LX Series UltraWide System
When I first glanced at it, the LX Series UltraWide System from DCG Computers looked a lot like the other NT Alpha systems I've been testing. It comes 
encased in a very accessible Axxion shell, like a number of other NT Alpha workstations; it has the same 533MHz 21164PC microprocessor as the other systems I've tested; and it has the usual ports, outlets, and connectors you'd expect to find on any workstation. But this system is different from the others: It's based on a new Samsung and Digital Semiconductor designed motherboard, the LX Series. What sets the LX motherboard apart from its predecessor, the SX motherboard, is cache. Cache is a repository next to the processor that organizes and stores data from the system memory.
Samsung and Digital Semiconductor designed both the SX and the LX motherboards for the 21164PC processor, and both motherboards are essentially the same. For instance, each has four PCI slots, (two 64-bit and two 32-bit), two dedicated ISA slots with a 1MB flash ROM, two 128-bit memory banks for 168-pin unbuffered SDRAM DIMMS, and both use a Digital Semiconductor 21174 core logic chip to interface between the PCI bus and the system memory. Because the 21164PC processor has no significant on-chip cache, cache for this processor is on the motherboard. For the SX series motherboard, the cache is 1MB of Level 2 cache. But for the LX series motherboard, the cache is 96KB of Level 2 cache and 2MB of Level 3 cache.
When I ran AIM's load/mix modeling benchmark tests on the LX Series UltraWide, I saw the effect this system's Level 3 cache has on overall system performance. The LX Series UltraWide tested about 20 percent faster at peak performance than did the three SX-motherboard systems I have tested so far. The LX Series UltraWide scored 409.2 application jobs per minute on AIM's WNT Peak Performance benchmark--the highest WNT Peak Performance score for any Alpha I have tested so far. The LX Series UltraWide scored 178 application jobs per minute on the WNT Sustained Performance benchmark. This value is better than most of the sustained performance values I achieved with the SX-motherboard Alphas I've tested.
The test LX Series UltraWide workstation I received from DCG Computers included an ITI-3140 Ultra Wide SCSI PCI controller, a 10,000rpm Seagate Cheetah 4GB Ultra Wide SCSI-3 hard disk, a 24X Toshiba CD-ROM drive, a 10/100Mbps PCI network card, and 128MB of RAM. Also included in the system configuration was a Diamond Fire GL Pro 1000 video card with 8MB of VRAM. This video card makes the LX Series UltraWide capable of handling OpenGL 3-D graphics, which is necessary for performing complex 3-D renderings for animation and for running CAD programs such as Pro/ENGINEER and AutoCAD.
To test the performance of the LX Series UltraWide's 3-D rendering capabilities, I ran three Viewperf benchmark viewsets on the LX Series UltraWide: CDRS, which measures the modeling and rendering abilities used for CAD applications; Data Explorer (DX), which measures scientific data visualization capabilities; and Lightscape, which tests radiosity visualization, or a system's ability to realistically reproduce light waves. I averaged three CDRS runs on the LX Series UltraWide to come up with a CDRS Viewset score of 23.541. The three-run average DX Viewset score is 6.604, and the average Lightscape Viewset score is 1.0.
The LX Series UltraWide workstation is a reasonably priced, entry-level 3-D graphics system that is capable of performing any rendering, ray-tracing, or complex texture-mapping routine you ask of it. I call the system entry-level because there are systems available that are better at 3-D graphics generation and animation than the LX Series UltraWide workstation. Although you can design a new race car on the LX Series UltraWide, you wouldn't render the next Jurassic Park using this system.
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