), these 533-MHz Alphas give you 7 to 9 times the performance boost. If you're running compute-bound applications or services, that's a leap worth taking.
Aspen Systems Durango II
Aspen Systems sent me a machine built around its
Durango II
base, an adaptation of the Digital 164SX motherboard. IntraServer Technology supplied Aspen's dual-channel Ultra Wide SCSI adapter, which cleverly shares a 32-bit PCI card with a 10/100-Mbps Ethernet adapter. The test system also included a 64-bit PCI AccelGraphics AccelPro TX2500 OpenGL accelerator with 16 MB of RAM.
Running on a 3Dlabs Glint 500TX chip set, the AccelPro pulls Windows NT's OpenGL shading operations into hardware. Using the native
Alpha version of Lightwave 3-D5.5, the AccelPro had no trouble tumbling shaded, moderately complex 3-D models in real time. Its 2-D performance is excellent as well. Resolution reaches up to 1600 by 1200 pixels, but oddly, true color is only available up to 1152 by 864. This may limit the card's appeal for publishing and image-manipulation applications.
Aspen's machine impressed me by having nothing plugged into its CPU-hogging IDE controllers. Instead, the IntraServer Ultra Wide SCSI adapter drives everything, from the dual 4.55-GB Seagate hard drives to the 12X CD-ROM.
The cabinet, which Aspen has in common with Tri-Star, is this system's worst feature. The DIMM sockets are obscured by the 3-1/2-inch drive cage. The inside of this system feels crowded. Upgrading it takes plenty of time and light.
However, the Aspen Systems Durango II was tops in the BYTEmark tests. The cabinet aside, I like the way this system is built. At $6424, it's not your average home computer, but anyone with the ne
ed for serious CPU and graphics performance will be well served by this machine.
Polywell PolyAlpha 533SX
While Aspen shipped me its 3-D power desktop configuration, Polywell sent its commodity contender. That's no slight. I was pleased to see it, or I was until I discovered that all its drives are connected to the 164SX's on-board IDE controllers. Pairing the mouth-watering performance of the 533-MHz Alpha chip with department-store IDE hard drives leaves me cold, even if it does save the buyer money. Like most integrators, Polywell sells and configures SCSI adapters and drives for its customers. At this performance level, however, perhaps it should make SCSI hardware standard.
In other regards, I found much to like about the
PolyAlpha
in addition to its price. The cabinet's interior is open and spacious; nearly the entire motherboard is viewable, and adding RAM and full-length cards is no trouble.
I approve of Polywell's choice of the Matrox Millennium II 4-M
B video card. It's a 32-bit card, and it doesn't accelerate OpenGL, but it does deliver superb 2-D performance at an affordable price. The standard 64 MB of RAM is adequate for basic applications, but you may need to upgrade to 128 MB to accommodate larger Alpha applications (which are typically 30-40 percent bigger than their Intel counterparts).
Inexplicably, this system lagged behind the Aspen Durango II in the BYTEmark tests. The Polywell is very respectable, considering the price, but the speedier Durango II can also be trimmed to a lower-cost configuration. Still, the PolyAlpha is a worthy, competitively priced system. If you order one, I'd suggest asking Polywell to replace the IDE drive with SCSI. Unless you do, you'll never experience true Alpha performance.
Tri-Star PowerStation SX
Somewhere between the commodity Polywell and the lavish Aspen rests
Tri-Star's
164SX-based Alpha PC. As configured for this review, Tri-Star's desktop Alpha (which took a BYTE Be
st of Show award at Fall Comdex '97) is an affordable 3-D graphics workstation. Like Polywell, Tri-Star makes its workstation affordable by using IDE drives and cutting back on RAM.
The Tri-Star system's cabinet is just as crowded inside as the Aspen's. The motherboard is Digital's 164SX, like Polywell's, so all slots will accommodate full-length cards without trouble. The Quantum 6.4- GB hard drive performs as well as any IDE drive, but again, it's a poor match for such a fast machine.
The ELSA Gloria-L 64-bit PCI graphics card is based on the 3Dlabs Glint 500TX chip set, so its available resolutions and 2-D performance, not surprisingly, mirror that of the AccelPro found in Aspen's workstation. ELSA adds a system tray utility that purports to optimize the card's settings for the application you're running. Selecting ELSA's "Lightwave 3D" setting, however, caused Lightwave to crash reproducibly until I disabled the Gloria-L's 3-D acceleration. The Gloria-L card caused no problems with ordinary ap
plications, but Lightwave is the only native Alpha OpenGL application I tested.
In performance, the Tri-Star and Polywell don't differ significantly. In attempting to commoditize the Alpha PC, Tri-Star and Polywell have cut corners that seriously affect the perceived value of their systems. These two systems would benefit from a SCSI controller and a striped pair of Ultra Wide drives.
My "best of group" nod goes to Aspen Systems' Durango II, not for its muscular (and more costly) review configuration, but for its workstation performance. The IntraServer SCSI/network controller and the AccelGraphics 3-D accelerator add to the system's stable, capable feel. If you think the Pentium's pace of improvement is too slow, any of these Alpha systems will raise your interest. Just take care how you configure them; saving money shouldn't mean giving up what's best about a high-performance computer.
Product Information
Aspen Systems Durango II.....................$6424
(128 MB of RAM; IntraServer dual-channel
Ultra Wide SCSI controller with 10/100
Ethernet; dual 4.5-GB Seagate Ultra Wide
hard drives; AccelGraphics AccelPro 3-D
accelerator with 16 MB RAM; Toshiba 12X
SCSI-1 CD-ROM drive; Windows NT
Workstation 4.0)
Aspen Systems
Wheat Ridge, CO
Phone: 800-992-9242
Internet: http://www.aspsys.com
Polywell Computer PolyAlpha 533SX............$2249
(64 MB of RAM; Maxtor 7-GB EIDE hard drive;
Matrox Millennium II display adapter with
4 MB of RAM; 24X IDE CD-ROM; Digital 10/100
Ethernet adapter; Windows NT Workstation 4.0)
Polywell Systems
South San Francisco, CA
Phone: 415-583-7222
Internet: http://www.polywell.com
Three Vendors Make an Alpha Bet
