HP's Shanghai-packing xw9400 workstation available now

We caught a glimpse of the HP xw9400 quite a while back when it was first announced, but it's now available on HP's site and we've got the full details on the mammoth's innards. There are quite a few customizable options, including AMD's Dual-Core Shanghai Opteron CPUs (from 2.0GHz to 2.5GHz), up to 32GB MHz DDR SDRAM, NIVIDIA nForce Professional 3600 or 3050 chipsets, and available NVIDIA Quadro FX cards with up to 1GB of memory. There are also five internal and two external drive bays and eight USB 2.0 ports. The behemoth starts at $2,399 and runs as high as $6,299. Hit the read link for the widest array of specifications you can possibly ever imagine.

[Via Information Week]

[zomg0t @ Nov 22nd 2008 6:33AM]

GB Mhz...?

[aznofazns @ Nov 22nd 2008 6:44AM]

yeah i was like wtf did the editor post this while she was wasted?

[chuuchdizzle @ Nov 22nd 2008 6:56AM]

the first thing i noticed was the DDR part. first of all i hope its a typo, if its not then that's sad

[Kurian @ Nov 22nd 2008 7:35AM]

Its a woman. What did you expect? Technical details?

[zomg0t @ Nov 22nd 2008 8:06AM]

C'mon guys, don't be mean. I assume she just left out the number, such as 1600, between GB and MHz, indicating that the RAM is DDR3.

[Mobius_1 @ Nov 22nd 2008 8:15AM]

Her computer ran out of RAM while she was typing it, the number was too big for it to understand.

[john @ Nov 22nd 2008 9:17AM]

clearly it was typed up on a MAC.

[The Number 1 Cubs Fan @ Nov 22nd 2008 11:35AM]

Please. Someone fix this butchering of the tech language. It is almost as bad as Zero Wing's intro.

[waterboy99troop @ Nov 22nd 2008 3:11PM]

what you say!...

[Skyride @ Nov 22nd 2008 6:58AM]

Oh wow, Another overpriced workstation. Why do the OEM's overprice these? I know that when a company buys 100 of them it won't cost so much but the point is that not everyone buying one of these is buying in huge quantity. Its a shame the worlds IT departments don't have time to build PC's.

[john @ Nov 22nd 2008 9:15AM]

yea we do. and its not really overpriced at all did u read the specs?

[xargaun @ Nov 22nd 2008 7:31PM]

Well, they come with a really good warranty for one. For another, they are certified to run some software (CAD, etc) used by people who sometimes care that the machine they are using is certified.

That stuff aside, if you try to build one yourself, matching feature for feature and component for component, it gets expensive.

Take the motherboards for example: I have an xw8400 at work which is a pretty similar beast only a generation older and packing Xeons. In addition to two CPU sockets, two x16 slots, some PCI-X slots, and a bunch of SATA ports, it also has a bunch of SAS ports and firewire onboard as well.

A board with all of those features on it isn't terribly easy to come by, and when you find them they aren't cheap.

When you add all that not-very-cheap stuff together, you might get the thing built for less that it would cost from HP, but you aren't going to get a one stop, one guy to call, parts overnighted to you, 3 year warranty in your price, which you will from HP on one of these.

When you want just one, its probably fine to look elsewhere. But when you are going to hand them out to users, having a well built, well supported machine is a good way to go.

[fehu @ Nov 22nd 2008 7:27AM]

Dual Core? DDR SDRAM?

Copy&Past from a pr email?

[Harry K @ Nov 22nd 2008 7:31AM]

why the hell does it have a floppy disk drive ?

[bartoron @ Nov 22nd 2008 8:59AM]

Because you need a floppy drive to load RAID drivers during Windows setup.

It's stupid.

[rocktht @ Nov 22nd 2008 8:30AM]

ohh no! not those "NIVIDIA nForce Professional 3600 or 3050 chipsets" again!!

[jnz @ Nov 22nd 2008 9:30AM]

is that a floppy disk drive?

[Tabajara Labs @ Nov 22nd 2008 9:32AM]

Not only that seems to be a disk drive, but a half-height 3 1/2 disk drive?!?!?! I haven't seen one of these since my MSX!!! :oO What the (insert expletive here) this drive is doing there? HP putting out old stock? :oO

[nick @ Nov 22nd 2008 9:43AM]

Phenom < Shanghai < C2Q < Ci7.... why would somebody pay the money for these exactly?

[Thi mam(kris120890) @ Nov 22nd 2008 1:20PM]

Phenom < Shanghai < C2Q < Ci7.... why would somebody pay the money for these exactly?

Shanghai are server processors and are far better than the current xeons except Core i7. I think server you mistaking these for desktops. It's okay we understand you stupidity and the whole several different types of wrongness of your graph.

[nick @ Dec 2nd 2008 10:23AM]

really? Show me a benchmark that these chips beat current non-nehalems xeons in, then realize those have been out for over a year and nehalem is now available and realize how dumb YOU sound.

[LonnieDvD @ Nov 22nd 2008 9:58AM]

This workstation starts out at $2,399? Ouch, I would be looking for a cheaper alternative.

[vvtopkar @ Nov 22nd 2008 11:29AM]

Lol, like what?
This is a workstation, NOT a desktop.
Get it right people.

[Walton @ Nov 22nd 2008 10:31AM]

Is that a floppy drive?

[Jack H @ Nov 22nd 2008 12:34PM]

well considering it is really old and no one uses it anymore, its your mom

[urbanminstrel @ Nov 22nd 2008 10:46AM]

Horray! for the trusty A:\ Floppy Drive. I've got all my Tupac mp3z stored on them.
Any chance this ting will have an internal Zip or Ditto?

[nick @ Nov 22nd 2008 11:48AM]

better off upgrading to a jazz drive, so you can store all your oregon trail save files.

[Rotaryfan @ Nov 23rd 2008 6:28PM]

you either have a third of a tupac song, or you're mp3 collection is of unthinkably bad quality. which is it?

[Noah @ Nov 22nd 2008 12:02PM]

its kind of funny how very few people get what kind of machine this is. Yeah, you could build a dual-core desktop with a graphics card and a floppy disk drive for under $300...but this is a workstation that uses server-grade innards.

That dual-core Shangai is expensive, and does work you don't do on a regular Phenom, or C2D. Those graphics cards are not the same as a 4870 or 9800GTX.

I'm not that well read on workstation hardware, but at least I know there is a good difference in their hardware. I though more Engadget readers would know this too.

Still cheaper than a Mac Pro.

[DarkLight @ Nov 22nd 2008 4:42PM]

Exactly. This is NOT a gaming rig, this is NOT an HTPC, this is NOT meant to be in anyone's house...

This is a workstation. It's meant to be in professional studios, doing actual work...
Not for playing games... It's for _producing_ games.

[Jack H @ Nov 22nd 2008 12:33PM]

i went to the site and you can costomize it wayy more than this says you can. I got mine up to something like $7000 without even getting through the first page of costomizations

[orksnork @ Nov 22nd 2008 4:36PM]

This doesn't seem to be a well researched article...
It tops out much higher than the given price...and you can get double that amount of memory

[mike @ Nov 22nd 2008 4:38PM]

Some of the offices I run IT for use some antiquated mortgage software and the like, that have to run on windows 2003 server...
when i build these servers, i need a floppy drive to load the raid drivers for server...

still useful.

[Anonymitee @ Nov 22nd 2008 4:38PM]

Alright, here's the maxed out version. Cost: $24,656.00
Still not a Cray, but damn....


-Configurable- HP xw9400 1050W 80+ Workstation - Configure Your Own Promo - Save $450 Instantly until 1/31/09!
GN848AV-PR1
HP xw9400 1050W 80+ Workstation
Genuine Windows Vista® 64 Business w/downgrade to Windows XP Professional custom installed
HP xw9400 Localization Kit
AMD Opteron™ 2x 2384 2.7 6MB LiqCool CPU
NVIDIA Quadro FX5600 1.5GB PCIe
NVIDIA Quadro FX5600 1.5GB PCIe - 2nd (2nd graphics must be identical to 1st graphics. Supported only w/1050W Base Unit)
NVIDIA SLI Graphics connector (Supported only w/FX3500, FX4600, FX4800 or FX5500. Must have 2 graphics cards)
HP 64GB (8x8GB) DDR2-533 ECC reg for 2 processors (If base unit is not 1050W, then not supported w/(2 fx4600) or (120W Processor plus 2 fx4500 plus 5th HDD).
HP 1000GB SATA 3Gb/s NCQ 7200 1st HDD
HP 1000GB SATA 3Gb/s NCQ 7200 2nd HDD (Primary drive must be SATA)
HP 1000GB SATA 3Gb/s NCQ 7200 3rd HDD (2nd HD must be SATA)
HP 1000GB SATA 3Gb/s NCQ 7200 4th HDD
HP 1000GB SATA 3Gb/s NCQ 7200 5th HDD
LSI 8888ELP 8-port SAS HW RAID Card (Supported only w/RAID5. Not supported w/SATA hard disk drives)
HP 16X DVD+-RW SuperMulti SATA 1st Drive
HP Optical Drive Internal Audio Cable (Cannot order if Optical Device 1 is NO OPTICAL or is SATA. Cannot order w/X-Fi audio card)
HP RAID 0 Data Array Configuration (1st HDD must be SATA. Minimum 3 HDDs/Maximum 5 HDDs. 2nd through 5th HDDs must be identical. 4th HDD cannot be 750GB/1000GB)
Floppy Disk Drive
HP PS/2 Standard keyboard (Cannot mix PS2 and USB keyboards and mice with Linux OS.)
HP PS/2 Optical Scroll mouse
Broadcom 5751 Netxtreme Gigabit PCIe NIC
HP IEEE 1394b FireWire PCI Card
3/3/3 (parts/labor/next business day on-site) limited warranty

[Harrison @ Nov 22nd 2008 6:20PM]

Floppy drive? Hook me up!

[Set @ Nov 22nd 2008 6:22PM]

my dual xeon xw8000 server is so pwnd : (

[michas_pi @ Nov 22nd 2008 7:52PM]

So are the "NIVIDIA" chipsets done by a Chinese knockoff company?

[loosely_coupled @ Nov 22nd 2008 9:00PM]

Dual-core shanghai??? I've never even heard of such a thing! That has to be a mistake, right?

[blue @ Nov 23rd 2008 12:25AM]

32GB MHz DDR SDRAM !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! whats that?????????

[Al Bundy @ Nov 23rd 2008 3:04PM]

heh, what a super duper powerful machine with a dual core cpu...from amd! LOL! Its like packing Ferrari's with toyota engines.