Armari Magnetar

M64tprw1300g3

For this high-end workstation, Armari is getting the very best out of the powerful 64-core AMD Ryzen Threadripper Pro CPU, writes Greg

Corke

When it comes to tuning workstations and squeezing every last bit of performance out of high-end components, few can compete with Armari. The UK firm blew our minds in February 2020 with the Magnetar X64T-G3, which tore up the workstation rule book completely. It delivered never been seen before benchmark scores in multi-threaded workflows without compromising on single threaded performance. Ray trace rendering and 3D modelling had never been such good bedfellows.

The processor at the heart of the machine was the AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3990X, a 64-core chip for ‘consumers’ or ‘enthusiasts’ but not for workstations per se. An amazing CPU in its own right, Armari took it to the next level, tuning it with AMD Precision Boost Overdrive (PBO), a technology that allows processor core frequency to rise as long as the workstation can cool it adequately.

And the Magnetar X64T-G3 certainly could. Its Full Water Loop (FWL) cooling system came with a giant radiator with nearly three times the surface area of those used in its other workstations. It meant that the CPU could sustain 550 – 650 watts of power in real world applications, with momentary boosts in excess of 800 watts.

Product spec

■ AMD Ryzen Threadripper Pro 5995WX processor (2.7 GHz, 4.5 GHz boost) (64-cores, 128 threads)

■ AMD Radeon Pro W6800 GPU (32 GB GDDR6)

■ 128 GB (8 x 16 GB)

Fast-forward nearly three years and Armari is taking a more conservative approach for its new 64-core desktop workstation. Built around the workstation-class AMD Ryzen Threadripper Pro 5995WX, the Armari Magnetar M64TPRW1300G3 is designed to work within a more moderate CPU power budget of 400 watts – 120 watts above the processor’s standard Thermal Design Power (TDP) of 280 watts. However, it still has a sprinkling of Armari magic. According to the company, it can hit all core frequencies that are 0.4 GHz to 0.5 GHz higher than the Dell Precision 7865 Tower and Lenovo ThinkStation P620. This, says Armari, is because it implements PBO, and the workstation giants do not.

DDR4-3200 ECC Registered memory

■ 2 x 2 TB Western Digital SN850 NVMe

4.0 M.2 2280 SSD

■ ASRock WRX80 Creator Motherboard

■ Armari Threadripper AIO CPU cooler

■ 1,300W PSU

■ Magnetar M60 Gen3 chassis (470 x 220 x 570mm)

■ Microsoft Windows 11 Pro 64-bit

■ 3 Years RTB Parts & Labour, 1st year collect and return is included. Optional 7yr warranty available

■ £10,799 (Ex VAT)

■ www.armari.com

Ryzen Threadripper Pro

At this point it’s worth pointing out some differences between the workstation-class Ryzen Threadripper Pro processor and the now discontinued ‘consumer’ Threadripper processor at the heart of Armari’s 2020 machine. ‘Pro’ includes more memory channels (8 vs 4), higher memory capacity (2 TB vs 256 GB), support for ECC memory, more PCIe lanes and several enterprise-class security and management features.

Considering few ‘consumers’ would ever need 64-cores, everything pointed towards AMD focusing all of its efforts on a workstation-specific Ryzen Threadripper processor, rather than a consumer Ryzen Threadripper processor used for workstation applications. Plus, AMD had most ‘consumer’ workflows well covered with AMD Ryzen with up to 16-cores.

On test

As you might expect Armari’s workstation excels in multithreaded workflows where the power of all 64-cores can be fully harnessed. This, of course, includes ray trace rendering, where the machine was between 1.95 and 2.29 faster than a 16-core AMD Ryzen 9 7950X workstation.

With four times as many cores as AMD’s ‘consumer’ chip, one might expect a bigger lead, but the Ryzen 9 7950X is based on AMD’s newer Zen 4 architecture, so benefits from a higher Instructions Per

Clock (IPC). In the Scan GWP-ME A132R (see page WS14) it can also maintain a solid 5.0 GHz across its 16-cores. In contrast, the Threadripper Pro 5995WX peaked at 3.38 GHz in Cinebench and 3.45 GHz in KeyShot, though this is still around 0.7 GHz higher than the processor’s 2.70 GHz base frequency.

We saw similar results when recompiling shaders in Unreal Engine. We had expected the uplift in Unreal might be bigger because of Threadripper Pro’s 8-channel memory offering superior memory bandwidth, but this didn’t appear to be the case.

One area where we would expect to see a benefit from the machine’s 128 GB of DDR4-3200 ECC

Registered memory (8 x 16 GB modules) is in simulation.

Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) software including Ansys Fluent and Finite Element Analysis (FEA) software Ansys Mechanical are well known to thrive on high memory bandwidth in certain workflows.

While the machine excels in rendering, it doesn’t win out in more lightly multithreaded workflows, where fewer cores are used. In our Leica Cyclone Register 360 point cloud processing benchmark, for example, which can use up to 6-cores, it was significantly slower than the Ryzen 9 7950X. AMD’s 16-core consumer processor also wins out in single-threaded workflows like CAD.

The Armari workstation is also no slouch when it comes to graphics workflows. With 32 GB of on-board memory, the AMD Radeon Pro W6800 is well equipped to handle colossal viz

Armari might have made its name in high-performance desktop workstations, but the company is now expanding into cloud – but with a difference.

Unlike most cloud workstations, which are virtual machines, Armari’s cloud workstations offer the exact same specs as the company’s desktop Threadripper Pro machines. And each user gets their own dedicated workstation which they can access remotely over a datasets. You’ll get the most out of this card in demanding applications like Unreal Engine and in VR, but it’s overkill for CAD. Compared to the rest of the machine, storage is quite pedestrian, courtesy of two 2 TB Western Digital SN850 NVMe M.2 2280 SSDs – one for OS and applications and one for data. But there’s plenty of scope for expansion. For I/O intensive workflows, RAID 0 SSDs are an option, and there are four bays for a range of drives including 3.5-inch HDDs.

The ASRock WRX80 Creator Motherboard also supports up to 2 TB of memory, so the machine can be configured to handle colossal datasets, way above the 128 GB limit of Ryzen 7000. There’s a whopping seven PCIe 4.0 x16 slots that can accommodate up to four double height graphics cards, so if GPU rendering is your thing, this has you covered. There are plenty of ports for peripherals including two USB Type A and one USB Type C, front / top. Dual 10Gb/s LAN and Intel 802.11ax (WiFi 6E) + Bluetooth is standard.

Smooth operator

As we’ve come to expect from Armari, the machine is solid and well-built, with a steel frame and lightweight aluminium side panels. It’s also extremely quiet when rendering on all 64-cores.

Considering the CPU is so powerful, this is quite a remarkable achievement. This is thanks to Armari’s use of low

1:1 connection. This means higher CPU frequencies for both single threaded and multi-threaded workflows.

To connect, Armari uses an ‘extensively modified’ Microsoft RDP service, which runs on the cloud workstations and is said to improve the experience and performance.

The so-called Armari ‘ripper-rentals’ service is designed to help firms either dynamically expand their workstation capacity without upfront noise Noctua fans with a custom All-inOne (AIO) cooler designed to handle up to 500W on the CPU. Unlike the Full Water Loop (FWL) cooling system that Armari used in its ‘consumer’ Threadripper machine, the AIO is sealed for life so never requires servicing.

Fan noise only really became a minor annoyance when pushing the machine to its absolute limits, maxing out both processors at the same time — CPU rendering in KeyShot and GPU ray tracing in Unreal Engine. Doing so also drew a colossal 700W of power at the socket, so be warned!

The verdict

Armari’s Threadripper Pro workstation is the type of machine you feel you can throw anything at, and it will just keep on going. Even with extreme multi-tasking everything feels responsive.

If your workflows demand lots of CPU cores, Threadripper Pro delivers everything you would want in a high-end workstation processor. And Armari certainly knows how to get the most out of it.

At the moment, Intel has nothing that can compete. But doesn’t AMD just know that. The price of its flagship workstation processor has risen considerably since first gen Threadripper Pro and the 64core Threadripper Pro 5950X processor alone is just shy of an eye-watering £6,000 + VAT. This is huge jump up from the previous generation, where £6,755 + VAT would have got you an entire 64-core Threadripper Pro 3995WX workstation (a Lenovo ThinkStation P620) with 128 GB RAM, 1TB SSD and an Nvidia Quadro RTX 5000 GPU.

What you’ve probably guessed from all of this is that the Armari Magnetar M64TP-RW1300G3 is not exactly cheap. As reviewed, it comes in at an eye watering £10,799 + VAT. But for a machine that can completely transform certain workflows, delivering more iterations in shorter timeframes, many will feel this is a price worth paying.

capital expense, or to give customers access to a workstation while they are waiting for their physical machine to arrive. Those who order a qualifying workstation within 30 days from the last day of their rental can claim up to 50% of the rental cost back against the new system.

Armari also offers VPN and LAN-to-LAN bridges to allow firms to dynamically add machines to their existing network.

Armari says that, once the order is placed, the workstation will be ready to use within 15 minutes.

We gave the service a quick test drive. It’s certainly very easy to get started - simply punch the supplied credentials into the Microsoft Remote Desktop app and away you go.

Within minutes we had Enscape running in a smooth responsive environment, using a standard laptop over WiFi. However, latency is on our side as we are just down the road from Armari’s HQ in Watford, where the workstations are located.

The service is currently recommended for users across the UK, but Armari is in the process of testing in Europe. Coverage may be extended by colocating machines in other datacentres.

Prices start at £350 per week (£50 per day). Minimum rental period is seven days. Armari also offers a free trial.

Speed up modelling, animating and rendering with workstations optimised for M & E applications such as 3DS Max, Cinema4D & Unreal Engine

INC VAT £ 9,499.99 INC VAT

INC VAT £ 17,999.99 INC VAT

This ultra compact workstation ups the ante in several areas, from graphics to memory capacity, making it capable of handling a much wider range of AEC workflows, writes Greg

Corke

Compact workstations have always had their limitations. While perfectly fine for mainstream 3D design work, they’ve lacked the graphics horsepower for visualisation, and the memory capacity to handle the most demanding datasets.

To expand your workflows beyond bread-and-butter 3D CAD / BIM, you’ve typically had to go for a much a bulkier tower workstation.

Lenovo is looking to change this with the ThinkStation P360 Ultra, a super compact desktop with a higher spec than other workstations in its class.

Compared to the Dell Precision 3260 and HP Z2 Mini G9 it has double the memory (128 GB vs 64 GB DDR5) and higher-performance graphics (Nvidia RTX A5000 laptop GPU vs Nvidia RTX A2000 desktop GPU). It also supports 125W CPUs, up to the Intel Core i9-12900K, something that the HP Z2 Mini G9 can also do, but the Dell Precision 3260 cannot.

Chassis innovation

To accommodate these high-spec components, which draw more power and therefore produce more heat, Lenovo developed an innovative dual chamber design for the ThinkStation P360 Ultra’s chassis. This not only helps improve thermal performance but also aids serviceability.

In contrast to most desktop workstations where the motherboard sits to one side, with the ThinkStation P360 Ultra it runs straight down the middle. This means the CPU is on one side, the GPU and SSD(s) on the other, and there are dedicated fans and chambers for each. There are some caveats to this, however, which we’ll get onto later.

The ThinkStation P360 Ultra comes in at 87 x 223 x 202mm, making it the largest of the ultra-compact workstations. But it’s still incredibly small, takes up minimal desk space (when placed either vertically or horizontally) and is easy to move around. The tiny machine can also be VESA mounted behind a monitor, on a wall or under a desk.

The metal chassis is extremely solid and the design clean and simple. Like the HP Z2 Mini G9 (see page WS26) , air flows from front to back, drawn in through Lenovo’s trademark honeycomb grille. The centrally located motherboard allows for good placement of front ports, including two USB-C (Thunderbolt 4 Type C), one USB 3.2 (Gen 2 Type A) and headset audio. There’s plenty more at the rear, including four USB 3.2 (Gen 2 Type A) (with smart power-on), dual Ethernet ports (1GbE and 2.5GbE), three DisplayPort, plus whatever you have on your add-in GPU. There’s also a slot for the optional antenna for Wi-Fi 6 / 6E.

WiFi was notably absent on our test machine but for a workstation of this type, which is ideal for space constrained environments, such as the home office or construction site, it feels like a must.

The power supply unit is external, much like a laptop, and the ThinkStation P360 Ultra comes with a 170W, 230W, or 300W units depending on config.

To open the machine, simply pull a lever at the back and slide off the metal cover. The location of the components will depend on your chosen combination.

Single slot, CAD-focused GPUs, such as the Nvidia T400, T600 or T1000 are located on the opposite side of the motherboard to the CPU. More powerful dual slot GPUs, such as the Nvidia RTX A2000 and A5000, are located next to the CPU.

125W CPUs need a second, adjacent fan for cooling, which unfortunately means there is no room for a dual slot GPU. It means users must choose to prioritise CPU performance or GPU performance. You can’t max out both in the same machine.

For those whose workflows demand a powerful GPU, this shouldn’t be too hard a decision. While the single slot Nvidia T1000 (8 GB) is perfectly adequate for 3D CAD, moving up to the Nvidia RTX A5000 (16 GB) laptop GPU suddenly makes the ThinkStation P360 Ultra capable of powering a much wider of workflows, including VR, GPU rendering and real-time viz at 4K resolution.

Don’t expect performance to rival that of a desktop Nvidia RTX A5000 GPU, however. The P360 Ultra’s laptop chip is housed on a custom board with a base Thermal Design Power (TDP) target of 110W. As a result, it will not deliver as much performance as its desktop counterpart (which has a total board power of 230W). Compared to a standard desktop workstation, however, Lenovo claims users can expect slightly better performance than a desktop Nvidia RTX A4000, which is still a great card.

In terms of CPU, choosing a 65W CPU over a 125W CPU might not have that great a negative impact on performance, particularly in single threaded or lightly threaded workflows.

On paper, there is very little between the 65W Intel Core i9-12900 and the 125W Intel Core i9-12900K. Both have 8 P-Cores and 8 E-Cores and similar Max Turbo frequencies (5.1 GHz vs 5.2 GHz). You’ll likely see the biggest performance difference when rendering, as the Core i912900K is able to draw more power when all cores are in use, up to a maximum Turbo power of 241W. That’s the theory, at least. With our test machine’s Core i9-12900K we saw power draw peak at 160W in V-Ray, although it dropped to 125W after rendering for 50 seconds. It would be interesting to see what the ThinkStation P360 Ultra could maintain with the 65 W Intel Core i9-12900 and a single cooling fan, especially with an Nvidia RTX A5000 alongside it.

Of course, the ThinkStation P360 Ultra also stands out because it can handle 128 GB memory, double that of the competition. This will likely be of most interest to AEC professionals who use huge datasets for visualisation, simulation and reality modelling, much less so for vanilla CAD or BIM.

This ‘industry first’ is enabled by having four SODIMM slots (two on either side of the mother-board) so there are dual DIMMs per channel. According to Lenovo, it is the result of working

SODIMMs), for example, as was the case with our test unit, memory speeds drop from 4,800MHz to 4,000MHz, as per Intel’s design specification.

Core performance

Our test machine was tuned more towards CPU- than GPU-intensive workloads. It features a top-end Intel Core i9-12900K (8 P-cores / 8 E-cores), an entry-level Nvidia T400 (4GB) GPU, 64 GB of DDR5 4800 memory and a single 1 TB M.2 NVMe SSD.

We experienced excellent allround performance in single threaded and lightly threaded CAD and BIM workflows. In Revit, Inventor and Solidworks, it was a touch faster than the HP Z2 Mini G9 and its Intel Core i7-12700K. It extended its lead over the HP machine in our multi-threaded rendering tests, thanks in part to the four additional E-Cores. In V-Ray, Cinebench and KeyShot it maintained an all P-Core frequency of 3.99MHz, hitting 4.40MHz in the early stages of a render.

Compared to a liquid cooled tower fitted with the new Intel Core i9-13900K CPU, single threaded and multi-threaded performance was notably lower. However,

E-Cores, this was to be expected.

The surprise came when comparing the ThinkStation P360 Ultra to an older Intel Core i9-12900K-based tower with liquid cooling. It even outpaced the Scan 3XS GWP-ME A124C we reviewed in March 2022 (www.tinyurl.com/Scan-12th) in many single threaded and lightly threaded workflows, and it wasn’t that far behind it in multi-threaded render tests. However, there’s an element of comparing apples to pears here, as the ThinkStation P360 Ultra uses faster DDR5 memory, compared to Scan’s DDR4.

Delving a bit deeper into the benchmarks, we noticed some slower than expected scores. Some of these can be explained by memory speed (for example, recompiling shaders in Unreal Engine is particularly sensitive to memory bandwidth), others by Windows 10 and its tendency to sometimes assign processes to cores incorrectly using Thread Director.

We identified several processes that only ran on the slower E-Cores (and not on the faster P-Cores, as one would want). This includes simulation in Solidworks, recompiling shaders in Unreal Engine and drawing production in Autodesk Inventor. While this was easily ‘fixed’ by changing CPU priority in the excellent third party tool, Process Lasso, it reinforces the importance of running Windows 11 on workstations with Intel’s hybrid processor technology. These performance issues were not seen in any of our Windows 11-based workstations.

Fan noise was noticeable, but acceptable. In single-threaded CAD applications there was a gentle hum. There was a natural increase in volume in multi-threaded rendering applications. However, in tools like Leica Cyclone Register 360 where the loads on different cores continually change, fan speeds increased and decreased with some frequency which some may find annoying.

3D performance

Considering the graphics potential of this machine, we were a little underwhelmed by the supplied Nvidia T400 (4GB). This is very much an entry-level CAD GPU, best suited to small to medium sized models. While 3D benchmark scores in Revit, Inventor and Solidworks were significantly lower than any other machine in this special report, we still found it delivered a perfectly good experience at FHD resolution. In Solidworks 2023, for example, testing with a 3.6 million triangle computer model, delivered a smooth 51 FPS in shaded with edges mode and 39 FPS with RealView enabled.

As you can imagine, the Nvidia T400 is nowhere near powerful enough for visualisation work and the system became unusable in many of our tests, especially at 4K resolution.

Conclusion

The ThinkStation P360 Ultra marks a big step forward for super compact desktop workstations. As architects and engineers extend their workflows beyond pure CAD and BIM, they no longer need to resort to bulkier towers to meet their increased performance demands.

The biggest advancement is arguably the ability to configure the machine with an Nvidia RTX A5000, albeit a laptop variant with a slightly lower performance profile. This opens up the super compact workstation to graphics hungry workflows like real time viz and GPU rendering that simply weren’t feasible in the past with a machine of this size.

Meanwhile, 128 GB of memory is still a fairly niche requirement, but it will certainly be welcomed by some of the more demanding AEC professionals, particularly in point cloud processing and reality modelling where datasets can be huge. Importantly, with four SODIMM slots, users can start with less memory and add more in the future, as needs change.

From a pure CAD/BIM perspective, there are smaller machines that will probably do just as good a job in applications like Revit and Inventor. But the beauty of the ThinkStation P360 Ultra is that it can cover such a wide range of workflows. And from an IT management perspective, particularly among larger firms, that can be a big plus.

HP Z2 Mini G9

After six years in service, HP has finally redesigned the chassis for its iconic tiny workstation. With better acoustics and significantly enhanced performance, there’s much to like about this diminutive desktop, writes

Greg Corke

In late 2016, HP broke the mould with a desktop workstation that was significantly smaller than any other from a major OEM. Since then the HP Z2 Mini has established itself as a firm favourite at AEC Magazine.

But the original HP Z2 Mini design is now end of life. The G9 edition features a new all-metal chassis. Simple in form, it’s essentially a rectangular prism with rounded corners and a distinctive front mesh, through which air is drawn in, then expelled at the rear.

The beauty of the HP Z2 Mini G9 is its size — a mere 211 x 218 x 69mm. It can sit horizontally or vertically on the desk, kept stable with the included stand. And to keep on brand, the Z logo on the front can be rotated 90 degrees. It can even be VESA mounted under a desk or behind a display and paired with a wireless keyboard and mouse for a clutter free working environment. With integrated Intel Wi-Fi 6E AX211 there’s no need for Ethernet. It’s an ideal machine for space constrained home offices — and there have been plenty of those over the last two years.

It’s 10mm thicker than the previous design, but that means significantly more performance. ‘Alder Lake’ 12th Gen Intel Core CPUs replace ‘Comet Lake’ 10th Gen and, with improved thermal management, the G9 can also support the 125W models, up to the Core i9-12900K. However, it’s important to note that these aren’t the latest ‘Raptor Lake’ 13th Gen Intel Core CPUs, as seen elsewhere in this special report, so are a little slower.

There’s also a wider choice of GPUs, from the entry-level Nvidia T400 (4 GB) right up to the Nvidia RTX A2000 (12 GB) with hardware ray tracing built in. These are standard lowprofile graphics cards, not the custom mobile GPU modules used previously. well-matched to CAD, with an Intel Core i712700K CPU (3.6 GHz base, 5.0 GHz Turbo, 8 P-cores, 4 E-cores), Nvidia T1000 (4 GB) GPU, 32 GB DDR5-4800 MHz RAM (2 x 16 GB) and a 1 TB PCIe NVMe M.2 SSD.

In single or lightly threaded workflows, the machine was only around 14-20% slower than the fastest 13th Gen Intel Core desktop. For a machine of this size, that’s impressive.

■ Intel Core i7-12700K CPU (3.6 GHz base, 5.0 GHz Turbo, 8 P-cores, 4 E-cores, 20 threads)

■ Nvidia T1000 GPU (4 GB)

■ 32 GB DDR5-4800 memory (2 x 16 GB)

But in highly multithreaded workflows like rendering things start to slow down. It not only has fewer E-cores than the topend Core i9 processors, but due to the smaller chassis the CPU can’t clock as high, particularly under sustained loads. Rendering in Keyshot, for example, it only took 30 seconds for it to drop from 4.10 GHz to 3.48 GHz, although it then maintained that frequency for hours. Notably, there was hardly any fan noise throughout. Considering the thermal challenges of packing standard desktop components into a small chassis, this is quite an achievement, especially as some of the earlier HP Z2 Mini workstations could be quite noisy at times.

■ 1 TB, M.2 PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD

■ 211 x 218 x 69mm

■ From 2.4 kg

■ Microsoft Windows 11 Pro

■ 3 year (3/3/3) limited warranty includes 3 years of parts, labour and on-site repair

■ Exact price as reviewed not available, but with Intel Core i7-12700 and Nvidia T1000 (8 GB) £1,499 (Ex VAT)

■ www.hp.com/ zworkstations

The Nvidia T1000 hits the sweet spot for CAD, and the 50W GPU is available in 4 GB and 8 GB models. Our test machine’s 4 GB card performed well in Inventor, Revit and Solidworks, but with some of our larger Solidworks models that need more memory things slowed down, particularly at 4K resolution. Here, the 8 GB card would be a much better fit. An upgrade to the Nvidia RTX A2000 (12 GB) would take the machine into entry-level visualisation territory.

Opening the case takes seconds — simply press the rear release button and slide off the top – but the small chassis does make servicing a bit tricky. To get to the storage, you’ll need to remove the GPU. To get to the memory, unscrew the CPU fan. In our test machine both SODIMM sockets were already taken but there’s a spare M.2 slot for a second SSD. There’s no PSU inside. Instead the HP Z2 Mini comes with a sizeable 280W external power adapter. Speaking of power, it drew a mere 160W at the plug when rendering.

Considering its size, the HP Z2 Mini G9 is well equipped with ports. There are two USB Type C and one USB Type A (charging) on the side, and three USB Type A at the rear, along with 1GbE LAN. A Flex I/O port allows you to add ports of your choosing — from more USB and 2.5GbE LAN to Thunderbolt and HDMi.

The verdict

HP has done an excellent job in updating this impressive micro workstation. The industrial design is excellent, the acoustics are improved, and it’s taken a big step forward in terms of performance. But there are compromises to be made for having a machine this small. While the HP Z2 Mini G9 does very well in single threaded and lightly threaded workflows, it falls off the pace with all cores in play. It simply can’t compete with larger towers when it comes to power and cooling. So if your workflows lean that way, there’s a tough choice to make: either maximise performance or minimise the impact on your desk.