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  • CGNetworks Feature ::Product Review
    Alienware MJ-12 7750 Workstation Review
    Joseph Tan, 16 February 2005
    Alienware MJ-12 7750 Workstation

    Alienware, headquartered in Miami, Florida USA is best known for its gaming-oriented, high-powered extraterrestrial-theme machines. According to external sources, the company is pushing aggressively into the workstation market. In this review we'll look at their top-of-the-line DCC machine, the Alienware MJ-12 7750. Let's see what this established system builder has to offer.

    The specifications should put a grin on any workstation user: (see table right)

    Compared to the Alienware's gaming machines, the Alienware MJ-12 line sticks to a more conservative styling formula. Gone is the allure of an alien-inspired chassis, Alienware seems to believe that the workstation market prefers a more conservative silver/black look. On first impression, the Alienware MJ-12 workstation's styling looks similar to BOXX's own workstations. Updating their retro-looking alien theme, something that Alienware is known for, would have helped them to visually differentiate their workstation.

    Our configured MJ-12 is a real brute, weighing in at 22kg (excluding the Creative Labs Audigy's breakout box). That's quite heavy for a workstation; it might as well be the Battlestar Galactica. The case is made from steel, although tough, makes for a significantly heavier machine than some of the competition's aluminium chassis.

    CPUsDual Intel Xeon 3.6GHz (1MB cache, 800MHz FSB, w/Hyperthreading and EMT64)
    Motherboard

    Alienware X2 Motherboard (Intel E7525 “Tumwater” chipset)

    Onboard 2xPCI-E x16, 3x regular PCI, 6xUSB 2.0, 1xIEEE 1394, 1xGigabit Ethernet, ps/2, serial, parallel port

    Onboard sound SoundMAX 4.0

    Memory

    2GB DDR2 ECC PC3200 RAM (Dual Channel)

    Graphics Single NVIDIA Quadro FX 3400
    Hard disk

    4x Serial ATA Western Digital Raptor 74GB (10k RPM).

    CD/DVD Reader/Writer

    NEC 8x DVD R/W ND-3500AG dual layer writer

    RAID Controller Onboard SiL 3114 SATA 150 RAID controller. Hard drives configured for RAID 10 (striping and mirroring)
    Additional multimedia Creative Labs Audigy 2 ZS (primary sound device), with breakout box

    The autopsy

    Fitted with some of the fastest, hottest hardware, the cooling is taken care of with a 92mm front and 120mm rear fans. Unlike what it says on the Alienware web site, the noise output is quite loud. This isn't a machine that would fit into a quiet office without an enclosure. With the advent of the very quiet Apple Dual-G5 Powermacs, I wonder why more manufacturers don't make quieter machines. The Alienware MJ-12 7750 includes a very-capable Enermax 660 watt power supply.

    An aluminium front features the Alienware badge, just below it is an opening for two USB ports. The machine's front panel door is completely plastic in construction, supported on plastic hinges that are just begging to be broken off. The rear of the door features a molding mark, confirming the slight tackiness of the case. Behind the door are the power, reset, and a mysterious third button. This last button is not mentioned in the printed manual.

    Undoing the side door's thumb screws reveals some top-quality hardware, with some very neat cabling work. The Quadro FX 3400 and Audigy 2 ZS were secured in place with locking posts. Once the front cover is removed, the 5.25-inch drives can be removed without the need of a screwdriver. Likewise the 3.5-inch drive bay cage can be removed by undoing the front fan assembly.

    In terms of expandability, the Alienware MJ-12 7750 case can fit four 5.25-inch drives (one fixed drive without front slot access), four 3.5-inch drivers in the drive cage, and the bottom compartment suits the optional hot-swap cage. The Alienware X2 motherboard features three 32-bit PCI slots, two PCI-Express x16 slots, and can hold up to 4Gb of DDR2 SDRAM. The Alienware MJ-12 7750 should have no problem expanding for workstation applications.

    To make best use of the onboard Serial ATA RAID controller, the four Western Digital Raptors are configured for RAID 10. Here, two mirrored RAID 1-like arrays are striped together, allowing for greater hard drive performance and data redundancy. Up to two drives in the system can fail and the system keeps on working! In RAID 10 configuration, total formatted hard drive storage came to around 140Gb.

    The Alienware MJ-12 7750 includes SoundMAX onboard sound codec chip, but our system was optioned with a Creative Labs Audigy ZS, which includes a breakout box. The dual layer DVD writer performed as expected. For games and movies this system certainly will not disappoint.

    The system comes bundled with a support CD that includes a complete set of drivers, utilities, and Windows XP updates. Our system was shipped with Windows XP preloaded.

  • Benchmarking PerformanceSPECViewPerf

    For this review article we've compared the Alienware MJ-12 7750 to a previous workstation, the 3DBOXX 7108. Both are dual-CPU workstations featuring Serial-ATA RAID array. The Alienware MJ-12 7750 should have an edge because of the inclusion of PCI-Express video, it's slightly faster Quadro FX 3400, and the fact that both it's Xeons tick 1.4GHz faster.

    While the Xeon ticks along at greater speed, the Opteron should make up for it due to their much greater efficiency.

    Our first benchmark is SPECViewperf 8.01, the workstation benchmark staple.

    SPECViewPerf is sensitive to graphics and graphics bus performance. The Alienware machine leads here, probably due in part to it's faster NV40-series derived graphics system and PCI Express bus.

    System name Alienware MJ-12 7750 BOXX 3DBOXX 7108
    CPUs Dual Intel Xeon 3.6GHz
    Hyperthreading enabled.     		Dual AMD Opteron 248 (2.2GHz)
    RAM 2GB RAM ECC PC3200 Dual channel 2GB RAM ECC PC3200 Dual channel
    Graphics cardNVIDIA Quadro FX 3400 256MB NVIDIA Quadro FX 3000 256MB
    Hard drives 4x Western Digital Raptor 74GB 10k RPM (all RAID 10) 4x Western Digital Raptor 36GB 10k RPM (one standalone, plus three drive RAID 5 array)

    Software and Settings
    OS • NVIDIA Forceware 70.41
    • NVIDIA MAXtreme 3ds max driver 6.00.04
    Video Driver 9.0c
    DirectX• SPECViewPerf 8.01
    • Discreet 3ds max 6 (SP1)
    • Alias Maya 6.0
    • CineBench 2003
    Benchmarks4x Western Digital Raptor 74GB 10k RPM (all RAID 10) 4x Western Digital Raptor 36GB 10k RPM (one standalone, plus three drive RAID 5 array)
    Screen resolution

    Analog RGB 1280x0124 pixels
    32-BPP @ 75Hz
    V-sync off

    CineBench 2003
    CineBench 2003 was used to test the CPU and memory performance in ray tracing "Daylight", and run through two scene sequences "Pump Action" and "Citygen" with GPU support. 100 CB-CPU/GFX units represents MAXON's reference 1GHz Pentium 4 machine.

    CineBench 2003
    Higher is better
    System name Alienware
    MJ-12 7750     		BOXX
    3DBOXX 7108
    Rendering (Single CPU) 314 309
    Rendering (Multiple CPU) 681 574
    Multiprocessor Speedup 2.17 1.86
    Shading (CINEMA 4D) 394 348
    Shading (OpenGL Software Lighting) 1060 917
    Shading (OpenGL Hardware Lighting) 2423 2323
    OpenGL Speedup 6.16 6.67

    The Alienware has an edge here. The dual Intel Xeons (with Hyperthreading) are seen as quad-CPUs to CINEBENCH. That may explain why its multiprocessor speedup is significantly higher.

    Graphics benchmark scores seem lower than previous CINEBENCH runs (e.g. during the CGNetwork 3DBOXX review). This occurred to both machines, and is isolated to the graphics benchmarks. Perhaps the latest ForceWare drivers had something to do with this?


    OverallScoresAlienware
    MJ-12 7750    		BOXX
    3DBOXX 7108
    3dsmax-03 32.51 24.20
    catia-01 29.23 23.67
    ensight-01 23.06 11.90
    light-07 24.29 22.60
    maya-01 48.05 49.06
    proe-03 36.20 35.27
    sw-01 23.59 13.28
    ugs-04 28.16 18.52

    SPECapc for Maya 6.0

    Next we run through SPECapc for Maya 6.0 to see how both machines fare in Alias's popular DCC package. The scores below are weighted averages, broken down into composite graphics and I/O performance figures. The numbers are ratios relative to the Maya reference system.

    Alienware
    MJ-12 7750    		BOXX
    3DBOXX 7108
    warewolf.ma
    GFX
    I/O     		1.91
    1.96     		1.84
    1.99
    hand1.ma
    GFX
    I/O     		1.93
    1.85    		 1.78
    1.84
    Insect.ma
    GFX
    I/O     		2.02
    2.07     		1.97
    2.05
    Squid.ma
    GFX
    I/O     		2.04
    1.81    		 1.94
    1.83
    handDef.ma
    CPU
    I/O     		1.82
    1.56    		 1.79
    1.56
    OverallScores
    GFX
    I/O
    CPU    		 1.97
    1.84
    1.82    		 1.88
    1.85
    1.79
    Overall1.931.86

    Here the Alienware and 3DBOXX systems are practically dead even. Both systems scoring around 80 percent above the reference system.

  • 3ds max 7
    To test the CPU rendering performance of both machines, we used CBALLS2.max bundled with SPECapc for 3ds max to render one frame. The MentalRay renderer was used, HDTV preset at 1,920 x 1,080-pixel resolution, and everything else was left to default.

    3ds max 7- rendering CBALLS2.max
    Lower is better

    Alienware
    MJ-12 7750    		BOXX
    3DBOXX 7108
    365 seconds 408 seconds
    The Alienware's dual Xeons manages to out-grunt the 3DBOXX's Opteron by around 12 percent. Age is a contributor here. The Alienware 3.6GHz Xeon are Intel's current top-end CPU, while the 3DBOXX's Opteron 248 was AMD's top-end CPU six months ago. Keep in mind that the Xeon is in fact running at 1.4GHz (3.6GHz v 2.2GHz) or 64 percent greater clock speed. Since the rendering process is multi-threaded, the Xeon's Hyperthreading visibly kicks in as four simultaneous rendering threads.
    WinBench 99

    Both machine's are equipped with Western Digital's 10,000RPM monster hard drives in RAID configuration. The Alienware MJ-12 7750 has four 74GB Raptors configured in RAID 10, while the 3DBOXX has three 36GB Western Digital configured for RAID 5. Let's see how fast they can transfer data using WinBench 99.

    WinBench 99 v2.00
    Alienware MJ-12 7750 BOXX
    3DBOXX 7108
    Disk transfer rate
    Beginning (MB/sec) 143 112
    End(MB/sec) 108 75.2
    Disk access
    time (ms)     		7.85 8.92

    The Alienware machine edges out once again, both system with RAID can dish out a lot of data. Real-life usage will have varying results, but this test serves as a useful indication of the ideal hard disk transfer rate of both system. Shown here is a graph out from WinBench 99.

    Warranty and Support

    Alienware covers their workstations with a limited one year warranty, upgradable at a reasonable cost to two or three years. This includes 24/7 phone support and onsite repairs. No complaints here, this level of support is almost mandatory for the kind of cash you'll be forking over.

    Alienware MJ-12 7750 Workstation
    Manufacturer: Alienware
    Configuration:
    Dual Intel Xeon 3.6GHz
    2GB RAM
    NVIDIA Quadro FX 3400
    4x Western Digital Raptor 74GB
    DVD Writer (dual-layer)
    SoundBlaster Audigy ZS

    Related Links:
    Alienware
    Alienware MJ-12 7750

    Price: Reviewed configuration, MSRP US$6,350

    Hits:
    - Excellent performance, no issues with stability.
    - Lots of room for expansion, plenty of cooling.
    - High level of support included.

    Misses:
    - Noise level is simply too loud.
    - Very heavy, somewhat tacky case.

    Verdict: The MJ-12 workstation is a solid performer. Performance and stability were excellent. The price is reasonable for a typical high-powered system. The high-quality power supply and chassis design should mean no problems with expandability. The on-site warranty is a big plus, currently Alienware look like they have distribution channels outside of the US in countries such as Australia, Canada, France, Germany and the UK.

    Points against the MJ-12 workstation are the flimsiness of the front door panel, and the sheer amount of noise generated by the fans. The terms "low noise" and "ultra quiet" are simply not true.

    Overall this is a solid performance-oriented machine

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