Digital’s Celebris XL 5133

The Question Isn't How Fast It Can Go but How Fast It's Allowed to Go

There's no question that Digital Equipment's Celebris XL 5133 Dual-Processor Workstation is fast. It maybe the fastest Pentium-based workstation I've tested. It's so fast, in fact,that it may well outstrip the capability of most of the software that'scurrently available for it.

If it's speed you want, the Celebris XL 5133 delivers. What's more, itdelivers this blinding speed at a price that's well below the stratosphericlevels of some of its competition. Want still more? The Celebris can be upgradedto be even faster by unplugging a processor board and installing a set ofultra-fast Alpha processors.

While the Celebris performs well in this rarefied atmosphere, there aren'tnecessarily many jobs that really take advantage of its power. In a sense, usingthe Celebris for most routine tasks is like driving an F-16 fighter to thedrugstore--you have the potential for great speed but not in that application.

A Look at the Dual Processor
Digital delivers the Celebris XL series as an upgradeable platform in amini-tower case. These computers are intended to be workstations, and while theywill run--and are certified for--a number of network operating systems, they'rephysically aimed at the workstation market. For this reason, they're not onlyfairly small, but they have limited space for expanding the number of diskdrives and other internal accessories.

There are only five drive bays in the Celebris. Three of them are taken upwith the 31Ž2" floppy disk drive, the CD-ROM drive, and the hard disk.You still have room to add another hard disk and perhaps a 51Ž4"floppy drive or a second CD-ROM drive. For most users, that's plenty.

Inside the Celebris, quarters are tight, but there are still six expansionslots. One of those slots is a shared PCI/ISA slot which is normally occupied bya graphics adapter when the machine arrives. Digital uses a Matrox MillenniumPeripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) graphics adapter as standard equipment,although our early-production machine came equipped with a Diamond Stealth 64video card. Otherwise, there's nothing cluttering up the inside of thiscomputer, because Digital has an integrated SCSI controller as well asintegrated serial and parallel ports.

When the time comes to add peripherals or upgrades, Digital's choice of anunusual design for its mini-tower case makes the job unusually easy. Unlikeother computers that require that you remove the entire outside covering to getinside, Digital has two sliding side panels. To get inside, you simply slideback the one that's on the side you need.

Testing the Celebris
Digital normally equips this machine with 16MB of RAM and a 512KBburst-cache. For this review, I had the machine upgraded to a more rational 32MBof RAM. Otherwise, I left the configuration alone, using the standard 1GB SCSIhard disk and the built-in controller that the unit normally ships with. As Imentioned earlier, Digital substituted a Diamond Stealth video card for theMatrox that's usually shipped with this computer. I added an Intel EtherExpressPro 100 network card.

The Celebris XL series is normally shipped with Windows NT alreadyinstalled, so I used the operating system as it comes from the factory. I testedthis machine using the BAPCo SYSmark for Windows NT as well as two applicationsknown to soak up a lot of CPU time: Adobe's Photoshop and Ray Dream Designer 4(see the sidebar "Ray Dream Studio Animates Images."). The testsconfirmed the speed of this machine, but they also confirmed that in many cases,the speed was dependent on the ability of the software to take advantage of dualprocessors.

The BAPCo SYSmark of 266 is quite fast indeed. See the "Buy theNumbers" sidebar on page 70. In fact, it was dramatically faster than asimilarly configured NEC RISCstation 2000 computer equipped with a pair of150-MHz MIPS R4400 processors (which scored 176). Interestingly, the Pentium133-based Digital computer was actually slower than the NEC in the applicationtest that used Microsoft Word, but the Celebris made up the difference in theother application tests.

Likewise, the dual-Pentium design of the Digital was considerably fasterthan a similar machine with a single 133-MHz Pentium. CPU-intensive tasks wereabout 80% faster on the Digital than on a single-processor Micron Millennia alsoequipped with 32MB of RAM, a SCSI controller, and a Diamond Stealth video card.No question about it, the Celebris is fast!

Making Fast Work of the Celebris
The question about computers such as the Celebris XL 5133 Dual Processorisn't how fast it can go, but how fast it's allowed to go. If you're planning touse this machine, you should confirm that it's actually going to run theapplications you need faster than a single-processor machine. For example, Ifound that some applications, such as Adobe Photoshop, which aremultiprocessor-aware, run faster on the Celebris. A check of the NT SystemMonitor confirmed that Photoshop keeps both processors busy most of the timesomething demanding is happening.

Other packages, however, used one processor heavily but barely tax theother at all. Ray Dream Designer 4, for example, used both processors, butmostly one at a time. A CPU-intensive task, such as rendering an animation fileinto a movie, seemed to use one processor for a while, then the other, butrarely both at once. As a result, this process wasn't any faster on the Celebristhan it was on a single-processor machine.

You should also note that the Celebris XL 5133 Dual Processor shares thesame video card and disk controller with its brand mates. As a result, it willperform similarly in applications that are primarily limited by the disk orgraphics subsystems. Likewise, in an NT environment, you'll frequently get moreof a performance boost by adding memory than by adding another processor whenyou're going from 16MB to 32MB. That's why I started with that number in thefirst place.

Finally, you should realize that most business applications aren'tparticularly CPU-intensive. The performance gains will be realized mostly byapplications, such as imaging and graphics, that move lots of information aroundin memory, as well as by those that use a lot of math, such as CAD programs andsome compilers. Graphics users will probably want to upgrade the 2MB of videomemory that the machine comes with, as well as add more system memory.

Should You Get One?
Quite frankly, I found the speed of the Celebris exhilarating. Images inPhotoshop usually popped into place, making you forget that there was once atime when large images took forever to create. Likewise, while rendering in theRay Dream Studio was not particularly speedy, running the animations wasfast--and it used both CPUs. This meant I got fast, smooth animations thatreally looked like they might be on film.

More importantly, Digital has designed the Celebris XL series to fit easilyinto the work environment. It's small, quiet (two variable-speed fans help keepthe noise down) and easy to set up and run. A number of convenient touches, suchas a caddyless Digital CD-ROM drive, make the Celebris XL 5133 a pleasantcompanion.

Adding to the ease of ownership is well-written, accurate documentation,and superb customer service. I made it a point to call Digital'scustomer-support center at midnight on a holiday weekend to ask an obscurequestion relating specifically to the dual-Pentium design and Windows NT. I gotan accurate answer in minutes.

Probably because Digital is actively involved in supporting NT forMicrosoft and in selling support for other companies, its support staff appearsto be unusually well trained. I finally gave up trying to think of questionsthat might stump them. While most users might never have to call customersupport for a computer, companies with widespread enterprises can findthemselves in immediate need of help for a mission-critical system, so it'simportant that the help is there when it's needed.

About the only thing I'd find to gripe about are the small size of the caseand its effect on both the drive-bay space and the internal expansion space.While Digital's design will work fine for most users, the growing importance ofperipherals such as recordable CD-ROM drives and tape back-up units makedrive-bay capacity more important than it might have been in the past. A largercase would make this expansion easier to accomplish.

With that quibble aside and with the limitations of available software inmind, I found the Digital Celebris XL 5133 Dual Processor to be a fast, capablemachine. It's well designed for NT, which makes good use of its dual-processordesign, and it delivers impressive performance in a package that will work wellwith the needs of most companies. Cap exceptional performance with solidsupport, and you've got everything most companies are likely to need. This isone impressive machine.