HP Elitebook 8450p and Z600 Workstation: A Software Developer’s Review
Note: I started writing this review back in May, but for whatever reason never finished it. HP has configured them a little differently then 7 months ago, but I would select the same options now given my company’s environment.
Last year I started the process at my company of ordering new developer hardware for my team. For years, we have been running on underpowered business-class hardware (with more ram) and were really feeling the pain running our existing tools. We had a couple of goals for new hardware, including:
- Better multi-tasking. Ability to run multiple instances of Visual Studio, SQL Management Studio and other applications without watching the screen redraw or having applications crash.
- Hardware that would handle the upgrade to Windows 7 without any noticable loss of performance. We are still running Windowx XP 32-bit throughout the company with no ETA on when Windows 7 or 64-bit would be available.
- A good mix of portablility, performance, weight and battery-life in a laptop. Our previous laptops were 12-inch Dell Latitude D420‘s, which were light and portable, but extremely underpowered.
Really, that was it. We were ordering custom hardware so we had to come up with budget for hardware and negotiate with the IT department responsible for supporting workstations. What we came up with was the HP Elitebook 8540p laptop and the HP Z600 Workstation configured as followed:
HP Elitebook 8540p
- Intel i7 620M CPU – 2.66 GHz processor
- 15.6 inch HD+ 1600×900 screen with 2MP camera
- 4GB RAM DDR3 1333MHz (2 DIMMS)
- 320GB 7200RPM Hard Drive
- NVIDIA NVS 5100M Graphics Card
- HP 120W Advanced Docking Station
HP Z600 Workstation
- Dual Intel Xeon E5630 2.53GHz processors
- 4GB RAM DDR3 1333MHz (4 DIMMS)
- NVIDIA Quadro FX580 512MB Graphics Cards
- 250GB SATA 7200 RPM Hard Drive
We had to compromise on the laptops to fall within our budget and in-line with what was being supported by the enterprise, but I’m extremely happy with them. I am able to run 2-3 instances of Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate open with large solutions, SQL Management Studio, Word, Internet Explorer, Chrome, Outlook, with SQL Server 2008 R2 and IIS running in the background with no noticable lag switching between applications. The other day, I was able to run a large, long-running SSIS package in the background while developing in Visual Studio without any noticable sluggishness.
The Z600′s are fantastic workstations with server-class processors. Our daily work barely touches their capacity. Most of my team’s developers are using them and our two pairing workstations are Z600′s.
Once Windows 7 64-bit is an option, we will look at upgrading the RAM to at least 8GB, but we haven’t had any noticiable issues so far on the 3.2GB that Windows XP can actually see. With a slightly larger budget, I probably would have pushed for faster processors on the laptops, maybe the i7 640M in order to better future-proof against a 3-4 year replacement period. We had some discussions about using Solid State Drives instead of the 7200RPM drives we choose, but felt the price and potential for failure wasn’t worth the price.
For people with more freedom in budget or vendor, check out the following links:
- Ultimate Developer PC 2.0 – Part 1 – Building a WEI 7.9 and RFC for building a GOM (God’s Own Machine)
- Laptop Buying – For Developers
