A true pioneer and trend-setter of the high-performance computing industry for years now, Texas-based Boxx Technologies has outdone itself, taking the wraps off a customizable tower PC with the muscle of a supercomputer.
Granted, the Apexx 5 is no match for China’s 33.86 petaflops-cranking Tianhe-2. But with up to 20 teraflops of single-precision floating point velocity, it shames most of its workstation rivals.
You have the choice of how far you’re willing (and can afford) to go in your quest for otherworldly horsepower. The standard configuration contains two “modest” six-core Intel Xeon E5-2603v3 processors capable of 1.6GHz clock speeds, a single dedicated viewport Nvidia Quadro K5200 GPU with 8GB of VRAM, an additional 32GB memory, and 240GB Intel 730 Extreme Performance SSD.
CPU options cap off at a redonkulous pair of 18-core 2.3GHz Xeon E5-2699v3 totaling 36 cores of outrageous 3D mechanical design, engineering simulation, animation, and image rendering skill. With no Hyper-Threading.
In the graphics department, the fittingly named Apexx 5 supports four extra Nvidia Quadro K6000 video cards alongside the “basic” K5200 model. A whopping 16 DDR4 modules tipping the scales at 16 gigabytes each can be combined for a grand total of 256GB, and the highest-end config also features eight, yes, eight full-sized hard drives or 16 SSDs.
Whether you pick the “humblest” Boxx Apexx 5 variant, the supercomputer-contending top model, or something in between, you’ll get a bunch of other professional workstation-specific goodies, including enterprise class liquid cooling for a cool, quiet, reliable system. Other features include a couple of Gigabit Ethernet ports, nine USB 3.0 and 2.0 connectors, and a massive 1,250 watt power supply.
It goes without saying this beast of a workstation is slightly pricier than your typical gaming-ready desktop. It starts at a little over $10,000, and the optional K6000 GPU quartet alone adds over $25,000 on top of that.
Throw in the fastest Xeons available, up the RAM ante to 128GB, and “settle” for two 800GB SSDs, and you’ll need to pay a small fortune – about $55,000. So, what’ll it be – a new BMW, or a new PC?
