PA-RISC information - since 1999

HP Visualize B2000 and B2600

Quick Facts
Introduced 2000
Period Maturity (III)
Series Visualize
CPU PA-8500 64-bit
PA-8600 64-bit
400-500 MHz
Cache 1.5 MB L1
RAM 4 GB
Design Astro
Drives 2 SCSI
1 FD
1 IDE
Expansion 4 PCI
I/O Fast Ethernet
VGA (B2000)
2 serial
parallel
2 USB
audio

HP Visualize B2000 and B2600 PA-RISC workstations were 3D graphics workstations from 2000, equipped with the 64-bit PA-8500 or PA-8600 processors with large on-chip L1 caches.

B2000 © HP 2001

HP B2000 used PA-8500 PA-RISC processors in a small tower case, similar to previous B1000 and C-Class. B2600 used a smaller desktop with faster and more modern PA-8600 processors.

The architecture of these B-Class workstation was a major change from those of its C-Class predecessors, now based on HP Astro/Elroy chipset, new I/O devices and no LASI I/O chip and GSC bus. All device I/O is implemented by PCI buses, human I/O devices are connected to USB ports.

B2600 © HP 2001

An upgrade path to HP Itanium (EPIC VLIW) was envisaged for Visualize workstations but not offered eventually. B2000 and B2600 were some of the last PA-RISC workstations offered by HP, before the ultimate HP c8000 a few years later with the last PA-8800.

Architecture

Processors

System CPU Speed L1 cache
HP Visualize B2000 PA-8500 PA-RISC 64-bit 300/440 MHz 512/1024 KB on-chip
HP Visualize B2600 PA-8600 PA-RISC 64-bit 500 MHz 512/1024 KB on-chip

There were some B2000 shipped with or upgraded to PA-8600 (PCXW+) processors.

Chipset

System buses

Expansion

Memory

I/O slots

Storage

I/O ports

Operating systems

Pictures

HP Visualize B2600 HP Visualize B2600 HP Visualize B2600 HP Visualize B2600
HP Visualize B2600, Thomas Schanz 2018, CC BY-SA 4.0

Dimensions

System Height Width Depth Weight
B2000 445mm 229mm 495mm 21kg
B2600 127mm 425mm 457mm 20kg

Benchmarks

Results with HP-UX 11.00
System CPU SPEC95
int
SPEC95
fp
SPEC2000
int
SPEC2000
fp
SPEC2000
rate int/fp
HP Visualize B2000 PA‑8500 440MHz 31.8 52.4 332 357 3.8/4.1
HP Visualize B2600 PA-8600 500MHz 403 440 4.7/5.1

Comparison to SPEC benchmark data from other contemporary Unix workstations:

Based on old SPEC2000 archives
System Processor SPEC2000
int
SPEC2000
fp
Sun Fire 280R UltraSPARC III Cu 1GHz 511 688
SGI Origin 3200 MIPS R14000 600MHz 483 499
DELL Power Edge 4400 Pentium III Xeon 1 GHz 437 302
IBM RS/6000 M80 IBM RS64 IV 750MHz 409 359
HP i2000 Itanium Merced 800MHz 4MB 365 610
HP Visualize P750C Pentium III 750MHz 325 219
Compaq AlphaServer ES40 Alpha 21264 500MHz 311 382
HP Visualize P500 Intel Pentium III 500MHz 231 191

Documentation

Manuals

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