by Lawrence S. Gould
> Contributing Editor
At one end of the
spectrum . . .
. . . is the Z1 G2 desktop workstation
from Hewlett-Packard ( www8.hp.com/
us/en/campaigns/workstations/z1-g2.
html ). This is the "second generation
of the world's frst and only all-in-one
[AiO] workstation." Starting at about
$2,000, the Z1 G2 features a 27-in.
display (2560 x 1440) with a 178°
viewing angle; several options for Intel
processors (2-core Core i3, 4-core Core
Professional
Workstations
Are Still Important
With all the clamor about tablets and mobile phones, one
could easily forget about workstations. Don't. Nowadays,
they're even more primed for the heavy lifting in CAD.
i5, or one of three 4-core Xeon E3-1200
v3 processors); a choice of one of three
Nvidia Quadro graphics cards; up to 32
GB DDR3 RAM; up to 3 TB SATA disk
storage, plus solid-state drive storage;
several USB 3.0 ports; and a wireless
keyboard. The display can be an edge-
to-edge, 10-fnger multi-touch glass
display or a non-glass, anti-glare, non-
touch display.
The included optical drive can be
swapped for a Thunderbolt II module.
Thunderbolt is a technology that
provides fast, bidirectional data transfer
speeds. Thunderbolt II provides four
times the bandwidth as USB 3.0,
namely 20 gigabytes/second. (Most
ofce local area networks rarely even
reach 10 GB/s.) Not many Thunderbolt-
enabled peripheral devices currently
exist—hard drives, expansion docks,
displays, and media/entertainment
devices—but that's enough for the
mechanical-CAD engineer needing to
transfer large solids models from one
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AD&P; > March 2014 > FEATURE > Professional Workstations Are Still Important > Lawrence S. Gould > lsg@lsgould.com
0314ADP FEATURE Workstations.indd 34 2/18/2014 3:29:53 PM