Sure, it's a powerful machine, alright, but all that performance does not come cheap. Even the most basic version of the xw6600 will set you back $1,389. That's not bad for a Xeon-based workstation, but the question lingers ... fully configured and tricked out, do you really have to have it? The only way we could justify shelling out more than a couple grand on a workstation is if we had some really relentless deadlines.

We like the xw6600 a lot. It's a polished machine that performs great. We enjoyed playing with the machine and putting it to work.

OS: Microsoft Windows XP Professional 32-bit
RAM: 4GB, DDR2-667, ECC, fully-buffered
Processor: Intel Xeon E5450 (Quad-core), 3.0GHz
Chipset: Intel 5400
Number of Physical Processors: 2
Hard Drives: Boot-Seagate 160GB, 7200rpm (formatted capacity: 149.1GB); Storage-Seagate 500GB, 7200rpm (formatted capacity: 465.8GB)
Video Editing
Software Included: Adobe Premiere Pro CS3 (price quote does not reflect inclusion of CS3 Production Premium)
Analog Video Capture Card Included: No
DVD Burner: Lite-On DH-16A1L
Disc Authoring
Software Included: Adobe Encore CS3 (price quote does not reflect inclusion of CS3 Production Premium)
Multiple Monitor Connections: Yes

• HP Performance Tuning Framework
• Really, really fast

• Expensive

It's fast, but whether its speed is something you need now or can wait for is between you and your pocketbook.

Charles Fulton is Videomaker's Associate Editor.

Hewlett-Packard Company
3000 Hanover St.
Palo Alto, CA 94304
www.hp.com
$5,612 as configured (not including Adobe suite)