If you’ve read about the new quad-core workstations, you’ve probably wondered if they could substantially speed up your work. I wondered about that, too. So I jumped at the chance to review the latest HP xw8400 Workstation equipped with two 2.66 GHz Intel 5355 Xeon quad-core processors. At press time, the 5355 was the fastest quad-core Xeon chip available. I had reviewed the xw8400 about a year ago, not long after Intel introduced its dual-core Xeon processor. I was eager to see how much of a difference a quad-core could make when placed in real-world situations.

Why choose a quad-core over a dual-core? A dual-core system has broad consumer appeal because almost anyone might download a file while running a spyware program or other application in the background. A quad-core system is more specialized because most users don’t tend to run three or four processor-intensive applications at the same time.

In theory, any multi-threaded application that’s optimized for a dual-core processor is already optimized for a quad-core processor. So if your favorite video editor or 3D renderer received a big boost when you moved from a single-core system to dual-core system, you should see a similar bump up in speed when moving from a dual-core to a quad-core. The actual increase will depend on how efficient the application is at threading itself to the different cores. Most of the multi-threaded applications I tried sped up about 40 to 70 percent over last year’s dual-core, despite the slight decline in clock speed (2.66 GHz versus 3.0 GHz) between the two xw8400 systems.

How does that translate into an everyday workload? With Autodesk 3ds Max 9, I was able to render a moderately complex image (with three fighter spacecraft) to a full HD frame (1920 x 1080) in less than a second. With video-editing programs, such as Adobe Premiere Pro CS3, you should be able to render or compress your SD or HD video noticeably faster. Alternatively, you could work with a larger number of video tracks in real time, or preview more complex effects in real time rather than having to wait for the renderer to catch up.

HP added a key improvement to this model just as I was completing this review. You can now use less expensive 2 GB DIMMs when filling the eight onboard memory slots. Our review unit came equipped with 4 GB of system RAM and the 32-bit version of Windows XP Pro, and it’s comforting to know this model could be upgraded today to a whopping 32 GB of RAM when paired with a 64-bit operating system.

It has become increasingly difficult to find a non-workstation desktop with more than two internal drive bays. The assumption seems to be that two drives are sufficient for most users because you can add slower external drives through the USB ports. If you work in video editing, you’re almost forced to move to a workstation. The xw8400 has five 3.5-inch internal bays that can handle either SATA or SAS drives. A good strategy might be to leave three bays open for future expansion, in order to take advantage of falling prices. Our review unit included two SATA drives: an 80 GB primary drive and 500 GB secondary drive.

I was impressed with last year’s dual-core xw8400, and I’m even more impressed with this latest quad-core version. It feels solid and well constructed. The relatively quiet chassis relies on a special circuitry to drastically lower the fan speed when the system is idling or running low-power applications. And the tool-less enclosure makes it simple to change the hardware.

If you purchased last year’s dual-core version of the xw8400, you may be pleased to learn that the processor can be field upgraded to the latest quad-core processor. You pop out the old processor and replace it with a pin-compatible new processor. The same is true of the current configurations. If you can’t afford the fastest quad-core processor today, you could purchase a new xw8400 with a lesser processor. Later, when you feel the system is starting to lag behind, you could upgrade the processor.

Obviously, there are limits to how far into the future you’ll be able to swap out the processor, but until Intel redesigns the chip architecture, you’ll be somewhat future proofed- as long as you’re willing to pay for a new processor.

The dual-core and quad-core Xeon processors featured in the xw8400 are proving to be solid performers, offering a lot of bang for the buck. All configurations include a 1333-MHz dual-system bus and four-channel 667-MHz fully buffered DIMM memory subsystem, which allows for very fast calculations. Being able to complete your mission-critical work in significantly less time is worth a premium price. In this case, the price difference would seem to be quite reasonable.