"Upgrading" Your MacBook to Insanely 44-cores Powerhouse Computing Rig!

There's a sense of impossibility on the title written above from the hardware point of view. But, if we have our mind broadened to every possibility, I can say it's possible. And HP is making it possible.

So, how possible is the new MacBook that contains Intel Core m5 that's only performing around one fourth of the latest Zbook G3 performance, to get the extreme upgrade as much as 44 cores? The answer is through the new HP Remote Graphics Software (HP RGS).

HP RGS allows Mac users, Linux users and even Windows users on portable devices (notebooks and laptops) to have the sense and physical performance of exceptional technology from HP out of their new HP Workstations.

HOW HP RGS WORKS
HP RGS is substantially a software, having ground up development that previously allowed HP Workstation users to exchange their screens to each other just like local. It has evolved from just being advanced remote desktop solution, into collaboration solution for each user, bringing their productivity into the next level.

Many SOHOs up to enterprise class companies benefit and are taking advantages of this solution brought by HP. Including myself. It has been helping me to keep the downtime "down" when having a new HP Desktop/Mobile Workstation, optimizing my time in instantly use the new unit without having to secure particular time to migrate all things from the previous unit. Migrating the data and application can be done one piece at a time, on any available time slot, without the situation where I couldn't work at all when the data is being migrated.

HP RGS consists of RGS Sender, and mostly it's installed on the HP Workstation along with its license. And the other one is RGS Receiver that comes for free for any Windows, Linux and Mac computer and available to be downloaded from HP website (www.hp.com/go/rgs)

RGS supports:

1. One-to-one connection, which I've been using to deliver my screen from one HP Workstation to other HP Workstation in a network. This could be considered as a normal remote desktop situation, but with a substantial difference of uncompromised interactivity and image quality just like local. No color degradation, no performance drop on the remote display.
   
   
2. One-to-many connection, which allows one HP Workstation unit to deliver its screen to multiple local computers yet it opens the possibility of collaboration through this type of deployment.
   
   
3. Many-to-one connection, this is known as Directory Mode in RGS, which allow a single computer to receive as many screens from other HP Workstation computers and even has independent controls over them each.
   

HP RGS also supports multiple displays configuration as following.

Multi-displays to multi-displays

Multi-computers to multi-displays

HOW THE UPGRADE WORKS
So, the explanation begins. The term "upgrade" means that you need to get the latest components/parts/ units that would work on your existing system you use now. The components/parts/units that you have to get is a new HP Workstation. It could be the Desktop one, or even the Mobile one. Every purchase of new HP Workstation comes with HP RGS Sender license.

What we need to do is, to download the HP RGS Receiver at no charge from www.hp.com/go/rgs, and then installing it on the MacBook. Once both connection between the HP Workstation and the MacBook has been established through HP RGS, you will be able to run at the identical performance of the HP Workstation itself, without having to install any other thing (hardware) on your MacBook. This applies to any other computers with RGS Receiver installed.

Imagine that you have an HP Z840 with 44-cores inside, 512GB of memory and a pair of 512GB Z Turbo Drives in RAID mode that delivers you an amazing lightning speed on rendering, and even doing 4K full frame video editing, running at 4GB/s read and write storage speed, on top of Nvidia Quadro or AMD FirePro professional graphics . . . . . . . . .   runing from your existing MacBook!

It sounds like virtualization but it's truly not. HP RGS technology is capable of delivering highly compressed screen typical with remote desktop functionalities, but with uncompromised image quality that visually lossless.

HOW THIS IS MADE POSSIBLE BY HP
It was all started back in 2003 when HP was launching the first RGS that was aimed to add features on their Workstation supporting products, to spoil the "Remote Workers" with it, as well as closing the gap between investment and requirements.

Along the time, HP is placing more technology advancements on top of its RGS that allow users to take advantage over:

"We don't need to install any additional hardware in order to make the HP RGS works on both ends."

1. HP3 codec, that dynamically detects the image on the screen, captures it and sends it to the remote screen at optimum bandwidth level. When the screen is static, it will even consume zero bandwidth. The HP3 codec technology is so advanced that it will automatically determine the best capture methods through GPU (hardware assisted and accelerated), Changelist (determines which parts of the screen have changed) as well as Software Comparitron (uses optimized SSE2 engine to calculate frame-to-frame differences).
2. AVC (Advanced Video Compression), that will take advantage of the hardware resources as well to deliver best possible image quality on the remote screen over a network with limited bandwidth. The AVC codec is also supporting 4K resolution, just as the HP3 codec.
3. Hardware acceleration process. With the use of either Nvidia Quadro, AMD FirePro graphics, HP RGS will take advantage of the available hardware acceleration to minimize the load of the CPU yet delivering exceptional user experience when running the RGS on the remote screen.

Compares to other solutions like Teradici's PCIoIP and Citrix HDX 3D, HP RGS shows resiliencies, as well as not requiring any hardware installation at all, making it very convenient to use across platforms (Windows, Linux, Mac).

MY NEXT EXPERIMENT
Since the HP RGS Receiver supports multi operating systems (Windows, MacOS, Linux), I'm curious if I just create a Linux boot thumbdrive with RGS Receiver installed on it, I could just plug the stick into any computer connected in a network and have access to my primary HP Workstation in my office. Or even my HP Mobile Workstation. This surely expands the workspace into unliminted possibilities.