double-slot GPUs with the back straight, our money would be on AMD a thermal design power (TDP) of 230W, which is INTERACTIVE 3D quite a lot for a desktop For real-time visualisation, and is much less power-hungry. With a max frame rates were recorded with FRAPS, GPU. You’ll need a mid-range to high-end power consumption of 105W, it also has the using a 3DConnexion SpaceMouse to workstation, such as the HP Z4 or Dell benefit of being compatible with an entryPrecision 5820 Tower, with a pretty hefty ensure the model moved in a consistent way level workstation, such as the HP Z2 Tower power supply and both 6-pin and 8-pin every time. We tested at both FHD (1,920 x external power connectors. It has four mini or Dell Precision 3630 Tower, and only 1,080) and 4K (3,840 x 2,160) resolution. needs one six-pin external power connector.

DisplayPort outputs, while the WX 9100 Enscape 2.4 is a real-time viz and VR There’s also the Quadro P5000 (16GB has six. tool for architects that uses OpenGL 4.2. It GDDR5X), a double-slot GPU with a max The WX 8200 packs in 3,584 Stream delivers very high-quality graphics in the power consumption of 180W, which comes processors and delivers 10.75 TFLOPs of viewport and uses elements of ray-tracing in at £1,399 (Ex VAT) on scan.co.uk.

Peak Single Precision (FP32) Performance. for real-time global illumination.

For the purpose of this review, we put the On paper, this is around 88% of what the WX Enscape provided two real-world datasets WX 8200 up against the P4000 and P5000 9100 offers with 4,096 Stream Processors for our testing – a large residential building and also the WX 9100 and the WX 7100, and 12.3 TFLOPs, but it costs considerably (see chart 1) and a colossal commercial

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development (see chart 2). The GPU memory requirements for these models are quite substantial. The residential building uses 2.8GB @ FHD and 4.5GB @ 4K, while the commercial development uses 5.5GB @ FHD and 6.9GB @ 4K. This was fine for our testing, as all the GPUs feature a minimum of 8GB, but it emphasises the point we made earlier about the importance of GPU memory. If using multiple applications at the same time, especially a GPU renderer, you may quickly find yourself running out.

For the most part, the WX 8200 stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the WX 9100 and the P4000, although the P4000 had a slight lead when testing at FHD resolution. The Quadro P5000 topped the charts, although it is significantly more expensive. The WX 7100 came bottom by quite a long way.

At this point, it’s important to note the relevance of Frame Per Seconds (FPS).

Generally speaking, for interactive design visualisation, you want more than 24 FPS for a fluid experience. When testing at 4K resolution, all of our GPUs delivered 16FPS or under, which is not ideal. However, as with most applications, you can dial down the visual quality in Enscape to increase performance. For example, when set to draft, which still gives very good visual results, we achieved 25FPS with the WX 8200.

We were interested in Autodesk Revit Live, another game engine and VR tool for architects, as it uses DirectX 11 instead of OpenGL. The model we used – a community centre (see chart 3) – is not as demanding, and the graphics not as realistic as those in Enscape, but the performance results were very similar.

Autodesk VRED Professional 2019 is an automotive-focused 3D visualisation, virtual prototyping and VR tool. It uses OpenGL 4.3 and delivers very high-quality visuals in the viewport. It offers several levels of real-time anti-aliasing (AA), which is important for automotive styling, as it smoothes the edges of body panels, but AA calculations use a lot of GPU resources.

We tested our automotive model with AA set to ‘off’ (see chart 4), ‘medium’ (see chart 5) and ‘ultra-high’.

When real-time AA was disabled, the WX 8200 had a small but significant lead over the P4000, but fell off the pace a bit when AA was enabled. At 4K, with AA set to Ultra High, even the P5000 struggled, and the model was very choppy in the viewport. In these types of automotive styling workflows, where visual quality is of paramount important, you really need to look at a multi-GPU solution.

We also tested with VRMark, a dedicated Virtual Reality benchmark that uses both DirectX 11 and DirectX 12. It’s biased towards 3D games, so not perfect for our needs, but should give a good indication of

The Radeon Pro WX 8200 performs well in the GPU renderer, Radeon ProRender for SolidWorks

the performance one might expect in ‘game engine’ design viz tools, such as Unity and Unreal, which are increasingly being used alongside 3D design tools.

In the DX 11-based Orange Room test (see chart 6), the WX 8200 was a tiny bit behind the P4000 but it showed a significant lead in the more demanding Blue Room test (see chart 7), which is designed for nextgeneration VR headsets.

The WX 8200 also beat both Nvidia GPUs in the DX 12-based Cyan Room test (see chart 8), outperfoming the P4000 by some way. According to AMD, this is because the Vega architecture is designed to perform very well with low-level APIs like DirectX 12, Vulkan and Metal (on OS X). At the moment, pro applications built on these APIs are thin on the ground, so this may be a

consideration for the future, although viz artists could choose to create real-time viz and VR experiences using DX 12 as both Unity and Unreal already support the Microsoft standard.

The WX 8200 is somewhat overpowered for 3D CAD applications like SolidWorks, which tend to be CPU-limited and work just as well with an entry-level or mid-range GPU like the Radeon Pro WX 5100.

However, CAD is one of the main reasons

one would choose a professional GPU over a consumer GPU as they are certified and optimised for a range of CAD tools.

This means there can be stability and performance benefits and access to pro viz features such as RealView in SolidWorks and OIT (Order Independent Transparency) in SolidWorks and Creo, which increase performance and visual quality of transparent objects in the viewport.

We won’t go into any great depth in our SolidWorks testing, as we will be covering this in detail soon in a separate article, but the long and short of it is that all of the professional GPUs tested in this article should be fine for 3D CAD. With very complex assemblies, you might not get the frame rates you want for a fluid viewport experience without relying on ‘Level Of Detail’ optimisation in the CAD tool, but this is not down to the power of the GPU, rather the frequency of the CPU, as in most CAD applications, the CPU is the bottleneck. In saying that, the new beta graphics engine in SolidWorks 2019 does a great job of reducing the CPU bottleneck and giving higher-end GPUs a chance to use their full power.

GPU RENDERING The role of the GPU has changed dramatically over the years and it is now becoming an extremely viable processor for ray trace rendering. There are several rendering tools that can take advantage of AMD GPUs through the open API, OpenCL. This includes AMD’s own renderer, Radeon ProRender, as well as Blender Cycles, V-Ray, Indigo and others.

Radeon ProRender is free and available for DEVELOP3D.COM FEBRUARY 2019 WS11

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here as Chaos Group has done significantly more development work on the CUDA engine than it has on the OpenCL engine.

In short, GPU rendering performance is very dependent on the software, as it is with 3D graphics.

it responded when we tried to rotate a 3D model in SolidWorks and Autodesk VRED. In SolidWorks, the viewport responded instantly to the movement of our mouse and felt fluid, both in shaded with edges and RealView display modes. Frame rates were exactly the same, regardless of whether the V-Ray benchmark was running or not, MULTI-TASKING which was impressive: 20.01 FPS in shaded Rendering a scene with a CPU-based ray with edges mode and 13.13 with RealView, trace renderer used to mean the perfect excuse for a cup of tea. There was no point in shadows and Ambient Occlusion enabled.

In contrast, with the P4000, frame rates soldiering on with other work as the entire dropped quite dramatically from 26.34 to workstation would grind to a halt. But now 10.02 in shaded with edges mode and from it’s easy to restrict the number of CPU cores the renderer uses, leaving some cores free for 16.70 to 6.31 with Realview, shadows and other tasks. Core allocation can even be done Ambient Occlusion enabled. In addition, at times, the viewport was unresponsive, and from within the rendering software itself. the model stuttered.

Most GPU rendering applications don’t SolidWorks, as with most 3D CAD have that same granularity, but thanks applications, is CPU-limited so only uses to AMD’s Graphic Core Next (GCN) a fraction of the GPU’s resources. So to architecture, with its asynchronous give the WX 8200 more of a challenge, we compute engine, they don’t necessary need to. Like all AMD Radeon Pro GPUs, the WX did the same test with Autodesk VRED Professional, which uses 100% of the GPU 8200 was designed from the ground up to mix 3D graphics and compute tasks (such as when moving a model in the viewport.

The viewport also responded instantly, ray trace rendering) and dynamically switch but performance was impacted quite between them. substantially. At FHD resolution with no In practice, if you try to rotate your 3D anti-aliasing, frame rates dropped from 51.3 model in the viewport while ray trace to 13.13. Things were still fairly fluid but, rendering on the same GPU, the driver at higher resolutions or with AA enabled, instantly pauses some compute tasks, lets you move your model into position and then we would expect it to impact the experience significantly. But the P4000 suffered more, re-starts as soon as you stop. And it seems and frames rates dropped from 48.55 to to do this very well.

7.7 and the viewport became choppy. The We explored this feature by running P5000 was even worse, dropping from 65.4 the V-Ray benchmark, and then, with the all the way down to an unusable 3.00.

GPU running flat out at 100%, see how

SolidWorks, PTC Creo, Blender, 3ds max, Maya and Unreal Engine (beta). It is also built into Cinema4D and Modo (beta) and there’s a Rhino version available on GitHub. Chaos Group V-Ray, the popular design viz renderer that has plug-ins for a wide range of DDC and CAD tools, support AMD GPUs through an OpenCL implementation.

It also supports Nvidia CUDA, although AMD GPUs do not work with renderers that only use CUDA. Examples of other CUDA-based renderers include SolidWorks Visualize, Dassault Systèmes Catia Live Rendering, Siemens NX Ray Traced Studio or any Nvidia Iray plug-in.

For our testing, we used Radeon ProRender for SolidWorks which is based on OpenCL 1.2.

Using the Black Owl PC model from the SPECapc SolidWorks 2017 benchmark, we recorded the time it took to resolve the render 1,000 times at 800 x 600 resolution, with the render quality set to low (see chart 9).

The WX 8200 stood shoulder to shoulder with the WX 9100 and had a clear lead over both Nvidia GPUs, completing the scene 11 per cent faster than the P5000. This wasn’t entirely unexpected as Nvidia puts more development resources into CUDA than OpenCL and, of course, Radeon ProRender is also developed by AMD. We also tested the GPUs with the freely downloadable V-Ray benchmark (see chart 10).

Here, Nvidia has quite a substantial lead.

While it gives a great idea of the relative performance one would expect in V-Ray, Nvidia GPUs are always likely to do better

1

Enscape 2.4

1

Complex model @ 4K

Frames Per Second (bigger is better)

Frames Per Second (bigger is better)

AMD Radeon Pro WX 7100 (8GB)

AMD Radeon Pro WX 7100 (8GB)

8

AMD Radeon Pro WX 8200 (8GB)

13

AMD Radeon Pro WX 9100 (16GB)

14

Nvidia Quadro P4000 (8GB)

Autodesk Revit Live 2019

4

12

AMD Radeon Pro WX 9100 (16GB)

12

Nvidia Quadro P4000 (8GB)

12

Nvidia Quadro P5000 (16GB)

15

0

3

6

9

12

8

AMD Radeon Pro WX 8200 (8GB)

12

Nvidia Quadro P5000 (16GB)

3

Enscape 2.4

2

Residential model @ 4K

16

0

15

Autodesk VRED Professional 2019

5

5

10

15

Autodesk VRED Professional 2019

Community Centre model @ 4K

Car model (no AA) @ 4K

Car model (medium AA) @ 4K

Frames Per Second (bigger is better)

Frames Per Second (bigger is better)

Frames Per Second (bigger is better)

AMD Radeon Pro WX 7100 (8GB)

AMD Radeon Pro WX 7100 (8GB)

31

AMD Radeon Pro WX 8200 (8GB)

48

AMD Radeon Pro WX 9100 (16GB)

48

Nvidia Quadro P4000 (8GB)

AMD Radeon Pro WX 8200 (8GB) 25.2

Nvidia Quadro P5000 (16GB) 20

30

40

50

60

70

80

10

15

20

25

10.2

Nvidia Quadro P5000 (16GB)

25.3

5

8.4

Nvidia Quadro P4000 (8GB)

17.8

0

7.9

AMD Radeon Pro WX 9100 (16GB)

25.2

Nvidia Quadro P5000 (16GB)

64

10

AMD Radeon Pro WX 9100 (16GB)

2.5

AMD Radeon Pro WX 8200 (8GB)

23.2

Nvidia Quadro P4000 (8GB)

49

0

AMD Radeon Pro WX 7100 (8GB)

8.2

30

20

14.7

0

3

6

9

12

15

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But what impact does the WX 8200’s ability to multitask have on render speeds? In short, very little. In real-world worfklows, graphics tasks tend to come in short bursts. The designer may reposition a model to work on a different face or zoom into an assembly to model details. It’s not like a 3D game, where the GPU constantly runs flat-out as you battle your enemies.

We tested this out in SolidWorks and VRED, performing 20 separate rotate and zoom operations in each application over a two-minute period as the V-Ray benchmark ran in the background. This only increased the render time by 2 seconds and 10 seconds respectively (or 1.5% and 6%).

Use cases in design review or project presentations (such as an architectural walkthrough) may be a little different, but here, you’d probably want to pause the render anyway to ensure the best experience for your team or client. However, we tried this out anyway: spinning the car model in VRED for the entire duration of the render only extended the render time by 53 seconds (or 37%).

With V-Ray itself, as opposed to the V-Ray benchmark, it is possible to adjust the load on the GPU to help keep the viewport responsive. This is done by reducing the rays per pixel and/or the ray bundle size, essentially breaking up the data passed to the GPU into smaller chunks. Chaos Group says this will reduce the rendering speed, although we don’t know by how much.

PUSHING THE MEMORY LIMITS GPU memory is becoming more and more

6

VRMark Professional Edition

important, particularly if you intend to use the GPU for both compute and graphics tasks. And while 8GB may have appeared to be a lot a few years ago, it is now considered ‘entry-level’ for viz-focused workflows.

To give this some context, simply loading up our large Enscape model uses 5GB at FHD and 6.8GB at 4K resolution, leaving little space for much else. Even SolidWorks 2019, with its new OpenGL 4.5 graphics engine, can easily use 3GB or 4GB on a single model. And if you run multiple applications, each with their own datasets, GPU memory soon gets devoured.

For demanding workflows, the obvious solution is to invest in a GPU with more memory. However, 16GB GPUs, such as the Radeon Pro WX 9100 or Quadro P5000, are significantly more expensive, and 32GB GPUs even more so.

But AMD has a trick up its sleeve to help users get more out of its WX 8200 and WX 9100 by extending the practical limits of GPU memory.

With most GPU architectures, when GPU memory becomes full, applications crash.

AMD’s Vega, on the other hand, features a HBCC (High-Bandwidth Cache Controller) that allows GPU memory to spill over into system memory, in much the same way data pages to the hard drive when system memory becomes full.

The size of this cache is controlled in the Radeon Pro driver, using a slider. It can be as big as the workstation’s entire system memory, although this is probably unadvisable or indeed beneficial.

7

VRMark Professional Edition

To test it out, we launched two separate processes that we knew, when combined, would use up more than the 8GB on the GPU – viewing our Revit Live test model at FHD resolution (4GB) and rendering our SolidWorks computer model in Radeon ProRender at 4K resolution (6.4GB). Using GPU-Z, a free tool that measures GPU resource utilisation, the GPU was shown to be using a total of 10.4GB. Even though this was 2.4GB more than the GPU’s 8GB of physical memory, we were able to run the ProRender render and smoothly manipulate the Revit Live model at the same time. On the P4000, this simply wasn’t possible, as Radeon ProRender crashed as soon as Revit Live became the active application. To push things further we attempted to fill the GPU with over 12GB of data, but this ended up freezing our system.

More experimentation is needed to find out the practical limits and benefits of HBCC – and that’s the subject of a whole different article – but it looks like it’s probably best-suited to giving you a bit of additional headroom and not as a means of getting a 32GB GPU on the cheap. Even if it could handle such large datasets, performance would probably suffer considerably.

REMOTE WORKSTATION Flexible working is on the rise and long gone are the days when work ends as soon as you leave the office. AMD now includes a remote workstation capability for its Radeon Pro GPUs, which allow you access your 3D workstation from almost anywhere, on

8

VRMark Professional Edition

Orange Room

Blue Room

Cyan Room

Frames Per Second (bigger is better)

Frames Per Second (bigger is better)

Frames Per Second (bigger is better)

AMD Radeon Pro WX 7100 (8GB)

AMD Radeon Pro WX 7100 (8GB)

144

AMD Radeon Pro WX 8200 (8GB)

180

AMD Radeon Pro WX 8200 (8GB)

AMD Radeon Pro WX 9100 (16GB)

178

AMD Radeon Pro WX 9100 (16GB)

Nvidia Quadro P4000 (8GB)

185

Nvidia Quadro P4000 (8GB)

Nvidia Quadro P5000 (16GB)

189

Nvidia Quadro P5000 (16GB)

0

50

100

6

150

200

30

10

Render time (smaller is better)

137

0

50

V-Ray benchmark 1.08

99

Nvidia Quadro P5000 (16GB)

46

40

152 157

Nvidia Quadro P4000 (8GB)

20

AMD Radeon Pro WX 9100 (16GB)

33

10

85

AMD Radeon Pro WX 8200 (8GB)

41 43

0

9

AMD Radeon Pro WX 7100 (8GB)

23

50

100

150

200

Radeon ProRender for SolidWorks Black Owl PC model Render time (smaller is better)

AMD Radeon Pro WX 7100 (8GB)

218

AMD Radeon Pro WX 8200 (8GB)

153

AMD Radeon Pro WX 9100 (16GB)

147

AMD Radeon Pro WX 7100 (8GB)

127

AMD Radeon Pro WX 9100 (16GB)

127

102

Nvidia Quadro P4000 (8GB)

Nvidia Quadro P5000 (16GB)

100

Nvidia Quadro P5000 (16GB)

50

100

150

200

250

194

AMD Radeon Pro WX 8200 (8GB)

Nvidia Quadro P4000 (8GB)

0

160 143

0

50

100

150

200

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Quadro P4000, which is over £100 cheaper applications; users can easily create videos any device. Using a home PC, laptop or for presentations and tutorials. The software and consumes much less power. In such even a tablet, you basically get a window workflows, one can only expect Nvidia’s lead provides full control over resolution and into your workstation with full 3D graphics to increase with the new Quadro RTX 4000. quality and you can also trim videos to acceleration, so you can spin your 3D But AMD holds a very big trump card length. The entire desktop can be captured, models as if you were sat at your desk. when it comes to multitasking. It has done as well as specific regions or windowed The WX 8200’s remote workstation applications. All in all, it’s a neat little utility. an excellent job of turning the humble capability is built into the core Radeon ‘graphics card’ into a true multipurpose Pro driver and then there are then a few processor, allowing users to swap seamlessly additional requirements: Citrix XenDesktop CONCLUSION between graphics and compute tasks. Try Virtual Delivery Agent (VDA) needs to The Radeon Pro WX 8200 is an interesting rendering on an Nvidia GPU and then be installed on the workstation and Citrix proposition for workstation users. By spinning a model in your 3D design tool Receiver on the client device, so there is a offering a slightly cut-down version of the and your experience will likely licensing cost to consider. be choppy in comparison.

We didn’t test out this Users can get around this with capability, but Citrix is a AMD holds a very big trump card when multi-GPUs, where one is proven technology and on it comes to multitasking. It has done an dedicated to graphics and the paper, it looks like a simple excellent job of turning the humble ‘graphics other to compute, but that’s way to extend the reach of card’ into a true multipurpose processor an expensive way to solve the your desktop workstation – or problem and will mean one even create a dedicated server of your GPUs sits idle some for running 3D applications of the time. Some renderers allow you to in a virtualised environment. The same Radeon Pro WX 9100 at an attractive subreduce the load on GPU, but this will extend technology is being used in the new HPE $1,000 price point, AMD is now better able the rendering times and you won’t be taking Edgeline EL4000 Engineering Workstation to compete with Nvidia’s Quadros when it full advantage of the GPU, even when you’re (EWS), which features Radeon Pro WX comes to price/performance. not spinning your 3D model.

4100 GPUs The WX 8200 appears to do extremely As always with pro applications, it all well in OpenCL renderers and DirectX boils down to workflows. Nvidia might 12 applications, where it even beats the CAPTURING THE MOMENT currently be the Usain Bolt of 3D graphics considerably more expensive Nvidia Radeon Pro GPUs include a ‘professionaland the favourite in a flat race. But if you Quadro P5000. It does OK in OpenGL and grade’ screen capture and recording want to juggle circus balls, while powering DirectX 11 applications, generally sitting software tool called ReLive. The utility was down the back straight, our money would somewhere between the P4000 and P5000, originally developed to capture and stream be on AMD. but sometimes plays second fiddle to the 3D games, but it also has professional

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AMD RADEON PRO WX 8200 DESKTOP WORKSTATIONS The Armari Magnetar S32T-RD1300G3 is focused heavily on design viz. It features a special compact chassis that has been designed specifically to house AMD’s 250W monster

Threadripper 2 CPU, which has up to 32 cores.

The workstation can host up to three AMD Radeon Pro WX 8200 GPUs, up to 128GB RAM and it has 6 hot-swap drive bays.

The Scan 3XS WI4000 Design is built around Intel’s 9th Generation Core desktop processors which feature frequencies up to 5.0GHz and up to 8 cores.

In this machine, the CPU

is focused on application performance, leaving the AMD Radeon Pro WX 8200 free for GPU rendering, real time viz or VR. It offers SSDs and HDDs and can support up to 64GB RAM.

The Workstation Specialists WS-X1180 Frequency Enhanced features a choice of overclocked Intel Core X-series processors from the 6 core Intel Core i7-

7800X up to the 18 core Intel Core i9-9980XE. The viz focused machine can support multiple AMD Radeon Pro WX 8200 GPUs, up to 128GB of memory and M.2 SSDs & 3.5-inch HDDs.

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WORKSTATION SPECIAL REPORT

WORKSTATIONS FOR WORKFLOWS CPU RENDERING

3

D CAD applications are generally singlethreaded, which means most of their operations run on a single CPU core. As a result, it’s important to prioritise frequency (GHz) over the number of cores. A quad-core or six-core processor should serve you well.

We’d recommend the Intel Core i7-8700K (six cores, 12 threads) (3.70 GHz, 4.70 GHz Turbo). The Intel Core i79700K (eight cores, 16 threads) (3.60 GHz, 4.90 GHz Turbo) has a slightly higher spec for virtually the same price, but is only currently available from specialist manufacturers. The additional two cores may be useful if you also use a multithreaded ray trace rendering tool like KeyShot.

The Intel Core i5-9600K is a good budget choice. It has six cores and 6 threads, so you’ll lose a little bit of performance if rendering, but with a base of 3.70GHz and a Turbo of 4.60GHz it’s great for 3D CAD. But, like the Core i7-9700K, it is not yet widely available.

Intel Xeon E-2000 series CPUs are another option, but it’s important to note that any Xeon

models with six cores or more require the special Windows 10 Pro for Workstation (4 Cores Plus) OS, which costs over £100 more than standard Windows 10 Pro. The 3D graphics requirements for CAD are quite moderate as most software is CPU-limited.

As long as your GPU has a certain level of processing power, 3D performance will then be dictated by CPU frequency. In such cases, a highend GPU is pointless, as most of its resources will not be used.

For smaller assemblies, we’d recommend the Nvidia Quadro P1000 or AMD Radeon Pro WX 4100; for larger assemblies, the Quadro P2000 or Radeon Pro WX 5100. Higher-end GPUs may give a performance boost when viewing models with realistic materials and lighting.

For memory, use a minimum of 16GB DDR4 RAM, although 32GB should give you some headroom for the future.

For storage, NVMe SSDs are ideal and are now relatively cheap, although don’t feel you have to buy an expensive 2TB SSD to store your CAD files.

A combination of 256GB or 512GB SSD and a 2TB HDD will serve you perfectly well.

KEYSHOT RENDER

ONSHAPE CAD MODEL

3D CAD

F

or a CPU renderer like KeyShot or V-Ray, or any of those built into 3D CAD applications, more cores will generally deliver renders much quicker. But don’t forget about frequency (GHz), which is as essential for general system performance as it is for applications and 3D graphics.

Historically, design viz folks have had to strike a balance between cores and GHz. As the number of cores increases, GHz generally goes down. But now they really can have their cake and eat it too. And, for the first time in years, AMD is giving Intel a serious run for its money.

The AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2990WX, for example, is a 32core, 64-thread monster with a base frequency of 3.0GHz and a Turbo of 4.2GHz. It’s phenomenally fast at ray trace rendering, but it also plays nicely with CAD (and with your wallet as it only costs £1,333 Ex VAT).

Despite its obvious attraction, Threadripper is only available in workstations from specialist manufacturers.

AMD might currently have the performance crown for rendering on a single CPU, but Intel is fighting back. The Intel

Xeon W-3175X, due to ship any day now, boasts 28 cores, 56 threads, a base frequency of 3.1GHz and a Turbo of 4.3GHz. On paper, it should offer better performance than Threadripper, but rumours suggest it’ll cost a lot more.

For those on tighter budgets, AMD and Intel also offer several cheaper models with fewer cores. Check out the AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2950X (16 cores, 32 threads, 3.50GHz, 4.40GHz Turbo) and Intel Core i9-7940X (14 cores, 28 threads, 3.1GHz, 4.3GHz Turbo).

With such great price/ performance on offer from single CPU workstations, the role of the dual Xeon has been somewhat diminished, but a pair of 18-core Intel Xeon Gold 6154 CPUs will still give the best rendering performance.

For memory, choose a minimum of 32GB DDR4, but 64GB or 128GB will be needed for large datasets. For storage, NVMe SSDs are a given, but consider the Intel Optane SSD 905P for really demanding I/O. Graphics should be matched to your 3D workflows, whether that’s 3D CAD, real-time viz or VR – see other sections.

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A workstation for 3D CAD is very different to one tuned for real-time visualisation or VR. Greg Corke looks at some of the key workflows in product development and what you should look out for when specifying a machine

REAL TIME VIZ / VR

G

PU rendering in product development is still relatively niche but the applications are growing.

Examples include SolidWorks Visualize, V-Ray NEXT GPU and Radeon ProRender.

Most GPU renderers use Nvidia CUDA, so only run on Nvidia GPUs. Others use OpenCL, so run on AMD or Nvidia.

GPU renderers need a GPU with lots of cores and memory.

8GB is really a minimum, with 16GB, 32GB, or even more needed for complex datasets.

Generally speaking, with Nvidia GPUs, if you run out of GPU memory, the scene will not render. AMD ‘Vega’ GPUs give you some headroom by allowing GPU memory to spill over into system memory. CPU renderers don’t have the same memory challenges, as you can simply add more to your workstation.

AMD GPUs are good at multitasking (i.e. 3D graphics and rendering at the same time); Nvidia GPUs less so.

GPU renderers can make use of multiple GPUs. This is a big benefit over CPU rendering, as it’s easy to add more processing power to your workstation.

However, your machine will need spare PCIe slots and a high-wattage power supply.

Using multiple GPUs does not generally increase the amount of GPU memory that can be used by the renderer.

However, with Nvidia NVlink technology, you can double the memory by effectively turning two GPUs into one. NVlink is only supported with high-end GPUs like the Quadro GV100.

You don’t need a professional GPU to use a GPU renderer, so some users choose a consumer GPU instead. You get significantly more for your money, but consumer GPUs generally have less memory and are usually not certified for pro applications like CAD. You can’t mix consumer and professional GPUs in the same workstation.

Nvidia has built ‘AI denoising’ into its ray tracing engine, which can dramatically cut render times, giving GPUs a potentially big advantage over CPUs. AMD is doing similar.

Nvidia is betting big on rendering, promising ‘realtime’ ray tracing with its new Quadro RTX GPUs, which feature dedicated cores for ray tracing and deep learning.

AUTODESK VRED

SOLIDWORKS VISUALIZE. CREDITS - MODEL: AX TECH | IMAGE: JACEK KOCZMIEROWSKI

GPU RENDERING

T

he graphics requirements for real-time viz are much higher than they are for 3D CAD. With an emphasis on realism and silky smooth frame rates (30FPS+), you need a high-end GPU to do it justice.

Real-time viz tools like Autodesk VRED are built from the ground up for professional use, so generally benefit from a high-end professional GPU (Nvidia Quadro or AMD Radeon Pro). Such GPUs are certified to be used with key applications, which can give users confidence in stability, performance and display accuracy.

A good starting point is the Quadro P4000, but most viz workflows will demand a significantly more powerful GPU, especially on 4K displays.

Some applications will benefit from multiple GPUs. Conversely, game engine viz tools like Unreal Engine will work fine with consumer GPUs. However, pro GPUs do generally offer more memory, which can mean geometry and materials do not have to be optimised/simplified as much.

VR has even bigger demands.

It requires around eight times

more graphics processing power than is needed to view the same scene on a FHD (1,920 x 1,080) display. This is because head mounted displays (HMDs) need to render both eyes at very high frame rates (90FPS) for a comfortable VR experience.

For viewing simple models in an application like SolidWorks eDrawings 2019 or VR4CAD, a Quadro P4000 should do a good job. But, for larger assemblies, especially when there needs to be an emphasis on visual quality with anti aliasing and realistic materials, you’ll need a Quadro P5000 or above.

The most important thing to understand about VR is that if you don’t correctly match your GPU to your workflow, it will simply not work for VR. This is different to viewing a 3D model on a desktop display, where slow frame rates will usually just give you a sub-optimal experience.

In terms of the workstation, for both real-time viz and VR, you’ll need a high frequency CPU – the Intel Core i5-9600K or Core i7-8700K are good starting points. You’ll also need lots of memory (32GB+) and a fast NVMe SSD.

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LENOVO THINKPAD P1 Lenovo is late to the game with its premium, ultra-thin 15-inch mobile workstation, but it has been worth the wait, since the ThinkPad P1 delivers an impressive blend of portability and performance for 3D CAD users, writes Greg Corke Price £3,107 Ex VAT lenovo.com old school, along with three physical mouse performance with frame rates slower than For years Lenovo had a big gap in its buttons. To the right of the keyboard, there’s they would be with the FHD panel. After mobile workstation portfolio. The closest all, there are four times as many pixels to a fingerprint reader that uses touch rather thing it had to a premium, ultra-portable render (see later). than swipe for easier authentication.

15.6-inch laptop for 3D CAD was the In terms of ports, the machine is very wellFor more advanced security, the frontThinkPad P52s. But while this 1.95kg, equipped. On the right, you’ll find two USB facing Infrared camera supports Windows 20mm-thick machine offered incredible 3.1 Gen 1 (Type-A), along with smart card Hello technology, so you can use your face battery life, it simply couldn’t compete for authentication or logging in. In addition, slot and SD card reader. On the left, there with the Dell Precision 5530 or HP ZBook are two Thunderbolt 3 (Type-C), HDMI 2.0, the bundled Mirametrix Glance software Studio G5 when it came to performance, a 3.5mm Mic/headphone combo jack, as can automatically lock the machine when portability and stylish good looks. well as a dedicated Mini Gigabit Ethernet you look away for a set time, then unlock Last year, Lenovo finally filled this gap (the machine comes with an RJ45 adapter). upon your with the ThinkPad P1. The To boost display connectivity, there are return. Often slimline machine boasts optional USB-C to DisplayPort and HDMi these types of specifications that are close features come to VGA adapters. to those of a mainstream The P1 has a brand new 135W power across as 15.6-inch mobile workstation, supply, which is remarkably small (35% gimmicks, but the sleek design is only smaller than its predecessor). It weighs but this 18.7mm thick and 1.8kg with a seems truly less than 500g (including a UK plug) and 4K display. features a neat ‘dog ear’ design so the lead useful.

The P1 may be thin and light can be wrapped around neatly. but like all ThinkPads it is built The 4 cell Li-Polymer 80Wh battery for endurance. The main body is features Rapid Charge made from magnesium alloy and Technology, which Lenovo the lid is carbon fibre. It has been says gives you 80% of designed to withstand (and is Milbattery life in 30 mins and Spec tested for) cold, heat, vibration, 40% in 15 mins after plugging in. shock, dust and other hazards. The This is great for a quick top up at a café laptop has a really solid feel to it: the or an airport. hinge is firm and the display has very little The battery lasted a reasonable 125 mins flex. One gets the feeling it could be picked in the demanding PCMark (OpenCL) media up by the corner of the screen, though we test, which continually hammers both weren’t brave enough to try.

CPU and GPU. In a more typical dayFor a premium look and feel, the Compared to a mainstream “Kaby to-day workflow, with a combination ThinkPad P1 has a clean, minimal design and a soft touch matt black Lake” 15.6-inch mobile workstation of 3D CAD and office apps, we’d finish. It’s a slightly darker shade of 2017, the P1 is thinner, lighter and a expect it to go for considerably longer. than standard ThinkPads and looks big step up in terms of performance SPECS AND PERFORMANCE and feels great but is a tiny bit prone to marks from greasy fingerprints.

Thin and light used to mean a The keyboard is seamless, so it trade-off in performance but, as The Infrared camera is only available blends in with the palm rest, but there’s with the HP ZBook Studio G5 and Dell with the optional 4K (3,840 x 2,160) display no numeric keypad. This is because there Precision 5530, the ThinkPad P1 is up simply isn’t room; at 361.8mm, the P1 is not and not the standard FHD (1,920 x 1,080) there with most standard 15.6-inch mobile display, which costs £149 less. as wide as Lenovo’s mainstream 15.6-inch workstations.

In addition to the obvious benefits of mobile workstation, the P52.

Our test machine’s “Coffee Lake” Intel having a higher res display – crisper CAD The keyboard itself is really solid and Xeon E-2176M CPU (2.7GHz, 4.4GHz geometry, higher fidelity images and huge the frame has very little give. There’s just Turbo) has six cores, a significant step up spreadsheets – the 4K panel is brighter about the right amount of travel on the from the quad-core “Kaby Lake” CPUs of (400nits vs 300nits), is multi touch enabled, 2017. It means a substantial performance keys and typing is a pleasure. Equally, the boasts 100% Adobe colour gamut and a 10glass touchpad has the perfect amount of boost in multi-threaded operations such as bit colour depth. It’s a beautiful display with ray trace rendering. resistance with full multitouch support. a slight glossy finish. However, as with all There’s also the classic Trackpoint, for Of course, for mobile workstations there 4K displays, it could have an impact on 3D those who prefer their input devices to be are always big challenges when it comes to

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thermal management. On paper, the Xeon E-2176M sustains an impressive 4.4GHz in single-threaded operations, such as CAD, but the frequency can go down as low as 2.7GHz when all six cores are being used flat out.

On test, the P1’s dual fan cooling system did a great job of keeping clock speeds relatively high. For burst renders of a few minutes, it hovered around 3.1GHz to 3.2GHz. Even when we rendered a huge scene for over an hour, it managed to maintain an all-core speed of 3.0GHz – and without the fans getting too noisy.

Impressive stuff.

To put this perspective, in our V-Ray and KeyShot rendering benchmarks, it was almost twice as fast as the Lenovo ThinkPad P52s mobile workstation with a quad core Intel Core i7-8650U CPU (1.9GHz, 4.2GHz Turbo). It even managed to beat a desktop workstation, the Dell Precision 5820 which we reviewed last year and had a quad core Intel Xeon W-2125 (4.0GHz, 4.5GHz Turbo).

The ThinkPad P1 is also well-specified when it comes to graphics, featuring the Nvidia Quadro P2000 with Max-Q GPU design, a slightly lower-powered implementation of the Quadro P2000.

We tested primarily in SolidWorks 2019 and found the P1 could handle large assemblies as well as most other workstations, desktop and mobile. We’d expect to have a similar experience with other CAD and BIM tools.

With the ‘beta’ OpenGL graphics engine, which helps remove the CPU bottleneck experienced in most CAD and BIM tools, we saw frame rates in our largest assembly, rise from a stuttering 4.51 to a smooth 23.47. In comparison, the Dell Precision 5530 2-in-1 with its Radeon Pro WX Vega M GL graphics went from 3.91 to 15.75.

In our game engine viz and Autodesk VRED tests, the Quadro P2000 Max-Q GPU struggled a bit because of the 4K display.

Frame rates dropped as low as 5 frames per second (FPS), whereas 20+ FPS is really ideal. Dialling down the resolution to 1,920 x 1,080 (FHD) brought frame rates up to a much more acceptable level, more

than double in most cases. In SolidWorks shaded with edges mode however, where graphics performance is more influenced

by CPU frequency, so places less emphasis on the GPU, frames rates remained largely the same. With the ‘beta’ graphics engine, they went up 30% with our medium sized desktop PC model and 43% with our large production machinery assembly.

Hopefully, this should give some food for thought when choosing between the FHD and 4K panel. Of course, one could always go for the 4K panel regardless and reduce the resolution as and when workflows dictate. However, this is only really practical in full-screen applications like game engine viz, since toolbars and icons are not super sharp when not viewed at the native 4K resolution.

In terms of storage, the ThinkPad P1 can host one or two M.2 NVMe SSDs, up to a maximum of 4TB. Our test machine came with a pair of 1TB SSDs, configured as a 2TB striped (RAID 0) array. This combination delivers incredible read/write performance but is a risky path to take as, should either drive fail, all your data will be lost. For CAD, RAID 0 is certainly overkill and this setup should only be considered if you have a workflow that would really benefit from it – for example, simulation, point cloud processing or video editing.

By standardising on solid state storage, the P1 doesn’t give the option of a 2.5-inch hard disk drive (HDD), which can significantly bring down the overall price per GB. Indeed, the pair of 1TB SSDs in our test machine cost a whopping £817 Ex VAT. With two DIMM slots, the maximum memory of the ThinkPad P1 is 64GB. This should be plenty for most CAD users, who are more likely to go with the 32GB (2 x 16GB DDR4 2666MHz SODIMMs) that came with our test machine.

Servicing is fairly straightforward if you want to replace or add an M.2 SSD or memory. Simply remove seven small Philips screws on the back and a panel slides off easily. You’ll also have access to the battery, though this is quite fiddly to replace.

1

2

TECH SPECS » Intel Xeon E-2176M CPU (6 cores, 12 threads) (2.7GHz, 4.4GHz Turbo) » Nvidia Quadro P2000 (Max Q) 4GB GDDR5 GPU » 32GB DDR4-2666MHz memory » 2 x 1TB SSD M.2 2280 NVMe, Opal (RAID 0) » 15.6” 4K UHD Touch (3,840 x 2,160) IPS, 400nits, 100% Adobe colour gamut, 10-bit colour depth » 362 (w) x 246 (d) x 18.4mm (h) » From 1.70kg » Microsoft Windows 10 Pro 64 » ThinkPad 3 Year On-site warranty

CONCLUSION Lenovo may be late to the game with its ThinkPad P1 but it has certainly been worth the wait. It’s an impressive mobile workstation with great build quality that strikes a very good balance between performance, portability and thermal management. Some of the earliest ultraportables were prone to fan noise and throttling, but the P1 excels at maintaining performance and good acoustics: it’s virtually silent when idle and not too loud even under heavy loads.

Most impressively, even though it is thinner and lighter than a mainstream “Kaby Lake” 15.6-inch mobile workstation from 2017, it is significant step up in terms of performance, not least when it comes to rendering. The 4K panel is beautiful but be wary of its potential impact on 3D performance.

Of course, there are some downsides: battery life could be better and the lack of a 2.5-inch drive means storage can become expensive if you need terrabytes rather than gigabytes. Then, of course, there’s the price. At £3,107 Ex VAT, our test machine represents a serious investment, but swapping out the pair of 1TB SSDs for a single 256GB SSD will bring this down to a much more palatable £2,403 Ex VAT. Overall, the ThinkPad P1 is an excellent choice for designers, engineers and architects that use 3D CAD plus a little bit of real-time and ray traced design viz and one we’d wholly recommend.

2

1 The keyboard is ● seamless, so it blends in with the palm rest.

The fingerprint reader to the right uses touch rather than swipe for easier authentication 2 The ThinkPad P1 ● with the FHD panel is only 18.4mm thick and weighs 1.7kg. With the 4K panel it’s 18.7mm and 1.8kg

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HP ZBOOK 15U G5 This sleek, entry-level mobile workstation is thin, light and extremely good on price.

It’s a great all-round machine for office work and for taking CAD on the road, but don’t expect it to power your way through more demanding workflows Price see text hp.com/zworkstation The budget end of the mobile workstation market has traditionally delivered larger, heavier machines. But with a thickness of 18.6mm and a starting weight of 1.77kg, the HP ZBook 15u G5 is currently one the most portable out there.

It might lack the finesse of the premium HP ZBook Studio G5, but the build quality is very good. It has a solid feel to it with a CNC-machined LCD cover and an aluminium keyboard deck.

There’s a choice of four FHD (1,920 x 1,080) resolution IPS displays, one of which is touch-enabled, another which features HP SureView Integrated Privacy technology. This is designed to combat what HP describes as ‘visual hacking’ (commonly known as someone else looking at your screen), by significantly reducing the viewing angle at the touch of a button.

Our test machine came with the only 4K option, an anti-glare IPS display. Even though it’s rated at 400 nits, the same as the IGZO panel in the Dell Precision 5530 2-in-1 (see page XX), it just doesn’t feel as bright and the text not as sharp. However, it’s significantly better than the TN panels that were optional in the HP ZBook 15u G4.

In terms of connectivity, The HP ZBook 15u G5 is a little light, with only two USB Type A ports and one USB Type C port (USB

3.1 and Thunderbolt 3.0). If you have a lot of USB Type A devices, the Type C port can be converted with a simple adapter. Alternatively use the full potential of Thunderbolt 3.0 for high-speed data transfer to an external SSD like the Samsung X5 (see box below) or for plugging in an external GPU.

Dual-band Intel Wireless-AC 8265 802.11a/b/g/n/ac (2x2) Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.2 is standard. Despite the thin chassis, the gigabit Ethernet port can accept a full size RJ45 connector thanks to a hinge that springs open. There’s also a single HDMi port to connect to an external display.

The backlit ‘spill resistant’ keyboard comes with a numeric keypad, which is

useful for precise input for CAD. The keys have a good amount of travel when typing but there’s a little bit of flex in the centre of the keyboard. The multi-touch touchpad has just the right amount of friction and there’s also a pointstick.

For security, there’s a fingerprint reader and a 720p HD webcam with IR for face recognition through Windows Hello.

The webcam also has a privacy shutter to physically block it from Internet spies.

There are a whole load of other enterprise security features including: SureStart to protect the BIOS; SureRun to protect against an attacker turning off antivirus; SureRecover, to help non-experts reimage a system on the go; and SureClick, which puts all web browsing in a container so it will not infect the rest of the machine if an insecure website is visited.

The HP ZBook 15u G5 is exceedingly low-powered. It’s built around the Intel Core i7-8650U CPU, which has a TDP of 15W (most mobile CPUs are rated at 45W). Of course, this means there are some trade-offs when it comes to performance.

The low-powered CPU has a base frequency of 1.90GHz and a Turbo of 4.20GHz. This means it’s really only really suited to lightly threaded workflows, such as those commonly found in CAD applications. When more cores are put to work in multi-threaded

SAMSUNG PORTABLE SSD X5

It’s also enabled true multitasking by being able to read and write multiple files as the same time without the workstation grinding to a halt as the spindle of the hard disk drive’s (HDD) moves into position. But the SSD has also had a huge impact on external storage.

Performance benefits aside, portable SSDs are smaller than HDDs and, because there are no moving parts, much more rugged.

Over the last few years, performance of portable SSDs has been limited by the USB interface. Even with USB 3.1, read/write speeds have peaked around 540MB/sec. But now with Thunderbolt 3, which is widely available in new generation mobile workstations, peformance of

portable SSDs has gone through the roof.

The Samsung SSD X5 is one of the first portable drives to take advantage. It boasts a phenomenal read speed of up to 2,800 MB/s, which on paper is up to 5.2 times faster than portable SATA SSDs and up to 25.5 times faster than external HDDs. Write speeds have also increased, rising to 2,300MB/sec.

The pebble-shaped X5 features a full metal body with a glossy finish and non-slip bottom mat. It’s shock resistant, with Samsung claiming it can withstand accidental drops of up to two metres.

The X5 is a little bit bigger than its USB 3.1 predecessor, the Samsung SSD T5, but it’s still nice and compact. It weighs 150g and is

Samsung’s new Thunderbolt 3 SSD sets the portable drive free from the shackles of USB, writes Greg Corke Price from £189 samsung.com/uk/ssd The Solid State Drive (SSD) has transformed workstation storage, delivering dramatically faster read/write speeds and generally making workstations much more responsive.

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workflows, clock speeds are considerably lower than other mobile CPUs. Testing with SolidWorks, for example, which has lots of single-threaded code, it delivered pretty good performance with scores that were not too far behind what one would expect from your average desktop CPU. It did this by maintaining a Turbo of 3.80GHz for the few minutes it took to complete our benchmarks. We had a similar experience in Autodesk Revit.

But when we tried it out with the multithreaded KeyShot and V-Ray renderers, the clock speed quickly dropped to 2.3GHz on all four CPU cores and it took about 65% longer to render our test scenes than the Dell Precision 5530 2-in-1 (Intel Core i7-8706-G). In short, if you only do rendering occasionally, it’ll do a job, but the performance is pretty poor.

Things become a bit more complex when 3D graphics comes into play.

Like most mobile workstations, the ZBook 15u features switchable graphics – the Intel UHD Graphics 620 is used for standard desktop applications and the discreet AMD Radeon Pro WX 3100 GPU kicks in for more demanding 3D applications.

When we used the AMD GPU in short bursts, which is typical of how an engineer or architect would work when 3D modelling, performance was pretty good, particularly considering the WX 3100 is an entry-level professional GPU. In SolidWorks and Revit, we found it did a decent job with small to medium models. However, when the GPU was used for more than a few seconds, the CPU clock speed dropped to 3.2GHz, which had a significant impact on 3D performance.

This drop in turbo could be down to the way the machine manages its thermals, as both processors are cooled by a single fan,

unlike most mobile workstations, which have dedicated fans for each. Fan noise throughout all of our testing was pretty good and the machine remained very cool.

Like many CAD applications, both SolidWorks and Revit use relatively low GPU resources. They are known for being CPU-limited. But with more demanding 3D applications, we started to see the limitations of the Radeon Pro WX 3100. In Autodesk Revit Live, for example, a real-time ‘game engine’ viz tool for architects, GPU usage went up to 100%, but frame rates were relatively low. In viz applications like this, one tends to use the GPU for longer periods, so you’ll get the double whammy of a CPU frequency drop.

One benefit of the relatively low power is battery life. The 3-cell, 56 Wh Li-ion polymer may not have the highest

119 x 62 x 19.7mm in size. It comes with a 45cm Thunderbolt 3 (USB-Type C) cable.

We used a Dell Precision 5530 2-in-1 to test read/write speeds over Thunderbolt 3 with three real-world datasets from Revit, SolidWorks and 3ds Max. The drive came formatted to exFAT so it can work on multiple operating systems, but we reformatted to NTFS as this should give more performance, particularly with small files.

In tests, we found it to be significantly faster than the Samsung SSD T5. The biggest gains came with the biggest files.

For example, with 68 large Revit files, totalling 4.6GB, read performance averaged 1,153MB/sec and write performance

1,147MB/sec. This is about three times faster than the T5 (396MB/sec read and 335MB/sec write).

Our 3ds Max dataset offers more of a mix, comprising 60 large scene files and 4,400 smaller materials, totalling 4.6GB. It averaged 355GB/sec read and 419GB/ sec write (compared to 246GB/sec read and 217GB/sec write on the T5).

Finally, with 8.2GB of SolidWorks data, comprising 14,000 relatively small CAD parts and assemblies, speeds averaged 142MB/sec read and 148MB/sec write (compared to the 105MB/sec read and 90MB/sec write on the T5.)

The X5 is a worthy successor to the

TECH SPECS » Intel Core i7-8650U CPU (4 cores) (1.90GHz - 4.20GHz) » 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2400 memory » AMD Radeon Pro WX 3100 GPU (2GB GDDR5) » 512GB M.2 NVMe SSD » 15.6-inch IPS, 100% sRGB, 400nits 4K (3,840 x 2,160) display » 371 (w) x 251 (d) x 18.6mm (h) » From 1.77kg » Microsoft Windows 10 Pro 64 » 3 year (3-3-0) limited warranty and service offering includes 3 years of parts and labour

for a quick coffee stop or before a flight. It went from 0% to 50% charge in 36 mins and 0% to 90% in 85 mins. The last 10% seems to take an eternity, resulting in a total of 2h 24mins for a full charge.

In terms of memory, our test machine was kitted out with 16GB of DDR4-2400 RAM, which is really considered entry level these days. But the ZBook 15u G5 can go up to 32GB for those with more demanding 3D datasets. Storage is courtesy of a single 512GB NVMe SSD. Larger capacity SSDs are available up to 2TB, but there is only room for one drive, so if you do need lots of storage, it will have to be an expensive SSD, rather than a budget HDD.

CONCLUSION The HP ZBook 15u G5 is a decent entrylevel mobile workstation, great as a second machine for CAD on the go. It’s thin, light and well-built and, providing you capacity on paper. don’t push it too hard, should deliver good However, it gave us just under 4 hours performance in mainstream 3D CAD and in the PCMark 8 Creative test (OpenCL) BIM workflows. But the best thing about the which uses both the CPU and GPU quite ZBook 15u G5 is the price. extensively, and should last a whole day if Unfortunately our test unit, a special only doing light tasks. If you do spend a lot SKU, is not available in the UK. However, of time on the road, however, consider a a 2ZC06EA#ABU SKU with the slightly FHD panel, as this should draw less power slower Intel Core i7-8550U (4 cores) than our 4K display.

(1.80GHz, 4.00GHz Turbo) CPU and a The ZBook 15u G5 stands out for its ability FHD display is currently available from PC to charge the battery quickly, which is great World Business for under £1,000 [Ex VAT].

T5. It’s well-built and is signficantly faster, particularly when reading/writing large files. It also boasts AES 256-bit hardware encryption so you can keep your data secure.

But it’s not cheap. The 500GB model costs £189, the 1TB model £380 and the 2TB model £759 (all Ex VAT). But if you need to move files quickly or open data directly from a portable drive, this is a small price to pay.

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DELL PRECISION 5530 2-IN-1 Dell has produced an exceptional machine that offers the power of a mobile workstation and the flexibility of a Wacom pen-powered tablet. The cherry on the top, writes Greg Corke, is that it’s also incredibly thin Price £2,641 Ex VAT dell.co.uk/precision The mobile workstation 2-in-1, a laptop that doubles up as a tablet, is a relatively new invention, dating back to 2016 and the launch of the Lenovo ThinkPad P40 Yoga.

Lenovo’s flexible Yoga workstation has since been discontinued, leaving HP to take up the mantle with two 2-in1s: the HP ZBook x2, which is essentially a tablet with a detachable keyboard; and the HP ZBook x360, a laptop with a 360-degree hinge, so the screen can fold back on itself and turn into a tablet.

In the product development and architecture sectors, such devices allow designers to start their creative process with a sketch, then continue the design development in 3D without having to change devices. The pen and touch-enabled tablet can also be used for marking up drawings or models, or for a more relaxed way to browse documents and websites.

Now, Dell has got in on the act with the Precision 5530 2-in-1. It’s similar to the HP ZBook x360 insofar as it has a 360-degree hinge and features Wacom pen technology.

However, it’s notably smaller and lighter.

It’s the slenderness of the 5530 2-in-1 that really catches the eye, as it’s a mere 9mm at the front and 16mm at the rear. This is quite incredible for any mobile workstation, let alone one that has a touch and pen-enabled display powered by Wacom technology.

The secret to this incredibly thin machine is the processor, which is the result of an unlikely collaboration between Intel and its rival AMD. Most mobile workstations feature an Intel CPU with a discrete GPU (either Nvidia Quadro or AMD Radeon Pro). The Intel ‘Kaby Lake G’ processor in Dell’s 2-in-1 is different, in that it combines an Intel CPU with an AMD Radeon Pro GPU on a single piece of silicon. This reduces the physical size and depth of the chip and means Dell’s 2-in-1 can be significantly thinner than an equivalent mobile workstation with a fully independent CPU and GPU. The 5530 2-in-1 is so thin that it doesn’t

even have space for any USB Type-A ports (only USB Type-C) nor an RJ-45 Ethernet port. Dell includes one USB Type-C to USB Type-A adapter and one USB Type-C to RJ45 adapter in the box.

There are four USB Type-C ports in total, which can perform multiple roles. The two on the right side of the machine are USB-C 3.1 and the two on the left are Thunderbolt 3, which is great for connecting up fast external storage or an external GPU. All four ports support DisplayPort, so you can hook the machine up to an external display. All four can also be used for charging with the included slimline 130w Power Adapter.

With only four multipurpose ports, you can quickly run out, but the simplicity of this approach is great and you can always buy a USB hub. It’s also nice to have the flexibility to place your power cable left or right, so it’s always on the side of the plug socket.

The ‘MagLev’ keyboard design also helps reduce the thickness of the machine.

MagLev, derived from magnetic levitation, uses magnets instead of rubber domes to get the keys to bounce back. Typing feels a bit weird to begin with, as the keys have a bit less travel, but you soon get used to it.

The soft-touch keyboard deck shows off the carbon fibre weave construction.

It looks great, but is a little prone to

LAPTOP ALTERNATIVES SLIMLINE MOBILE WORKSTATIONS The Dell Precision 5530 may share the same model number as the 5530 2-in-1 and a similar size and weight, but it is a very different beast inside.

It has a separate CPU and GPU and more processing power all round. For the CPU, there’s a choice of quad- or six-

core models. The top-end Intel Core i9-8950HK not only has six cores for significantly faster rendering, but also a Turbo of 4.8GHz, so it will be faster in single-threaded CAD applications.

With the option of the more powerful Nvidia Quadro P2000 GPU (4GB GDDR5), it’s also better suited to real-time viz.

Finally, it supports both NVMe SSD and 2.5-inch HDD, a combination that gives good performance and a lower cost per GB.

The HP ZBook Studio G5 has very similar specs to the Dell Precision 5530 – a massive choice of quad-core or six-core CPUs, as well as the powerful Nvidia Quadro P2000 graphics.

HP has put a lot of work into security, with several features including one that protects the BIOS and another that stops the antivirus being turned off in an attack. There’s also a tool to help non-experts reimage the system on the go and a container for web

browsing that will stop the rest of the machine getting infected if an insecure website is visited.

Finally, HP Sure View is a special display technology that dramatically narrows the viewing angle so prying eyes can’t see the screen.

The PNY PrevailPro P4000 stands out from the competition because it has a much more powerful GPU. The Quadro P4000 will not only deliver much better performance for real-time viz or GPU rendering, but can also drive a VR headset.

The Intel Core i7-7700HQ CPU is one generation behind the HP ZBook Studio G5 and Dell Precision 5530. It’s quad-core with a base frequency of 2.8GHz and a Turbo of 3.8GHz, so you won’t get as

good performance in CAD or when rendering. The build quality is also not as good as others, but if you want a really portable mobile workstation with very fast graphics, then it’s hard to beat.

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fingerprint marks. The glass surface touchpad feels a tiny bit slippy to begin with, but you soon adjust.

The 15.6” UltraSharp IGZO4 4K (3,840 x 2,160) Infinity edge display is one the best we’ve ever seen on a mobile workstation.

The display is bright, CAD models look incredibly sharp and colours are very vivid.

With a very thin border, the screen also goes very close to the edge of the panel. As a result, it feels much smaller than a typical 15.6-inch mobile workstation. As the panel has touch and Wacom pen technology built in, it’s a little bit thicker than a normal display, but this goes unnoticed as the main body of the machine is so thin.

Dell’s 2-in-1 comes with a HD (720p) webcam and Windows Hello infrared camera, which can be used instead of a password to log into Windows or for other types of authentication. Going against tradition, the camera is at the bottom of the screen, rather than the top, which isn’t always the most flattering angle for video calls. There is also an optional fingerprint reader that is built into the power button.

The machine is currently available with a choice of two processors: the Intel Core i5-8305G (4 cores, 8 threads, 2.80GHz, 3.80GHz Turbo); and the Intel Core i7-8706G (4 cores, 8 threads, 3.10GHz, 4.10GHz Turbo). Both feature Radeon Pro WX Vega M GL discrete graphics with 4GB of HBM2 memory and Intel HD Graphics 630. The 5530 2-in-1 switches between the two, depending on how demanding the 3D task might be.

Switching works fine with key applications

like Autodesk Revit, SolidWorks and Autodesk VRED Professional. However, with some of our real-time rendering tests, it chose to go with low powered Intel graphics instead, and we had to go into the Radeon Pro driver to manually assign the executable to the AMD GPU. We couldn’t get this to work with an executable created in AEC viz tool Enscape.

Our machine came with 16GB of 2400MHz DDR4 memory, which should really be considered a minimum for 3D CAD. Frustratingly, memory can’t be upgraded as it’s soldered on and 16GB is currently the maximum you can configure on dell.co.uk. We understand 32GB systems will be available soon.

Storage is standard fare for a machine like this – a single NVMe SSD. Our test unit came with the 1TB model, but there’s a choice of capacities from 128GB all the way up to 2TB. Not surprisingly for a machine this thin, there’s no room for a 2.5-inch drive, so kitting it out with lots of storage is expensive.

The machine features Intel 8265 802.11ac wireless with Bluetooth 4.1 as standard.

The 6-Cell 75WHr integrated battery is OK, but battery life is significantly shorter than the ZBook 15u G5, which has a 15W CPU. It lasted 2h 9 mins in the demanding PCMark 8 ‘Creative’ (OpenCL) battery test which uses both the CPU and GPU quite heavily. We’d expect it to last significantly longer with

TECH SPECS » Intel Core i7-8706G processor (4 cores, 8 threads) (3.1GHz, 4.1GHz Turbo) with Radeon Pro WX Vega M GL graphics (4 GB HBM2 memory) » 16GB DDR4-2400MHz memory » 1TB M.2 PCIe NVMe Class 40 SSD » 15.6” UltraSharp UHD IGZO4 (3,840 x 2,160) Touch Wide View LED-backlit display » 354 (w) x 235 (d) x 9-16mm (h) » From 2.00kg » Microsoft Windows 10 Pro 64 » 1 year Basic Onsite Service (Minimum Warranty), 3 year Basic Onsite Service

mixed office tasks. In fact, Dell reckons you can get up to 15 hours of battery life out of it, although we expect this is with very light workflows and a FHD display, which is more power-efficient. The battery took 59 mins to charge from 0 to 50%, which is not that fast compared to the HP ZBook 15u. To go from 0 to 100% took 2h 19mins.

TABLET MODE With a flexible 360-degree hinge, the Precision 5530 2-in-1 can be used in laptop, tent or tablet modes. Windows can be setup to automatically switch to tablet mode as soon as you pull the screen back on itself.

This disables the keys and trackpad and generally makes Windows more touchfriendly.

As a laptop, the Precision 5530 2-in-1 is considered slim and light, but as a 15.6-inch tablet it feels quite heavy and cumbersome.

Holding it in one hand is possible, but it’s hard to get a decent grip because of the keyboard and trackpad on the back. In short, it’s much better when rested on your lap; this way, you also achieve a more natural position for sketching.

The Dell Premium Active Pen (PN579X) does not come with the base machine and costs around £80 Ex VAT. It’s a really good size and weight and feels nice in the hand.

2-IN-1 ALTERNATIVES HP ZBOOK MOBILE WORKSTATIONS The HP ZBook x2 was HP’s first 2-in-1 mobile workstation. Unlike Dell’s 2-in-1, it’s essentially a tablet with a detachable keyboard. In tablet mode, this makes it thinner (14.6mm), but even though it has a 14-inch display, rather than a 15.6-inch, it’s not that much smaller. This is because it has two sets of customisable ‘Quick Keys’ on either side of the display.

The Quick Keys are great for productivity, as they can be

programmed to do tasks usually done by a mouse and keyboard, but they also give more room to grip the tablet off-screen.

The downside of this tablet-first design is the kickstand, which means the ZBook x 2 is not as

stable in laptop mode.

It also has a low-power CPU, so expect reduced rendering performance, and the GPU — an Nvidia Quadro M620 — is not as powerful.

The HP ZBook x360 is very similar to the Dell Precision 5530 2-in-1, in that it’s a laptop with 360-degree hinge, where the screen folds back on itself to go into tablet mode.

It’s not a thin as the Dell and it’s slightly larger and heavier, but it is more powerful. It comes with a choice of quador six-core CPUs, including the top-end Intel Xeon E 2186M (2.90GHz base, 4.80GHz Turbo) so it promises better performance in both single-threaded (CAD) and

multi-threaded (ray trace rendering) workflows.

The performance of the GPU, an Nvidia Quadro P1000, is likely to be fairly similar to the Dell Precision 5530 2-in-1’s AMD Radeon Pro WX Vega M GL.

With two DIMM slots, the ZBook Studio x360 is available now with 32GB of DDR4 ECC SDRAM and 4TB of PCIe storage spread across two NVMe SSDs.

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faster than the HP ZBook 15u G5, which has a Radeon Pro WX 3100 GPU, but slower than the Lenovo ThinkPad P1, which has an Nvidia Quadro P2000 (Max Q Design).

The Radeon Pro GPU starts to show its limitations in more demanding 3D applications, especially at 4K resolution, which has a big impact on 3D performance.

It would do a job for real-time visualisation, but you’d probably need to dial down the resolution and quality a bit.

CONCLUSION The Dell Precision 5530 2-in-1 is an exceptional machine that offers the power of a mobile workstation and the flexibility of a tablet. It’s wonderfully slim, the build quality is superb and the 4K panel is one of 5530 2-in-1 is not as fast at rendering as the best we’ve ever seen. The combination The pen is round, but slightly flat on one other mobile workstations that can offer of quad-core processor and Radeon Pro side with a magnet inside, which allows it CPUs up to six cores. In our KeyShot and graphics works well for CAD-centric to be stuck firmly to the side of the tablet. workflows and thermal management is On the other side of the pen, there’s a barrel V-Ray rendering tests, for example, it completed our tests in 711 secs and 156 secs impressive, with fans that are notably quiet button and a second button on top. The for a laptop this thin. pen includes all the Wacom goodness, with respectively. This was notably slower than There are some minor downsides. The 4,096 different levels of pressure sensitivity. the ThinkPad P1, which has a six-core Intel Xeon E-2176M and took 582 secs and 125 memory is currently limited to 16GB. It’s powered by a single AAAA battery. secs respectively.

While this is a good starting point for The digital pen worked straight out If rendering is an important part of CAD, it doesn’t give you much room to of the box with Autodesk SketchBook, your workflow, but you also want the grow in the future. Normally this isn’t too responding to tilt and pressure when functionality of a 2-in-1, the HP ZBook much of an issue, as you can add memory selecting the appropriate pen type. But x360 can be configured with quad-core or later if workflows change or applications to get the most out of the digital pen, you become more memory-hungry. need to download the Dell Active However, this isn’t possible with Pen Control panel software the 5530 2-in-1 as the memory which lets you customise This mobile workstation is wonderfully is soldered on. We are told 32GB the buttons for things like slim, the build quality is superb, the systems are coming. keystrokes and erase. Capturing thermal management is impressive and the Also, as one might expect, a keystrokes is really useful for programming application 4K panel is one of the best we’ve ever seen machine like this doesn’t come cheap. Our test unit comes in at shortcuts. For example, in a substantial £2,641 Ex VAT. You Autodesk SketchBook, assign can save £330 by going for a 256GB SSD the letter ‘b’ to one of the pen’s buttons so six-core CPUs. In fact, the top-end six-core instead of 1TB, and another £235 by going you can quickly change brush size.

Intel Xeon E 2186M should also give it a for a FHD display instead of the 4K. The top button can recognise single performance advantage in single-threaded Either way, it’s a substantial investment press, double press and long press. You workflows, as it has a Turbo of 4.8GHz. can set up one button to invoke a radial We tested the 5530 2-in-1 for over an hour, whichever way you cut it, but if you want a on-screen menu to get access to eight more rendering a scene in KeyShot and frequency single machine that can support your creative process from concept all the way to detailed configurable options, so there’s plenty of hovered around 3.3GHz - 3.4GHz, a little scope for customisation. Pen tip and tilt bit above the base 3.1GHz. Impressively, the design, at the office or on the road, then it looks like money very well spent. sensitivity can also be controlled through machine remained very quiet throughout. the software.

The fans did get louder when using the As far as we could tell, there’s no way to GPU at the same time in a game engine save profiles, which is shame as this would be visualisation application, but this is useful for teams or for quickly setting up the really pushing the machine beyond pen for different applications/workflows. how it would usually be used. With a typical 3D CAD workflow where the GPU is used in fits and starts to THE 3D CAD LAPTOP reposition a model on screen, fan noise When running 3D CAD in laptop mode, remained relatively low, even when the Dell Precision 5530 2-in-1 performed all four CPU cores were well. With our SolidWorks IGES export being used to render in test, which uses a single CPU core, it was the background. only a touch slower than a fast desktop From our 3D graphics tests, the workstation. The machine’s Intel Core i7Radeon Pro WX Vega M GL looks to be 8706G CPU maintained a high clock speed well-suited to mainstream 3D CAD. In of 4.0GHz throughout.

SolidWorks 2019 it was significantly As the CPU only has four cores, the

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PAGE

PAGE

PAGE

20

22

W OR M KS OB TA ILE TI ON S

18

Lenovo ThinkPad P1

HP ZBook 15u G5

Dell Precision 5530 2-in-1

Description

CAD and entry-level design viz-focused mobile workstation with a 15.6-inch 4K display

Entry-level CAD-focused mobile workstation with a 15.6-inch 4K display

2-in-1 mobile workstation for sketching and 3D CAD. Features Wacom pen technology and a 15.6-inch display

Price (Ex VAT)

£3,107

£979 (slightly lower spec - see page WS20)

£2,641

Website

lenovo.com

hp.com/zworkstation

dell.co.uk/precision

Processor (CPU)

Intel Xeon E-2176M CPU (6 cores, 12 threads) (2.7GHz, 4.4GHz Turbo)

Intel Core i7-8650U (4 cores, 8 threads) (1.90GHz, 4.20GHz Turbo)

Intel Core i7-8706G (4 cores, 8 threads) (3.1GHz, 4.1GHz Turbo)

Memory (RAM)

32GB (2 x 16GB) DDR4-2666MHz

16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2400

16GB DDR4-2400MHz

Graphics (GPU) + driver

Nvidia Quadro P2000 (Max Q) (4GB GDDR5)

AMD Radeon Pro WX 3100 GPU (2GB GDDR5)

Radeon Pro WX Vega M GL (4 GB HBM2)

Storage

2 x 1TB SSD M.2 2280 NVMe, Opal (RAID 0)

512GB M.2 NVMe SSD

1TB M.2 PCIe NVMe Class 40 SSD

Display

15.6” 4K UHD Touch (3,840 x 2,160) IPS, 400nits, 100% Adobe colour gamut, 10-bit colour depth

» 15.6-inch IPS, 100% sRGB, 400 nits 4K (3,840 x 2,160)

15.6” UltraSharp UHD IGZO4 (3,840 x 2,160) Touch Wide View LED-backlit

Size (W x D x H) / weight

362mm x 246mm x 18.4mm From 1.70kg

371mm x 251mm x 18.6mm From 1.77kg

354mm x 235mm x 9-16mm From 2.00kg

Operating System

Microsoft Windows 10 Pro

Microsoft Windows 10 Pro 64

Microsoft Windows 10 Pro 64

Warranty

ThinkPad 3 Year On-site warranty

3 year (3-3-0) limited warranty and service offering includes 3 years of parts and labour

1 year Basic Onsite Service (Minimum Warranty), 3 year Basic Onsite Service

CPU benchmarks (single threaded)

Seconds (smaller is better) 100

89

Specifications

SolidWorks 2019 IGES export (single threaded)

103

CPU benchmarks (single threaded)

Seconds (smaller is better)

Luxion KeyShot 8 render test (multi threaded)

582

1178

711

V-Ray render benchmark (CPU) (multi threaded)

125

254

156

3D graphics benchmarks (3D CAD)

Frames per second (bigger is better)

PC model (OpenGL 2.0) (shaded + edges)

23.44

18.49

20.78

PC model (OpenGL 4.5 beta) (shaded + edges)

74.01

23.99

73.37

Machinery model (OpenGL 2.0) (shaded + edges)

8.55

4.27

6.91

Machinery model (OpenGL 4.5 beta) (shaded + edges)

45.29

18.03

38.24

PC model (OpenGL 2.0) (RealView + A0)

14.42

11.97

14.60

PC model (OpenGL 4.5 beta) (RealView + AO)

21.56

25.83

9.33

Machinery model (OpenGL 2.0) (RealView + AO)

4.51

2.61

3.91

Machinery model (OpenGL 4.5 beta) (RealView + A0)

23.47

7.01

15.75

13

17

3D graphics benchmarks (design viz)

Frames per second (bigger is better)

Autodesk Revit Live (Community Centre model)

22

Autodesk VRED Professional (AA off)

20

N/A

N/A

Autodesk VRED Professional (AA medium)

11

N/A

N/A

Autodesk VRED Professional (AA ultra high )

5

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WS26 FEBRUARY 2019 DEVELOP3D.COM

WORKSTATION SPECIAL REPORT FINAL.indd 26

22/01/2019 13:39

P O WE RT O C A DP R O F E S S I O NA L S CUSTOMPROFESSI ONALWORKSTATI ONSPOWEREDBYAMDGRAPHI CSANDPROCESSORS. BUI L TFROMTHEGROUNDUPF OROPTI MI SEDPERF ORMANCEANDROCKSOLI DRELI ABI LI TY .

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CONTACTAREPRESENTATI VE WWW. WORKSTATI ONSPECI ALI STS. COM +44( 0) 8001804801 SALES@WKSMAI L. COM ©2018Wor k s t a t i onSpec i a l i s t s-STRUMI SL TD. E&OE. ©2018Adv a nc edMi c r oDev i c es , I nc .

Al l r i ght sr es er v ed.

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