APEXX 5 Front Panel.
Buying a compute device – be that a personal computer, workstation or a server, typically comes with a certain set of features which does not change. All workstation vendors for example, offer 1-4 expansion cards, typically a GPU and computational or storage cards. Those features are limited by what motherboard vendors can offer, and ATX/eATX/SSI standards can offer up to X amount of cards.
BOXX Technologies decided to challenge that by launching APEXX 5, a custom designed system which can host up to seven expansion cards. For example, a Quadro GPU for sync/display output and five Tesla boards for compute. If you go with Dual-GPU boards, such as Tesla K80 – you could put up to 11 GPUs in a single computer.
So, how BOXX did it? The company got a second wind when Chris Morley, Sr. Product Marketing Manager rejoined BOXX after spending almost a decade in world of gaming hardware, with disruptive companies such as MAINGEAR (note: Chris loves to work for companies whose names are written in all-caps). Coming back to BOXX Technologies meant that the company could execute on disrupting the workstation space, which is dominated by somewhat dull boxes. As Chris says:
“In many cases, architects, engineers, or visualization professionals have very specific workflow issues that can only be solved with the ultimate hardware.”
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- APEXX 5 Front Panel.
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- The interior.
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- PCIe Riser slots.
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- Backside shows how much display outputs you can count on.
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- 3D Rendering of APEXX 5 interior.
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- Another look at the interior with different compute options.
The hardware on offer is ultimate indeed. Hardware platform will be home to current Haswell-E based Xeons, and upcoming Broadwell-E Xeons. That means that today, you can purchase the platform with up to 36 cores (72 threads), up to five Dual-Slot GPUs (Tesla / Quadro / FirePro / Xeon Phi), one single-slot GPU, and pair this with substantial storage subsystem.
The storage subsystem is split into two: front-located hot swap drive cage with up to eight 2.5″ drives (that’s up to 16TB Samsung or 32TB storage with the upcoming Mushkin SSD), and up to five full-size, 3.5″ hard drives. That’s 50TB of storage should you go with 10TB drives from HGST or Seagate.
BOXX sees APEXX 5 as an ‘ideal for GPU rendering in V-Ray® RT, NVIDIA® Iray®, Octane Render, or CATIA Live Rendering or with simulation software like ANSYS, ANSYS Fluent, FluiDyna, and SIMULIA.” Read: this is for Airbuses, Boeings, Lockheed Martins, but also Ferraris and other automotive/aerospace/defense providers. We would add it might be the ultimate ‘blackpool box’ for Wall Street too.
We look forward towards putting the system through its paces.
