Skip to main content

Not an ordinary laptop: the world’s most powerful mobile workstation bundles 192 cores, up to 3TB and six monitors

Almost three years after the launch of its a-X2P Rome-based portable mobile workstation, MediaWorkstation has a refreshed model, arguably the most powerful integrated transportable computer in the world. 

It is not a laptop or a mobile workstation in the true sense; it is closer in its design to an all-in-one PC, similar to the luggables of yesteryear as it doesn’t have any internal battery; you would probably only get 10 minutes usage at most with one of our best portable power stations.

Ideal for what the boutique PC vendor calls “highly multi-threaded applications in the field”, the new model has been upgraded to support AMD’s EPYC Genoa based on Zen 4. That means two EPYC 9654 CPUs, each with 96 cores, up to 12 x 256GB memory modules (totaling 3TB of DDR5 memory).

You can plug up to two full height, full size GPUs (or accelerators), one M.2 NVMe boot SSD and five storage drives. All this is cooled by half-a-dozen fans and a power supply unit of unknown capacity (likely to be closer to 2Kw). The motherboard used is likely to be the recently-launched Gigabyte MZ73, a rare e-ATX dual-socket SP5 model. 

There’s plenty of ports but no Thunderbolt 3 or 4

There’s plenty of ports, but no Thunderbolt 3 or 4 connections, which is a surprising omission given the wide variety of use cases that would make good use of that. In the absence of any wireless connectivity options, a pair of 10GbE connectors will ensure that this mobile studio can connect to the outside world.

Pictures show five 5.25-inch drive bays and a slot-in optical drive, seven slots for PCIe devices and legacy ports such as DVI and PS2.

The a-X2P can also be used with six 24-inch monitors (up to 4K and 1000 nits brightness), a configuration that will push the weight of the mobile workstation to 55 pounds. Each workstation comes with a touchpad and heavy duty mechanical keyboard which folds up onto the display for transport as well as a thick, sewn vinyl wheeled carrying case.

We’ve reached out to MediaWorkstation to find out whether the a-2XP actually supports 6TB as it is mentioned in the tech specs that it is compatible with 256GB 3DS RDIMM DDR5 Modules.

Expect to pay at more than $200,000 for a top-end, fully kitted mobile workstation that will rival any desktop bound workstation PC or video editing PC. You cannot configure any products online and you will need to go through a form or do it over the phone - which is understandable as such a niche player will want to weed out time wasters and focus on serious customers instead.

The company also sells portable Xeon-based workstation PCs, both in single and dual socket variants (i-X1P, i-X2P), and single-core AMD EPYC-based and Threadripper Pro ones (a-X2P, a-XP).



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

TechRadar's Year in Review: AI revolution, smartphone evolution, and visions of the future

If I had to sum up 2023 in one word it would be AI. Okay, technically that’s two initials, but let’s not quibble – because there’s no doubt that it provided the year in tech with its main story arc. Artificial intelligence was everywhere this year, as every company in the world gawped at the massive impact of ChatGPT, and decided they wanted to jump aboard that bandwagon. You could barely move for new chatbots, new image generators, and new AI-enhanced features in every device released in 2023. And there’s no sign of that changing in 2024; in fact, we expect it to be an even bigger deal. Elsewhere, phones and laptops did much the same as they had the previous year – well, except where they had new AI-enhanced features – so it was in the virtual reality space where bigger changes were afoot. If the Meta Quest 3 was impressive then the Apple Vision Pro looks to be genuinely game-changing, and we can’t wait to see what impact it has in the next 12 months. Of course we also saw plenty ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Microsoft and Sony enter "binding agreement" to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation

Microsoft has announced that it has reached a "binding agreement" with Sony, pledging to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation following the acquisition of Activision Blizzard.  With Microsoft having won its anti-trust case with the US Federal Trade Commission , its planned acquisition of Call of Duty developers Activision Blizzard has taken a big step closer to becoming a reality. In order to alleviate the concerns of monopoly-building that got Microsoft in legal hot water to begin with, the head of Xbox, Phil Spencer, announced yesterday via Tweet that it has entered into an "agreement to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation."  This agreement will no doubt come as a relief to fans concerned that Microsoft's acquisition plans might result in Call of Duty becoming an Xbox exclusive, following in the footsteps of future Bethesda releases. Since Microsoft's acquisition of Bethesda caused the studio to break its tradition of offering titles cross-platform for upcomi...
Post a Comment
Read more

This Stardew Valley-like farming sim plays at the bottom of your screen so you work and play at the same time

Stardew Valley and Animal Crossing are among some of the best choices out there if you're looking for a game to get swept up in for hours at a time. But, if you're a fan of management sims and a multitasker as well, this upcoming farming sim will likely pique your interest.  Developed by Mister Morris Games, Rusty's Retirement is an idle-farming simulation game that runs at the bottom of your gaming monitor, allowing you to focus on other tasks like working while you tend to your crops. Set to release in Q1 2024 on Steam , the idle sim puts you in the shoes of a wholesome robot as you grow crops and use them to produce clean and energy-efficient biofuel. Having gathered this "vital robot power source," you'll then need to sell your harvest to the other machine inhabitants of your settlement. This, in turn, will let you reinvest the money into expanding your farm. If you're a terrible procrastinator (like me) this might not sound like your cup of tea...
Post a Comment
Read more