DEVELOP3D CAD/CAM/CAE workstation special report – October 2014

OCTOBER 2014 | DEVELOP3D.COM

CAD/CAM/CAE WORKSTATION SPECIAL report Why now is the perfect time to be buying a new workstation

New AMD Firepro and NviDIA Quadro GPUs on test

PCIe vs SATA: Choosing a solid state drive (SSD) for CAD/CAe

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WORKSTATION SPECIAL REPORT

Timing is everything With new CPUs and GPUs, faster storage and new I/O technologies, it’s the perfect time to be buying a new workstation, writes Greg Corke

T

he launch of a new generation of Intel Xeon processors is a big event in the workstation calendar. And when Intel bangs the drum all the workstation manufacturers dance and suddenly there’s a whole new range of new machines. Like dads at the disco though, not everyone stays in rhythm. GPU manufacturers, for example, have their own development cycles and it’s not often these critical 3D workstation components get updated at the same time.

With the introduction of the Intel Haswellbased Xeon E5 v3 series CPUs last month, however, things are a little different.

To coincide with this major launch there are also a whole load of AMD and Nvidia professional GPUs rolling off the production line at this moment in time.

And with other workstation technologies, such as Solid State Drives (SSDs) coming down in price and high-speed I/O technologies becoming mainstream, it’s certainly a very good time to be thinking about upgrading your workstation.

So let’s have a look at each of the technologies in turn and what they mean for CAD/CAM/CAE and design visualisation.

Having this many cores in a single CPU does reduce clock speed though with the 18 core Intel Xeon E5-2699 v3 only running at 2.3 GHz. For a better balance of performance in single threaded and multi-threaded applications, the eight core 3.2GHz Xeon E52667 v3 and ten core 3.1GHz Xeon E5-2687W v3 both look interesting. For single CPU workstations, the quad core Xeon E5-1630 v3 pushes the clock speed up to 3.7GHz. The other interesting development comes from the workstation manufacturers, who are offering a much broader range of CPUs

GPUs Both AMD and Nvidia have brand new families of professional GPUs out now.

The big news is more on-board memory, with even entry-level cards from both manufacturers having plenty for most CAD-centric workflows. There is also wider support for multiple 4K displays.

Nvidia has the biggest share of this market with all the major workstation manufacturers offering its entire new range of Quadro KX20 and KX200 GPUs. AMD has less penetration with the tier-one workstation manufacturers with Dell and Fujitsu offering the biggest choice of FirePro WX100 GPUs. You can read more about AMD’s and Nvidia’s new generation GPUs on pages WS8 and WS12.

Processors Intel’s new Haswell-based Xeon E5 v3 series chip family promises a jump in performance, support for DDR4 memory, and more cores — up to 18 cores in a single CPU. First off, it’s important to note that, clock for clock, Intel Haswell delivers more performance than Intel Ivy Bridge that it replaces — so don’t go comparing GHz to GHz directly. For example, a Haswell-based Xeon E5-1620v3 (3.5GHz up to 3.6GHz Turbo) should comfortably beat an Ivy Bridge-based Xeon E5-1620v2 (3.7GHz up to 3.9GHz Turbo) in a CAD race. This speed boost in single threaded applications is also down to new DDR4 memory, which runs at a speed of 2,133MHz, 14% faster than Ivy Bridge’s 1,866MHz DDR3 memory.

Secondly, with up to 18 cores per CPU (50 per cent more cores than the Ivy Bridge Xeon E5 v2 Series) performance in ray trace rendering has the potential to go off the scale. Applications like KeyShot, V-Ray and 3ds Max (mental ray) should feast on dual CPU workstations with a whopping 36 cores and 72 threads.

boost performance without having to invest in a more expensive dual CPU workstation.

While the Xeon E5 v3 series is grabbing all the headlines, Intel has also launched some new Haswell-based Core i7 chips.

The top-of-the-line Intel Core i7-5960X boasts eight cores and runs at a base clock frequency of 3.0GHz (up to 3.5GHz in turbo), while the Core i7-5930K is a six core CPU which runs at 3.5GHz (up to 3.7GHz in turbo). Expect these chips to appear more in niche machines from the likes of Scan and Workstation Specialists, and expect them to be overclocked so they run at faster speeds. This is something that the Tier One manufacturers can’t offer.

Storage and I/O

(above) The Intel ‘Haswell’ Xeon E5-2600 v3 CPU features up to 18 cores (top) AMD FirePro W7000 GPU with 8GB GDDR5 memory for graphics and compute

in their machines. This is particularly noticeable in some single CPU workstations where the core count has risen dramatically.

While most manufacturers used to limit things to eight cores, it’s now possible to get 14 or even 18 in a single processor machine.

This should be particularly interesting news for users of ray-trace rendering software who will now be able to significantly

Storage has also taken a big step forward – not purely from a performance perspective – but in terms of prices dropping and being able to pack more drives in a single workstation. Of course, all the action is around Solid State Drives (SSDs), and HP in particular is making a lot of noise about the HP Z Turbo Drive, a mainstream SSD which uses the PCIe interface to deliver much faster sustained read/write speeds than SSDs based on the bandwidth-limited SATA interface. However, not everyone can get the most out these fast drives. You can read more about the potential benefits in CAD/CAM/ CAE workflows on page WS22.

Meanwhile, I/O technologies such as Thunderbolt 2.0 are starting to become more standard and expect to see USB 3.0 ports everywhere, rather than just a limited few, thanks to the latest Intel chipsets.

DEVELOP3D.COM/HARDWARE OCTOBER 2014 WS3

WORKSTATION SPECIAL REPORT

New workstations from The big four Dell Precision Tower

Fujitsu Celsius

At A GLANCE

At A GLANCE

» Three new desktop workstations

» Two new desktop workstations

» Single CPU Precision Tower 5810 includes up to 14 CPU cores

» Single CPU Fujitsu Celsius M740 includes up to 18 CPU cores

» Dual CPU Precision Tower 7810

» Dual CPU Fujitsu Celsius R940

» Dual CPU Precision Tower 7910

» Massive choice of CPUs, the most out of all the manufacturers

» Improved acoustics by optimising the internal fans

» Huge choice of GPUs including all the new Nvidia Quadros & AMD FirePros as well as Nvidia GRID virtual GPUs

» Good choice of GPUs including the entire new Nvidia Quadro family and four new AMD FirePro W Series cards

» New PCIe card features two M.2 SSDs for fast read / write performance

» Updated Dell Precision Performance Optimizer (DPPO) software

» Improved acoustics

» Teradici PCoIP Workstation Access software for occasional remote access

» Big choice of compute boards including a server-class Intel Xeon Phi

dell.co.uk/workstation

fujitsu.com

D

ell has released three new Haswell-EP Xeon E5 desktop workstations: the single CPU Precision Tower 5810 and dual CPU Precision Tower 7810 and Tower 7910.

Replacements for the Precision T3610, T5610 and T7610, there’s been a small naming change, giving greater emphasis to the ‘T’ in Tower and grouping its dual GPU machines closer together.

All of the chassis remain pretty much the same but Dell says its engineering team has improved acoustics by optimising the fans.

There is a much wider choice of processors and, interestingly, there’s been a big boost to the number of cores on offer in its single processor workstation.

While the Precision T3610 peaked at six cores, the Precision Tower 5810 will go all the way up to 14. This should appeal to users of ray-trace rendering software who should be able to significantly boost performance without having to invest in a more expensive dual

processor workstation.

Other new features include a doubling of memory capacity in all machines thanks to the introduction of 32GB and 64GB DIMMs later this year, plus 12Gbit/sec storage controllers, kicking off with a 2.5-inch 400GB SAS SSD. Dell is also placing a big emphasis on software. Last year it launched the Dell Precision Performance Optimizer (DPPO), which was designed to simplify, automate and optimise workstation settings. Dell says the 2.0 release offers better integration with professional graphics as a result of it working closely with Nvidia and AMD. There are some new application profiles including Inventor and 3ds Max. Dell is also focusing on remote workstation access and is offering Teradici’s new PCoIP Workstation Access software for $199. The software is designed to appeal to users who want an easy way to get remote access to their desktop workstations on a more casual basis. For more on this technology turn to page WS18.

WS4 OCTOBER 2014 DEVELOP3D.COM/HARDWARE

F

ujitsu takes a slightly different approach to the other Tier One manufacturers insofar as it only has two Intel Haswell Xeon E5 workstations: the single processor Celsius M740 and the dual processor Celsius R940. Both feature an abundance of CPUs and GPUs — the biggest choice out of all four manufacturers.

This is particularly noticeable in the Celsius M740, which can be fitted with any one of 22 Intel Xeon chips, ranging from the CAD-focused Xeon E5-1630v3 (4 Cores, 3.70 GHz) right up to the Xeon E5-2699v3 (18 cores, 2.30GHz), usually found in dual CPU workstations.

The choice of GPUs is equally extensive with AMD FirePro and Nvidia Quadro represented equally in both machines.

To support such powerful processors Fujitsu has upped the wattage of its Power Supply Units (PSUs) including 1,350W and 1,700W models in the multi-GPU capable Celsius M740power and R940power.

More power means more heat

so Fujitsu has had to increase cooling efficiency to reduce noise. Big, low duty fans draw air in at the front and expel at the rear. Airflow has been improved by leaving a gap above a slimline optical drive. The gap also means a handle could be built into the chassis.

Both the Celsius M740 and Celsius R940 boast a frontloading drive bay, which can house 4 x 3.5-inch drives or 8 x 2.5-inch drives which are located with handy ‘Easyrails’.

Fujitsu has also added a PCIe SSD, which it claims offers double the read/write performance of SATA-based SSDs. The PCIe board features two M.2 SSDs, which are currently seen by the OS as individual drives although it may be possible to RAID them in the future. Fujitsu already has plans to introduce a model with a single M.2 SSD, which should give a lower cost of entry, around 1.2 times that of a standard SATA SSD. More info on DEVELOP3D.COM ■ tinyurl.com/CelsiusM740

WORKSTATION SPECIAL REPORT

New machines from the tier one workstation manufacturers feature Intel Haswell-EP Xeon E5 v3 series CPUs, new GPUs from Nvidia and AMD and a host of new I/O technologies including Thunderbolt 2 and PCIe SSDs

HP Z Workstation

Lenovo ThinkStation

At A GLANCE

At A GLANCE

» Three new desktop workstations

» Three new desktop workstations

» Single CPU HP Z440 includes a brand new chassis and runs quieter

» Single CPU ThinkStation P500 which includes up to 11 drives

» Dual CPU HP Z640

» Dual CPU ThinkStation P700

» Dual CPU HP Z840 features expanded storage with new 2.5-inch bays

» Dual CPU ThinkStation P700

» HP Z Turbo Drive (PCIe SSD) available as a standard option

» Lots of user serviceable features and impressive customisation

» Good choice of GPUs including the entire new Nvidia Quadro family and two new AMD FirePro W Series cards

» Runs cooler thanks to a brand new thermal design

» Brand new chassis

» Nvidia Quadro GPUs are standard.

AMD FirePro is a specialist option

» Thunderbolt 2.0 available as an option on all workstations » HP Performance Advisor software

» New Lenovo Performance Tuner Software

hp.com/zworkstations

lenovo.com/workstation

H

P has updated three machines in its HP Z Workstation family. The HP Z440, HP Z640 and HP Z840 all feature a massive choice of Intel Haswell-EP Xeon E5 v3 series CPUs, the full range of Nvidia Quadro GPUs and select models from AMD’s new FirePro family.

There’s a big focus on storage with the HP Z Turbo Drive now available as a standard option in all of its machines. This PCIe solid state drive (SSD) boasts twice the sequential read/write speeds of SATA 6Gb/sec SSDs. Fast transfer of data to external drives is also possible with optional Thunderbolt 2.0, which is said to be four times as fast as USB 3.0.

The Z440 is HP’s mainstream 3D CAD workstation, featuring a single Xeon CPU, a big choice of professional GPUs, up to 128GB of RAM and up to four 3.5-inch drives.

Out of all the new HP workstations it has arguably undergone the most radical change, with a completely

redesigned tool-free chassis, smaller than the Z420 it replaces. It has built in handles, a 9.5mm slim optical bay and two flexible 5.25-inch bays for front access storage or media card readers. There’s one ‘always on’ USB port to charge smart phones and other devices when the machine is off.

HP says the Z440 is also quieter, with a new highperformance CPU air-cooler said to be ‘equal to or better than’ the Z420’s liquid cooler.

The dual processor HP Z640 and HP Z840 are more evolutions of the HP Z620 and HP Z820, featuring tweaked industrial design to give consistency across whole family of Z workstations — desktop and mobile.

The big news is the Z840 can now take more storage. Its four 3.5-inch drive bays, which are tool free and feature blind mate connectors, have been adapted so they can support eight 2.5inch drives in the same space.

More info on DEVELOP3D.COM ■ tinyurl.com/HPZ440

L

enovo’s new ThinkStation P-Series has been completely redesigned from the ground up. It features striking industrial design, lots of user serviceable features, impressive customisation and a highly engineered cooling system.

There are three new HaswellEP Xeon E5-based workstations in the range: the single CPU ThinkStation P500, and the dual CPU ThinkStation P700 and ThinkStation P900.

There’s a big emphasis on flexibility and each workstation can be easily customised to individual user requirements.

FLEX bays at the front can house optical, HDD or additional I/O ports. Inside, the FLEX connector, a small footprint PCIe card, will help deliver new I/O technologies without sacrificing a full sized PCIe slot. An M.2 module can host two 256GB or 512GB SSDs, and Thunderbolt 2 will come next year.

The P-Series is big on storage with the P500 supporting up to 11 drives, the P700 12 drives

and the P900 14 drives. Internal FLEX Drive trays offer easy access to a single 3.5-inch drive or two 2.5-inch drives.

Unlike previous ThinkStation generations, the handles are totally integrated into the main body of the chassis. For servicing internal components, red touch points draw the eye to those that can be removed without a screwdriver.

The ThinkStation P-Series is said to run cooler than Lenovo’s previous generation thanks to a brand new thermal design, which builds on the tried and tested principle of drawing in cool air at the front of the workstation and expelling it from the back.

In addition to hardware, Lenovo has introduced its own Performance Tuner Software. It’s not as mature as HP’s Performance Advisor or Dell’s Precision Performance Optimizer (DPPO) but should grow in capabilities in the coming months.

More info on DEVELOP3D.COM ■ tinyurl.com/LenovoP900

DEVELOP3D.COM/HARDWARE OCTOBER 2014 WS5

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WORKSTATION SPECIAL REPORT

Nvidia Quadro GPUs Greg Corke gets hands on with Nvidia’s next generation Maxwell and Kepler Quadro GPUs and delves deeper into the Quadro ecosystem

N

vidia is back with a whole new family of Quadro GPUs (Graphics Processing Units), targeting the whole gamut of professional 3D users, from entry-level CAD all the way up to high-end design viz. There are five new products in total - the Quadro K420, K620, K2200, K4200 and K5200 - all of which should be appearing in workstations this month. The Quadro K6000, which Nvidia unveiled at SIGGRAPH in 2013, will remain the company’s flagship offering.

For two of the new cards, the ‘K’ prefix, that Nvidia introduced two years ago to mark the launch of its ‘Kepler’ family of Quadro GPUs, is a touch misleading.

The Quadro K620 and K2200 are actually based on ‘Maxwell’, Nvidia’s next generation GPU architecture, which Sandeep Gupte, senior director, professional solutions group at Nvidia, describes as being phenomenal in terms of performance per watt. Indeed, Nvidia claims the new Quadro K2200, its mid-range CAD offering, provides users with a 90% performance improvement while only increasing max power consumption by 25%.

The other three cards are all based on ‘Kepler’.

The reason for this split family is all down to timing.

Gupte calls it a three-way dance involving Nvidia, Intel and the workstation manufacturers.

Intel is leading this waltz with its ‘Haswell-based’ Xeon E5-series CPU, which launched at the beginning of September (see page WS3), setting in motion brand new workstations from Dell, HP, Lenovo, Fujitsu and others (see page WS4). If the Intel Xeon refresh had happened next year we may have seen an entire family of Maxell-based Quadros.

While the Maxwell Quadros are more energy efficient, performance still scales well throughout the range, says Nvidia.

Based on real-world 3D applications Nvidia claims users should see, on average, a 40 percent performance gain, generation over generation.

While the Quadro K2200 didn’t quite hit

those heights in most of our hands on tests in SolidWorks and Creo, we can appreciate how this might be possible in some applications and workflows.

Other than performance, the headline story for this new generation of Quadros is on-board memory. Discounting the Quadro K420, which is very much an entry-level card, the new Quadro family starts off at 2GB with the Quadro K620.

2GB of on-board GPU memory is a substantial amount for CAD and even some large models should fit quite comfortably within this envelope.

The Quadro K2200, Nvidia’s workhorse CAD offering, features 4GB, more than enough for almost all 3D CAD users.

But this additional

memory could also be useful for compute workflows.

The 1.3TFLOPS of single precision performance, almost double that of the K2000 it replaces, makes it a viable option for ray trace rendering with Nvidia iray.

The other big leap in memory comes from the Quadro K5200, which boasts a substantial 8GB - double that of the K5000.

This could be important for high-end design viz users who may have previously had to fork out for a significantly more expensive K6000. 8GB should also be a good amount for very complex ray trace renders.

Connectivity remains pretty much the same as the previous generation with Nvidia retaining DVI-I on all of its Quadro cards.

Ports for the more modern DisplayPort

WS8 OCTOBER 2014 DEVELOP3D.COM/HARDWARE

standard are also included. See the specs over the page for full details.

On test We tested the new Quadro K2200 (4GB), Quadro K4200 (4GB) and Quadro K5200 (8GB) with SolidWorks 2013 and Creo 2.0 using the SPECapc benchmarks.

These tests run directly inside the CAD applications so are designed to give a much more realistic picture of performance than synthetic benchmarks such as Viewperf 12.

To put everything in context we also tested the previous generation Kepler cards, the Quadro K2000 (2GB) and K4000 (3GB).

Our test machine, a Scan 3XS GW-HT10 (see page WS16), came with one of the fastest CPUs currently available – the Core i7 4790K. With a factory setting of 4.0GHz, Scan has clocked this up to an incredible 4.4GHz giving our GPUs plenty of headroom to express themselves.

The SolidWorks 2013 benchmark provides an overall score based on six different graphics states. However, it’s probably most useful to focus on three of these display states: RealView disabled, RealView, and RealView with Ambient Occlusion.

If you are a SolidWorks user you should be able to match these directly to your workflow, though, of course, your models will be different so it’s not perfect.

‘RealView disabled’ focuses on two SolidWorks viewing modes: shaded and shaded with edges, which renders simple shaded models with outlines. This is one of the most popular display modes for CAD because it provides a very clear picture of the geometry when modelling.

In the SolidWorks benchmark it is important not to confuse the ‘shaded’ and ‘shaded with edges’ scores with the pure ‘shaded’ and ‘shaded with edges’ modes in SolidWorks. ‘RealView disabled’ is the only score in the benchmark that does not feature RealView in some way. The ‘shaded’ and ‘shaded with edges’ scores are a bit misleading as they actually have a RealView element to them.

The disappointing news here is that none of the new GPUs shows a benefit over the

WORKSTATION SPECIAL REPORT

Nvidia Quadro K420

Nvidia Quadro K620

Nvidia Quadro K2200

Nvidia Quadro K4200

Nvidia Quadro K5200

Nvidia Quadro K6000

Memory Size

1GB DDR3

2GB DDR3

4GB GDDR5

4GB GDDR5

8GB GDDR5

12GB GDDR5 (ECC)

Memory bandwidth

29 GB/s

29 GB/s

80 GB/s

173 GB/s

192 GB/s

288 GB/s

#CUDA Cores

192

384

640

1,344

2,304

2,880

Single Precision

0.3 TFLOPS

0.8 TFLOPS

1.3 TFLOPS

2.1 TFLOPS

3.1 TFLOPS

5.2 TFLOPS

Double Precision

N/A

N/A

N/A

N/A

N/A

1.73 TFLOPS

PCIe

2.0

2.0

2.0

2.0

3.0

3.0

Number of slots

1

1

1

1

2

2

Connectors

DVI-I + DP

DVI-I + DP

DVI-I + 2 x DP

DVI-I + 2 x DP

DVI-I + DVI-D + 2 x DP

DVI-I + DVI-D + 2 x DP

# displays (with DP 1.2 Hub)1

2 (4)

2 (4)

3 (4)

3 (4)

4 (4)

4 (4)

Advanced Display

N/A

N/A

N/A

SDI, SYNC, Stereo

Board Power (connector)

41W

45W

68W

108W (1 x 6pin)

150W (1 x 6pin)

225W (2 x 6 pin)

Price (ex VAT)

£84

£117

£315

£601

£1,296

£3,449

3

2

SDI, SYNC, Stereo

2

SDI, SYNC, Stereo2

1 DisplayPort 1.2 multi-streaming can be used to drive multiple displays from a single DisplayPort connector 2 Optional 3 Price taken from scan.co.uk on Sept 20, 2014

previous generation K2000 or K4000. Shaded with edges mode in SolidWorks doesn’t put a huge load on the GPU so the CPU tends to become the bottleneck, even when it’s clocked to 4.5GHz. This could change with exceptionally large models (particularly if the K2000’s 2GB of on board memory is maxed out) or when using 4K displays, as having four times as many pixels on screen than standard HD puts a significant additional load on the GPU. For the Quadro K2200, K4200 and K5200 to truly express their power you need to turn on real-time rendering effects. ‘RealView’ adds realism to models, providing real world materials and advanced shading, including self-shadowing and scene reflections.

This is popular in sectors such as product design when the designer wants to get a better feel for how a product will look without having to render offline with a ray trace renderer like PhotoView 360. In our tests the K2200 not only left the K2000 standing, but also beat the K4000 by a fair distance. The K4200 and K5200 stepped things up incrementally.

Ambient Occlusion takes RealView to the next level, by increasing the realism of shadows. The technique places shadows based on the occlusion by other objects in the scene. The more hidden they are, the darker the shadows. Because of the increased load this puts on the GPU it really gives the new Maxwell-based K2200 an opportunity to strut its stuff, more than doubling the performance of the K2000. The K4200 steps this up a notch and the K5200 takes performance to a whole new level – giving a glimpse of its true potential for high-end design visualisation.

The PTC Creo 2.0 benchmark is more straightforward, testing a 1,000 part automotive model in a variety of display modes — including shaded with edges, shaded with reflection, hidden and nohidden lines, anti-aliasing up to 8X and edge quality up to very high.

It aggregates everything into two scores: wireframe and shaded and provides a ‘graphics composite’ score, which is an average of the two.

Here we see the Quadro K2200 deliver around a 25% boost over the K2000 in both modes, with scores approaching that of the K4000. There’s a big step up with the K4200, particularly in wireframe mode, and a smaller, but still significant, improvement with the K5200.

Quadro Mosaic Moving beyond the desktop, Nvidia has also lowered the entry point of its Quadro Mosaic display technology, which allows users to create high definition “Power Wall” displays for design review or digital mockup.

Up to four Quadro K4200, K5200 or K6000 GPUs and 16 displays or projectors can be synced together with the technology.

Nvidia previously restricted Mosaic support to its double width cards so adding the single width Quadro K4200 into the mix will not only lower the cost of entry but give more flexibility in space-limited workstations. Mosaic also requires an Nvidia Quadro Sync add in board, which synchronises the GPUs to ensure all the displays remain aligned.

The SPECapc for SolidWorks 2013 benchmark

DEVELOP3D.COM/HARDWARE OCTOBER 2014 WS9

WORKSTATION SPECIAL REPORT

The new Nvidia Quadro family

GPU compute In addition to throwing complex CAD models around on screen, all of the new Quadro cards are capable of performing compute operations in CUDA- or OpenCLaccelerated applications. However, this statement does need a bit of clarification.

Firstly, we’re only really talking about ray trace rendering here, rather than computer aided engineering (CAE), as the new Quadro cards are only tuned for single precision operations.

For Finite Element Analysis (FEA) or Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) in applications like Ansys and Simulia Abaqus you need double precision, which you only get with the Quadro K6000 or Tesla compute boards.

Secondly, if you want to be realistic about GPU compute, don’t even think about using the Quadro K420 or K620. The Quadro K2200 is really the entry point, but to really get your teeth into ray trace rendering, you’d probably need a K5200 or K6000, even multiple high-end GPUs. You can get a good gauge of relative performance by checking out the single precision performance figures in the chart above, measured in TFLOPs. For GPU compute in workstations, Nvidia used to have a very defined marketing message, which it called Nvidia Maximus.

This originally meant a Quadro graphics card for interactive 3D graphics and a Tesla GPU compute card for rendering or simulation.

Everything was tied together with a software driver, which also told each application which GPU resources to use.

This message has softened over the years and now Nvidia simply refers to it as ‘multi GPU’. Gupte says Maximus did a great job of educating the market with a simple message, but doesn’t feel Nvidia needs to be so descriptive anymore, in terms of what GPUs to use.

Adam Scraba, senior product manager at Nvidia, provides more detail. “The way we told the world about it was ‘model and simulate’ (maybe at the same time) or ‘model and render’ (maybe at the same time). And

a lot of people got it and that’s how they worked,” he explains. “We found, almost overwhelmingly, that people just wanted to scale their work up. They just wanted to scale the simulation or the rendering power.

And that really lent itself to just amassing of bunch of GPU resources and scaling your work across it, as opposed to ‘that is a resource for something’ and ‘that is a resource for something else’.”

Of course, not all design viz users can afford expensive multi GPU systems and, we can imagine how Tesla might not resonate at the lower end of the market.

However, now with the introduction of the new cards, and a broader multi GPU message, two Quadro K2200s could probably do a decent job for a SolidWorks user who also wants to render with the Iray-enabled Bunkspeed Pro. From a workflow perspective two Quadro GPUs should certainly work well, but GPU resources can sit idle when models aren’t being moved about on screen. This is in contrast to AMD who does a seamless job of juggling graphics and compute tasks on a single FirePro GPU. You spin a model and it instantly responds, even when a ray trace render is being number crunched in the background. In short, users don’t have to buy two cards.

That’s not to say you can’t do graphics and compute on a single Quadro GPU but you would likely find applications fighting for GPU resources, which can interrupt modelling workflows. Of course, there’s nothing to stop you rendering overnight, after you’ve gone home.

Nvidia iray GPU compute is nothing without application support and here Nvidia scores much higher than AMD. Nvidia iray, a GPU-accelerated photorealistic ray trace renderer based on the company’s proprietary CUDA technology, is used in a number of applications. These currently include Bunkspeed Pro, Catia Live Rendering, Autodesk 3ds Max Design, Maya (iray for Maya from 0x1 Software) and Maxon

WS10 OCTOBER 2014 DEVELOP3D.COM/HARDWARE

Cinema 4D (m4d plug-in).

Nvidia says it is working with ‘many other software developers’ and there should be some announcements soon. Gupte wouldn’t be drawn on specifics but told DEVELOP3D: “Could AEC be one of those markets that might be super interested in that type of thing?”

Users can render with iray locally on the workstation using one or more Quadro or Tesla GPUs. The image refines with each pass, just like a CPU renderer, and can take minutes, even hours to get a decent image, depending on the output resolution and GPU power at your disposal.

However, Nvidia has a vision to provide a much more interactive experience directly inside the design application - real-time ray tracing in the true sense.

“The goal here is that the render window should basically just become part of the viewport,” says Sean Kilbride, technical marketing manager, workstation and PSG product reviews. “Instead of seeing wireframe mode, instead of seeing shaded mode, we want to be able to work with materials completely realistically,” he explains demonstrating a scene inside Maya that refines, almost instantly, into a photorealistic, ray traced render as soon as he stops moving the model on screen.

Of course, this takes a huge amount of compute resources, far more than you can get inside a single workstation, so this is where Nvidia’s VCA (Visual Computing Appliance) with eight high-performance GPUs, comes into play.

For the demo, a cluster of these GPUladen appliances are being put to work – a render farm worth tens, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars. This huge compute resource is being accessed over the Internet, directly from within Maya, but Nvidia says its VCA will most likely be used over LAN or WAN. This is partly because the data first needs to be uploaded and only then are small incremental changes sent - camera movements, for example.

While the focus is currently on remote

WORKSTATION SPECIAL REPORT

rendering, Gupte hinted that there may be other local workflows that Nvidia is looking to ‘remote’ or extend to ‘the cloud’. Describing GPU rendering as ‘the best starting point’ for remote computation, we wonder if Nvidia could also be working with CAE software developers to offer one click workflows for remote FEA or CFD.

SPECapc SolidWorks 2013 benchmark (bigger is better) Test machine: Intel Core i7 4790K (clocked to 4.4GHz), 16GB RAM, 250GB Samsung 840 EVO SSD, Win 7 64 Professional. Driver 340.52

Quadro K2000 Quadro K4000 Graphics Composite Quadro K2200 Quadro K4200 Quadro K5200

Conclusion Nvidia looks to have delivered another impressive family of desktop GPUs for CAD and other 3D applications.

Indeed, from our initial round of testing, the Quadro K2200 and Quadro K4200 should certainly pique the interest of product development professionals - PTC Creo users in general and SolidWorks users who work with graphics intensive viewing modes.

While the Quadro K5200 sets new records in both benchmarks, it is probably overkill for most CAD users. Instead, it is best suited to design viz workflows where the GPU is really pushed to its limits.

Meanwhile, with a significant increase in memory at the lower end of the range, even the entry-level Quadro K620 (2GB) should be able to handle some pretty hefty CAD models.

The combination of Kepler (K420, K4200, K5200) and Maxwell (K620 and K2200) for this new generation of GPUs doesn’t appear to have impacted performance in any way, with our benchmark figures scaling nicely through the range.

However, with the Quadro K2200 drawing a mere 68W of power, while delivering impressive performance, it certainly looks like Nvidia’s Maxwell architecture has much to offer from a performance/watt perspective.

With such a significant increase in performance across the range one would expect Nvidia to be shouting about it from the rafters, but the company was uncharacteristically reticent to push benchmark figures at the launch in July.

In a marked change from Quadro launches of old it preferred instead to push the message that Quadro is more than just a desktop graphics card - it’s the ‘Visual Computing Platform’, says Gupte.

In saying this Gupte is mostly talking about Nvidia GRID, the overarching brand that includes remote gaming and VDI (virtual desktop infrastructure) technology as well as physical GPUs. GRID is a powerful brand, but when you’ve spent over a decade building up Quadro as a marque of reliability, performance and certification for professional graphics, it’s clear Nvidia feels there is work to do here to align its messaging.

We imagine Maxwell-based GRID cards are on the agenda and wonder if they might harness the Quadro brand in some way.

6.26 7.60 8.84 9.65 10.83

Quadro K2000

6.45

Quadro K4000

8.24

RealView Graphics Quadro K2200 Quadro K4200

9.95 11.07

Quadro K5200

12.81

Quadro K2000 Quadro K4000 Shadows Quadro K2200 Quadro K4200 Quadro K5200

6.41 8.25 9.95 11.08 12.87

Quadro K2000 6.99 Quadro K4000 11.29 Ambient Occlusion Quadro K2200 16.40 Quadro K4200 20.13 Quadro K5200

27.14

Quadro K2000 6.13 Quadro K4000 7.47 8.79 Shaded Quadro K2200 Quadro K4200 9.54 Quadro K5200 10.81 Quadro K2000

6.39

Quadro K4000 Shaded With Edges Quadro K2200 Quadro K4200 Quadro K5200

7.73 8.89 9.76 10.85

Quadro K2000 Quadro K4000 RealView Disabled Quadro K2200 Quadro K4200 Quadro K5200

0

5.56 5.50 5.51 5.57 5.53

5

10

15

20

25

30

(Above) In SolidWorks the Quadro K2200, K4200, and K5200 demonstrate excellent performance in graphics-intensive workflows with RealView and Ambient Occlusion enabled but appear to offer no real performance benefit over the K2000 or K400 in the RealView disabled portion of the test, which focuses on pure shaded plus edges mode, as used in SolidWorks

(Below) In PTC Creo the Quadro K2200 delivers 25% more performance than the Quadro K2000.

The Quadro K4200 delivers 26% more performance than the Quadro K4000

SPECapc PTC Creo 2.0 benchmark (bigger is better) Test machine: Intel Core i7 4790K (clocked to 4.4GHz), 16GB RAM, 250GB Samsung 840 EVO SSD, Win 7 64 Professional. Driver 340.52

Quadro K2000

5.98

Quadro K4000 Graphics Composite

Quadro K2200

Quadro K4200

Quadro K5200

Quadro K2000 Quadro K4000 Shaded Graphics

7.78 7.50 9.80 10.57

6.74

Quadro K2200

Quadro K4200

Quadro K5200

Quadro K2000

5.30

9.98 10.96

Quadro K4000 Wireframe Graphics

8.18 8.56

7.41

Quadro K2200

6.57

Quadro K4200

Quadro K5200

9.62 10.20

■ nvidia.com/quadro

DEVELOP3D.COM/HARDWARE OCTOBER 2014 WS11

WORKSTATION SPECIAL REPORT

AMD Firepro GPUs

AMD unveils new professional GPUs, optimises its graphics and compute workflows and seeks professional CAD apps for its Mantle graphics API. Greg Corke reports

I

t has been close to six months since AMD released the FirePro W9100, but the graphics giant has now completed its next generation professional GPU family with the introduction of four new cards.

The entry-level FirePro W2100 and W4100, plus the mid-range FirePro W5100 and W7100 join the ultra high-end FirePro W9100 and high-end FirePro W8100 that was also launched earlier this year.

The big story is that these cards are brimming with on-board memory; double that of the previous generation. Even the entry-level FirePro W2100 comes with 2GB, which should allow CAD users to load up all but the biggest models into GPU memory.

Then, in the so-called mid-range, the FirePro W7100 takes things up to a whopping 8GB. While it’s hard to imagine any CAD-centric graphics workflows using anywhere near this amount of GPU memory, 8GB does offer serious potential for GPU compute in simulation and ray trace rendering apps. It also adds in a good level of future proofing.

The entry-level AMD FirePro W2100, a replacement for the ageing FirePro V3900, is

Test Drive: Graphics & compute on a single GPU The AMD FirePro W8100 and FirePro W9100 are not only designed for interactive 3D graphics. Both cards are also optimised for heavy-duty compute tasks.

Think OpenCL-accelerated ray trace renderers or simulation solvers.

Thanks to AMD’s Graphics Core Next (GCN) architecture you don’t have to choose between graphics or compute though. Both cards can handle up to eight compute tasks and one graphics task at the same time and, most importantly, switch dynamically between them.

This means the GPU could be number crunching through a ray trace render but still respond almost instantly when you start to rotate a 3D model.

This is all great in theory so we decided put this to the test using the pre-viz ray trace renderer, V-Ray RT 2.5 for 3ds Max 2014 and SolidWorks 2014 for interactive graphics. We used Microsoft Process Explorer to track what resources were being used in the FirePro W9100 GPU and FRAPS (fraps.com) to record the 3D performance.

Selecting V-RAY RT (OpenCL) as the ActiveShade renderer, 100% of the FirePro W9100’s resources set to work on rendering the scene. While it crunched its way through the ray trace render we loaded up a large assembly in SolidWorks, turned on RealView and started moving the model around on screen.

Impressively, it responded

being touted to large engineering firms who want to kit out 100s or 1,000s of engineers with professional grade GPUs. AMD is pitching the card as a cost effective alternative to integrated Intel graphics and at £100 is certainly aggressive on pricing.

With a claimed performance improvement of up to 67% over the FirePro V3900, plus certifications for all the major 3D CAD tools, AMD is presenting it as an entry-level option for users of Inventor, SolidWorks, NX, Creo, Catia and others.

The low profile card has 2GB of onboard memory and support for 4K displays. It has two DisplayPort 1.2 outputs.

AMD calls the 2GB FirePro W4100 a new class of professional GPU – ‘a mid-range CAD card with an entry-level price’ (£112).

Like the FirePro W2100, the W4100 is also a low profile card so it will fit into a small form factor workstation chassis, such as the Dell Precision T1700 or HP Z230. AMD has yet to announce which workstation manufacturers will be taking it up, but it should be an interesting proposition for this sector, which has historically been very limited in its entry-level GPU options.

The W4100 can support up to four 4K displays and features four outputs (mini DisplayPort rather than DisplayPort, presumably so they can all fit onto the low profile card).

The AMD FirePro W5100 is the new midrange workhorse CAD card which boasts 4GB of on board memory, a huge amount for most CAD workflows.

With 1.4TFLOPS of single precision performance it also has potential for GPU compute and should do a fairly decent job of accelerating OpenCL-based ray trace renderers, such a V-RAY RT. It can support up to four 4K displays with DisplayPort 1.2.

AMD calls the FirePro W7100 ‘the ultimate engineering and media and entertainment solution’. It features a whopping 8GB of on-board memory, double that of the W7000 it replaces, which not only means it can deal with giant graphics datasets, but makes it a serious contender for handling complex, single precision, OpenCL compute workloads.

At time of writing AMD hadn’t nailed down the single precision performance figures

Ray trace render in Vray-RT for 3ds Max (left) and visualise in real time with Lumiscaphe (right)

instantly, and could be rotated very smoothly.

With FRAPS we recorded the frame rate, with and without V-Ray RT. Amazingly there was only a small performance drop of around 5% with the ray trace renderer running in the background.

However, as SolidWorks doesn’t really stress the FirePro W9100 too much (Process Explorer only showed 25% GPU resource utilisation) we upped the ante with Lumiscaphe P3D v5.1, a high-end design viz tool that delivers exceptional quality interactive graphics with real-time reflections and transparency. Compared to SolidWorks it takes real-time visualisation to a whole new level.

WS12 OCTOBER 2014 DEVELOP3D.COM/HARDWARE

With a complex automotive styling model GPU resource utilisation went up to 100%, with the FirePro W9100 delivering an impressive 60FPS. When Vray-RT was turned on it dropped down to 30FPS but most importantly, the model still felt very responsive.

Under the hood the FirePro driver momentarily pauses some of the compute

operations and starts them again as soon as the graphics task stops.

Overall, our tests indicate that AMD has done an exceptional job of turning the humble ‘graphics card’ into a true multi purpose processor.

In traditional 3D workflows powerful GPUs like the FirePro W8100 and W9100 often sit idle when

you’re not spinning models around on screen.

But when you can set them to work on compute intensive tasks and experience no discernible lag when you need a burst of power for 3D graphics, it opens up the GPU to a whole new world of possibilities.

Now AMD just needs the OpenCL applications so it is supported more widely.

WORKSTATION SPECIAL REPORT

AMD FirePro W2100

AMD FirePro W4100

AMD FirePro W5100

AMD FirePro W7100

AMD FirePro W8100

AMD FirePro W9100

Memory Size

2GB GDDR3

2GB GDDR5

4GB GDDR5

8GB GDDR5

8GB GDDR5 (ECC)

16GB GDDR5 (ECC)

Memory bandwidth

28.8 GB/s

72 GB/s

96 GB/s

TBC

320 GB/s

320 GB/s

#GCN processors

320

512

768

1,792

2,560

2,816

Single Precision

0.40 TFLOPS

0.64 TFLOPS

1.43 TFLOPS

TBC

4.2 TFLOPS

5.24 TFLOPS

Double Precision

0.025 TFLOPS

0.040 TFLOPS

0.089 TFLOPS

TBC

2.1 TFLOPS

2.62 TFLOPS

PCIe

3.0

3.0

3.0

3.0

3.0

3.0

Number of slots

1

1

1

1

2

2

Connectors

2 x DP

4 x mini DP

4 x DP

4 x DP

4 x DP

6 x mini DP

# displays (with DP 1.2 Hub)1

2

4

4

4 (TBC)

4 (6)

6

Advanced Display

N/A

N/A

N/A

Framelock/Genlock

Stereo, Frame/Genlock

Stereo, Frame/Genlock

Board Power (connector)

26W

50W

<75W

<150W (1 x 6pin)

220W (2 x 6pin)

275W (6 pin + 8 pin)

Price (ex VAT)

£100

£112

£300

TBC

£1,220

£2,0352

3

3

3

2

1 DisplayPort 1.2 multi-streaming can be used to drive multiple displays from a single DisplayPort connector 2 Price taken from scan.co.uk on Sept 20, 2014 3 Price taken from overclockers.co.uk on Sept 20, 2014

of the W7100 but, with its predecessor the W7000 delivering 2.4 TFLOPs, we expect it to be in the order of 3.0 TFLOPs. It can also support up to four 4K displays with DisplayPort 1.2.

It is due to ship a little later than the other cards, which should out very soon, but will still be available this year.

Graphics and compute Ever since AMD introduced its Graphics Core Next (GCN) architecture it has been trying to get the message out there that AMD FirePro is not just for graphics anymore; it also does compute — and can handle both at the same time on a single GPU. This is in contrast to Nvidia’s multi GPU approach where one GPU is dedicated for graphics and another (or others) are used for compute.

AMD took a little while to properly implement this into its drivers and the tests we did back in September 2012 showed it still had work to do (tinyurl.com/GPUcompute).

However, the good news is that it now works very well. Set a complex ray trace render going in V-RAY RT, which uses 100% of the GPU’s resources, and your 3D CAD model will still respond instantly when you try to move it about on screen. This is not only when using a product like SolidWorks, which puts relatively low graphics demands on the GPU, but even in Lumiscaphe P3D, a high-end design viz application which really taxes the GPU. See box out for more details.

The problem — at least in the product development arena — continues to be a lack of application support. AMD backs the ‘open’ OpenCL standard, which suffers from slow, committee driven development, and it has taken a while for software developers to come

on board. AMD says the release of the much more mature OpenCL 2.0 later this year will change this.

In the product development space key applications that currently support OpenCL include V-Ray RT from Chaos Group, Simulia Abaqus, and NX Nastran. However, AMD previewed a new OpenCL 2.0-based ray trace renderer at SIGGRAPH, which could potentially plug into any CAD application.

While GPU compute is theoretically possible on all the new FirePro cards, the W2100 and W4100 lack the raw power to make them serious options.

Single precision applications, such as ray trace rendering, should run pretty well on the AMD FirePro W5100 or W7100, but you’ll probably need the FirePro W8100 or W9100 if you’re really serious about GPU compute — or want to accelerate double precision applications, such as CAE solvers.

Multiple GPUs can also be used in a single machine, which are sometimes branded as AMD FirePro Ultra Workstations.

AMD’s focus on supporting graphics and compute concurrently on a single GPU presents an interesting conundrum for product development professionals.

If it wasn’t hard enough finding the best GPU to match your 3D graphics workflow — today and into the future — choosing a GPU to also match compute workflows that may or may not materialise in the future throws up a whole new challenge. Our best advice it to think about the ‘now’ and keep a close eye on how OpenCL touches your application stack later. You can always buy an additional FirePro GPU in the future.

We look forward to testing out the new FirePro GPUs in the coming months.

AMD Mantle: a new graphics API for CAD? AMD is starting to push Mantle, its brand new graphics API, into the professional space. Mantle is designed to offer an alternative to the established OpenGL and DirectX APIs that are used by virtually all 3D games and CAD applications. In its basic form a graphics API allows the graphics card driver to communicate with a 3D application.

But why do we need another API? As Mantle is brand new, and optimised for AMD’s GCN architecture, it is designed to be faster and more efficient than OpenGL or DirectX. And, according to an interesting report on Tom’s Hardware (tinyurl.com/Mantle3D), it has the potential to increase performance on systems with slower multi-core host processors.

AMD has initially pushed Mantle in the 3D games sector, a market where it has excellent penetration in gaming PCs and consoles. However, the fact that it is turning its attention to professional applications could be big news.

With DirectX and OpenGL, graphics performance in 3D CAD software is almost always dictated by the speed of the CPU — that’s why 3D performance ramps up with the GHz of the CPU, rather than its cores. Mantle, on the other hand, is designed from the ground up to work with multi-core CPUs, so performance should also rise as you add more cores.

If AMD manages to bring 3D CAD software developers on board with Mantle it could deliver a step change in 3D performance. However, because the API is optimised for AMD’s GCN architecture and will work best on AMD FirePro GPUs, would CAD software developers really back an AMD technology in a market that is still dominated by Nvidia Quadro GPUs? One could argue that, a) it’s not unheard of for 3D software to support multiple graphics APIs so Mantle could potentially be made available alongside OpenGL and b) if your CAD software is in the cloud, with only pixels being streamed to the desktop, it really doesn’t matter what GPU designers and engineers are using on the desktop.

We look forward to seeing how this develops.

DEVELOP3D.COM/HARDWARE OCTOBER 2014 WS13

WORKSTATION SPECIAL REPORT

Yoyotech Proteus W8100 WS

With its FirePro GPU, this single CPU desktop offers an interesting alternative to a dual Xeon workstation, but is let down by a disappointing case. By Greg Corke

Y

oyotech made its DEVELOP3D debut last year with the M-cube WS, a compact CAD workstation that packed a real punch. Now it has traded those sleek orange lines for something that looks altogether more industrial – a full size desktop workstation tuned for high-end graphics and compute.

The Proteus W8100 WS gets its name from AMD’s powerful new professional GPU, the FirePro W8100. This 220W, double height board boasts 8GB GDDR5 memory making it ideal for handling massive datasets in high-end 3D design viz applications such as 3ds Max or Maya.

Indeed, it hardly broke into a sweat in our SPECapc SolidWorks benchmark, delivering an impressive score of 16.40 in the Ambient Occlusion composite test, fully loaded with realistic materials and lighting.

However, the 220W double height board is far more than just a graphics card. Thanks to the FirePro’s adaptable GCN architecture, it can also double as a compute board, number crunching in OpenCL-accelerated applications including DS Simulia Abaqus and Siemens NX Nastran (for simulation) or V-Ray RT (for ray trace rendering).

The interesting thing about the FirePro W8100 is you can do graphics and compute at the same time. Set it to work on a ray trace render and it’s still responsive when you need to spin your 3D model on screen (see page WS12 for more info).

Alongside the hugely powerful GPU there’s a six-core Core i7-4930K CPU, overclocked to 4.2GHz. This Ivy Bridge chip is a good all-rounder, offering a good clock speed and still plenty of cores to support multi-threaded, CPU-based ray trace renderers or CAE solvers.

However, with new six and eight-core Haswell The front grille looks nice but hides important buttons

Core i7 chips literally just out, you may want to talk to Yoyotech about other options.

The CPU is liquid cooled, thanks to a self-contained Corsair H100i cooling unit.

There’s a huge fan at the front to draw air over the storage and GPUs, and one at the back for the CPU. The bundled CorsairLINK software gives users one-touch control over the cooling system, while monitoring internal temperatures.

There are profiles for Quiet, Balanced and Performance, all of which are directly linked to fan speed (and indeed fan noise). There’s the obvious temptation to set to Quiet, but this might not deliver sufficient cooling when hammering the powerful internals.

By getting a feel for the system users will be able to match the settings to their different workflows, but this might be a tad too complicated for some.

For storage, the machine has a classic two-drive set up, but with a twist. The 256GB Samsung SSD 840 Pro for OS and applications is standard fare, but the 2TB Seagate Solid State Hybrid Drive (SSHD) data drive is basically a normal hard drive with 8GB of MLC NAND flash memory bolted on to cache ‘hot’ data. We’re not sure how useful this will be for CAD data workflows, but it’s an interesting technology nonetheless.

For a workstation that sets you back just under £3,000 the case is disappointing.

It looks and feels plasticky and the side panels are flimsy. In addition, what at first look like handles to move the machine around are actually just for decoration and have no structural strength. If this added to the aesthetic we might understand but the whole case isn’t exactly a looker. Even the minimal front grille, its best feature, hides important functional buttons (we inadvertently reset the machine when trying to open the DVD drive). The saving grace is four nicely spaced USB ports on top with space to rest external drives.

Overall, Yoyotech has assembled a specialist workstation, which offers an interesting proposition to users of design visualisation or simulation software.

Taken on its own the FirePro W8100 is just a powerful graphics card, but if you work with an OpenCL-compatible application it could be a more cost effective way to get high-end compute

WS14 OCTOBER 2014 DEVELOP3D.COM/HARDWARE

» Intel Core i7 4930K (clocked to 4.2GHz) (six cores) » 32GB (4 x 8GB) 2,400Mhz G-Skill Trident memory » AMD FirePro W8100 GPU (8GB) (13.352.1009 driver) » 250GB Samsung SSD 840 PRO + 2TB Seagate Solid State Hybrid Drive (SSHD) » MSI Z79A-GD45 Plus Socket 2011 motherboard » 518 x 232 x 562mm » Microsoft Windows 7 Professional 64-bit » 3 year silver warranty (1st year parts/labour RTB - 2nd & 3rd year labour only RTB. Gold and Platinum available £2,750 (ex VAT) yoyotech.co.uk » CPU benchmarks (secs - smaller is better) CAM (Delcam PowerMill) 1) 134 2) 170 3) 223 Rendering (3ds Max Design 2011) - 149

» Graphics benchmarks (bigger is better) CAD (SolidWorks 2013 - SPECapc graphics composite) - 6.90 CAD (Creo 2.0 - SPECapc graphics composite) - 6.68

capabilities typically found in dual CPU workstations.

But then there’s the disappointing chassis.

The good news is Yoyotech does offer a variety of other cases, from manufacturers including Corsair, Fractal design and Coolermaster, so there should be some decent alternatives there.

The XFX Type 01 chassis is a bit disappointing

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WORKSTATION SPECIAL REPORT

InterPro E-Series - E200HWE [v3]

O

» 2 x Intel Xeon E5-2698v3 CPU (16 cores) (2.30GHz) » 64GB ECC DDR-4 2133MHz memory » Nvidia Quadro K5200 GPU (8GB GDDR5) » 480GB Intel 530 SSD + 2 x 3TB Seagate Enterprise ES.3 HDDs » Microsoft Windows 7 Professional 64-bit » 3 year Return to Base (RTB) warranty £7,775 (ex VAT) ipworkstations.com » CPU benchmarks (secs - smaller is better)

CAM (Delcam PowerMill) 1) 174 2) 175 3) 185 Rendering (3ds Max) 54

» Graphics (bigger is better) CAD (SolidWorks) 7.25 CAD (Creo 2.0) 7.37

ne of the most significant advancements in Intel’s New ‘Haswell’ Xeon E5-2600v3 is the number of CPU cores on offer.

While the ‘Ivy Bridge’ Xeon E52600v2 family peaked at 12 cores, the new Xeons go all the way up to 18.

For most CAD users this will be of little interest but if you’re heavily into design viz and spend a big chunk of your day producing photorealistic ray trace renders then it’s big news.

The problem with packing more cores into a single CPU is that the GHz has to drop. And we all know having a high GHz CPU is essential for system performance, CAD and other single threaded applications.

Finding the right balance can be a challenge, particularly when you factor in cost. Kitting out this InterPro workstation with two 18 core Intel Xeon E5-2699v3 CPUs (2.3GHz up to 3.6GHz) for example would set you back £8,875. However dropping down to two 16 core Intel Xeon E5-2698v3 CPUs (2.3GHz up to 3.6GHz), at the heart of this review machine, brings the price down to a slightly more palatable £7,775.

It might cost a fair packet, but the potential performance benefits of Haswell over Ivy Bridge are huge.

In 3ds Max Design 2015 our scene rendered in an incredible 54 secs, streaks ahead of anything we’ve seen

before. It’s hard to put an exact figure on the performance improvement due to differences in the mental ray trace renderer, but we reckon there’s around a 20%-25% performance increase when pitting the ‘Haswell’ E5-2698 v3 against the ‘Ivy Bridge’ E5-2697 v2 (12 cores @ 2.7GHz up to 3.5GHz).

Despite hammering all 16 cores, the Xeon E5-2698v3s still manage to maintain a turbo clock speed of 2.8GHz during long term testing.

Fan noise in the InterPro E-Series E200HWE [v3] remained relatively low, despite running both CPUs flat out for over an hour.

Our review machine might lack the raw GHz of an Intel E5-2687W v3 (10 cores @ 3.1GHz up to 3.5GHz) but it still put in a good shift in our CAD/CAM-focused tests. In Delcam Powermill it was around 35% slower than the Scan 3XS below, which is the fastest single CPU workstation we’ve ever seen. However, once you start running two, three, even four tests at the same time it starts to show its pedigree, leaving the Scan 3XS trailing and barely slowing down at all.

The Interpro is no slouch when it comes to graphics. Paired with a high-end Nvidia Quadro K5200 GPU it delivered good scores in our SolidWorks and Creo benchmarks, but the lower GHz processor does throttle the performance a fair bit.

InterPro’s chassis of choice is the Supermicro CSE-732D4-903B, a simple mid-sized tower. It lacks the finesse of a tier one manufacturer, but it’s easy to get access to drives thanks to a 90-degree rotatable HDD cage.

The machine is heavily laden with storage: a fast 480GB Intel 530 Series SSD for operating system and applications and two 3TB enterprise class 7,200RPM Seagate ES.3 SATA3 drives. These are mirrored in a RAID 1 array to keep data safe should one drive fail.

Overall, InterPro has delivered a powerful niche machine targeted directly at design viz specialists. It’s perfectly tuned for incredibly fast ray trace rendering and while the single threaded performance takes a hit it’s not as slow as one might expect.

The good news is InterPro offers the full range of Intel Xeon E5-2600 v3 Series CPUs so you can match it to your workflows and indeed your budget. The processor that we’ve got our eye on is the Intel Xeon E52697v3 (14 cores @ 2.6GHz up to 3.6GHz). It should deliver your ray trace renders in roughly the same time but, with the additional 0.3GHz, will make a significant difference to overall system performance. And the best news is that it will take £500 off the cost of your machine bringing it down to £7,275.

GW-HT10 workstation is targeted directly at CAD users. With a brand new Nvidia Quadro K4200 GPU, there is plenty of 3D graphics power for large assembly modelling. For those whose graphics demands are more modest, scale down to a K2200 and shave £304 off the cost of the machine.

Storage is fast, courtesy of a Samsung SSD 840 EVO, but it could be improved on if you are a heavy user. Upgrading to a Samsung SSD 850 PRO for an additional £46 will not only offer faster sustained write speeds but give you peace of mind thanks to a ten year warranty. See page WS22 for more on this SSD. It will come as little surprise that the 3XS GW-HT10 excels in terms of performance. For CAD, it delivered exceptional scores in our SolidWorks and Creo 3D graphics tests and when number crunching in our single Delcam PowerMill test.

Overall, the Scan 3XS GW-HT10 is an excellent choice if you are looking for a powerful mainstream CAD workstation. With a few tweaks here and there you can fine-tune the spec but the impressive performer that is the Intel Core i7 4790K looks to be the current processor to beat for CAD.

Scan 3XS GW-HT10 » Intel Core i7 4790K (Quad Core) CPU clocked to 4.4GHz » 16GB, 2,133MHz Corsair DDR3 memory » Nvidia Quadro K4200 GPU (4GB GDDR5) » 250GB Samsung SSD 840 EVO + 2TB Seagate Barracuda 7,200RPM HDD » Microsoft Windows 7 Professional 64-bit » 3 year warranty (1st Year Onsite, 2nd & 3rd Year Return to Base) £1,458 (ex VAT) 3xs.scan.co.uk » CPU benchmarks

(secs - smaller is better)

CAM (Delcam PowerMill) 1) 128 2) 192 3) 268 Rendering (3ds Max) 171

» Graphics (bigger is better) CAD (SolidWorks) 9.65 CAD (Creo 2.0) 9.8

S

can should be given a lot of credit for bringing overclocking into the mainstream. What used to be a specialist treatment for custom workstations is now done as a matter of course by the Bolton-based manufacturer. And it does it very well.

The Intel Core i7 4790K is the latest chip to get the overclocking treatment. This quad core CPU already runs at an impressive 4.0GHz (a first for Intel) but with some tinkering Scan has pushed it up to a permanent 4.4GHz. To keep things running cool, Scan uses a Corsair Hydro H80, a sealed, closed loop water CPU cooler, which is very efficient at extracting the heat generated by this 88W CPU. Working together with a 120mm Corsair Air Series SP120 PWM Quiet Edition fan, noise is kept to an absolute minimum, even at peak load.

This latest incarnation of the 3XS

WS16 OCTOBER 2014 DEVELOP3D.COM/HARDWARE

WORKSTATION SPECIAL REPORT

Teradici WorkstatioN Access software

Use a desktop workstation but sometimes need to access it from the meeting room, shop floor or home? Teradici might have something for you. Greg Corke reports

A

ccessing a workstation remotely is a hugely powerful capability. You can use your 3D CAD workstation wherever you go – think shop floor, client office, or at home. With pixel streaming technology there is no need to check data out of the vault or lug your powerful workstation from design office to meeting room. Providing you have an adequate network connection you can use your 3D CAD software wherever you like, on any device, including tablets and think clients.

The downside is remote workstations can be incredibly complex to set up. Talk to your average designer about datacentres, racks, hypervisors and virtual machines and the eyes soon glaze over.

But remote workstations don’t have to be complex. If you just want to dip in your toes but need something more powerful than GoToMyPc or Remote Desktop Connection, which are optimised for office applications rather than 3D CAD, then a new software tool from Teradici might pique your interest.

Teradici’s reliably named Workstation Access Software is a purpose built tool that uses the established PCoIP protocol to add a remote access capability to your 3D CAD desktop workstation, on demand.

Unlike the company’s PCIe host cards, which provide dedicated hardware for compressing, encrypting and sending IP packets over a network, the new Workstation Access Software does everything in software. It’s a big change in tack for a company that has been extolling the virtues of hardware-based compression since 2007, but Teradici is looking to expand its reach and introduce a whole new set of users to remote workstations.

The big target is the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) — design, engineering, and architecture firms with less than 100 desktop workstations that don’t want to jump head first into a data centre solution.

Everything about the Workstation Access Software is designed for ease of deployment. Teradici reckons it takes just five minutes to get up and running and that includes installing software on both host

WS18 OCTOBER 2014 DEVELOP3D.COM/HARDWARE

and client. No special network settings are required to run it over LAN, it claims.

Things get a bit more complicated when you want to access the workstation over the Internet. You’ll first need to ‘VPN in’, so your network will need that capability. However, next year Teradici’s software will include its own VPN of sorts, just for PCoIP data, which should further break down the barriers for more technically challenged firms.

The host software runs as a background service in Windows — and as far as the average user is concerned, that’s about it. Next, punch the IP address of the host workstation into the PCoIP software client, click connect and — hey presto —you can access your 3D CAD software on any Windows or Apple OS X machine. Android and iOS clients will come next year.

The software can support up to two monitors (up to 2,560 x 1,600 resolution) at a frame rate of up to 30 frames per second (FPS), half that of Teradici’s hardware-based solution. CAD model rotation should still be relatively smooth at this speed but it is unlikely to give users as good an experience

WORKSTATION SPECIAL REPORT

Teradidi is looking to provide an easy way to access your desktop workstation remotely, so you can run CAD software such as PTC Creo from anywhere

as they would get with a hardware solution.

A low latency, high bandwidth connection is a given, but there are some other considerations for maximising performance. As everything is done in software, on a single CPU core, a higher GHz processor at both ends should lead to a better user experience.

Performance can be improved by adding a Zero client at the end point – perhaps a permanent fixture in the boardroom.

The software will currently work best with Nvidia GPUs in the host workstation – those with driver version 332.76 or later. This enables it to grab the pixels direct from the GPU frame buffer, rather than the graphics driver, which effectively removes one step in the process. In theory, this reduces the CPU overhead and increases performance.

Teradici recommends the Quadro K4000 or higher although the software does work with other Nvidia GPUs. AMD FirePro GPUs are compatible but users will need to wait until next year before the software can grab pixels from the frame buffer in a similar way.

With Teradici’s hardware-based solution users are given control over performance

settings — prioritising frame rate or quality.

This capability hasn’t yet been fully exposed in the Workstation Access Software, though experienced IT administrators are able to dive in and change settings in an ADM file. Next year, Teradici will make it easier to tweak performance / quality settings by adding a user friendly PCoIP control panel.

Availability Teradici doesn’t have the channel to push this product out to market so is partnering with workstation manufacturers. Dell is currently the only one, and offers the software as a cost option on its Precision workstations, but Teradici is talking to other partners as well. These could be smaller, boutique workstation manufacturers as well as the bigger players, though HP is unlikely to be among them as it already has its Remote Graphics Software (RGS) that ships free with all HP Z Workstations.

The software is currently only available in the US for $199, plus a mandatory $40, for one year support and software upgrades.

It will be rolled out to Europe in December and the rest of the world next year.

Conclusion This is an interesting development from Teradici who has always championed the use of dedicated hardware for compressing

and uncompressing pixels.

Teradici sees its Workstation Access Software as a gentle introduction to remote workstations — for users that are attached their desktop workstations, but want to access them remotely on occasion.

Once the software has been proved out and embedded in workflows, Teradici hopes customers will look at some of its more powerful remote workstation solutions.

An obvious upgrade would be to invest in a Teradici PCIe card and zero client, which should deliver a better user experience on low latency connections. However, Teradici also has a big focus on data centres, and already has plans to extend the reach of the Workstation Access Software to support multiple users on virtualised workstations.

As far as this initial software release is concerned it is clear it’s a work in progress.

However, with the promise of built in PCoIP VPN, high-level support for AMD FirePro and Nvidia Quadro GPUs and user friendly controls for tweaking settings, it looks like things will progress quickly.

The software may be new, but the PCoIP protocol it relies on is very mature. Teradici is keen to explain this is a tried and tested technology for a workstation-class remote access experience. We look forward to testing it out to see how it performs.

■ teradici.com

a mobile WIN workstation 2 FUJITSU Celsius

H730 Mobile workstations up for grabs EACH Worth £1,600!

ENTER @ surveymonkey.com/s/D3D-WSREPORT DEVELOP3D.COM/HARDWARE OCTOBER 2014 WS19

WORKSTATION SPECIAL REPORT

FUJITSU Celsius H730 This mainstream CAD-class mobile workstation offers some unique features for security and maintenance. Greg Corke reports

W

machine’s 16GB can be expanded to 32GB, thanks to two free DIMM slots.

The Intel Core i7-4800MQ processor offers solid performance, running at a nominal clock speed of 2.7GHz and Turbo Boosts up to 3.8GHz. With four cores and eight threads there’s also good potential for ray trace rendering, as demonstrated in our 3ds Max rendering test.

For top performance you can up this to a Core i7-4910MQ (2.9 GHz, up to 3.9 GHz), though this will add a premium.

While other manufacturers have started to dabble with ultra high-res displays, Fujitsu has gone with a tried and tested 15.6-inch LED-backlit (Full HD) anti glare screen. It may not excite like a modern QHD+ (3,200 x 1,800) panel does but the quality is good and the pixel density far more palatable for viewing non-optimised menus, icons and toolbars. You can also connect up to an external monitor, via DisplayPort or VGA. THE SPECS There’s a whole host of storage options – Component-wise, the H730 has plenty Solid State Disks (SSDs), Solid State Hybrid to offer. There’s a good choice of Nvidia Quadro GPUs, including our test machine’s Drives (SSHDs) and Hard Disk Drives (HDDs), from 128GB up to 1TB. One 2.5-inch 2GB Quadro K1100M. This mid-range graphics chip should do a good job for small drive comes as standard but an additional to medium-sized CAD assembly modelling drive can be added at the expense of the optical drive thanks to a modular bay that clips out and delivered good solid scores in our easily. Sadly, there’s no room for a small SolidWorks and PTC Creo tests. For a bit footprint mSATA SSD. more power there’s the optional Quadro The modular bay has plenty of other options.

K2100M or, for 2D or basic 3D, the entryIn addition to an optical drive or second 2.5level Quadro K510M. inch drive it can house a second battery or a Memory is as one would expect on a mainstream mobile workstation. Our review hollow weight saver.

hile Dell and HP cover all bases in mobile workstations, from lightweight ultra mobiles to 17-inch desktop replacements, Fujitsu takes a different tack. The Japanese manufacturer focuses exclusively on the volume market with entry-level to mid-range 3D CAD users all catered for by a single workstation-class laptop.

The mobile workstation in question is the Fujitsu Celsius H730 — a solid 2.9kg machine, 380 x 257 x 36mm in size and with a 15.6-inch screen. It features a simple design, with a grey lid, brushed aluminium wrist rest and trademark red stripe. It also manages to pack in some good customisation and innovative features not seen on other machines.

Fujitsu Celsius H730

MSI WS60 20J

Processor (CPU)

Intel Core i7-4800MQ (2.70GHz, 4 cores)

Intel Core i7-4710HQ (2.50GHz, 4 cores)

Memory (RAM)

16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3 L 1,600MHz

16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3 L 1,600MHz

Graphics (GPU)

Nvidia Quadro K1100M (2GB GDDR5)

Nvidia Quadro K1100M (2GB GDDR5)

Display

15.6-inch, LED backlight, 1,920 x 1,080

15.6-inch 1,920 x 1,080, anti-reflective 128GB M.2 SATA SSD + 1TB 2.5-inch HDD

Drives

256GB SSD

Size / Weight

380 x 257 x 24.8-31.9mm / 2.75Kg

390 x 266 x 19.9mm / 1.9kg

Operating System

Microsoft Windows 7 Professional 64-bit

Microsoft Windows 7 Professional 64-bit

Warranty

3 years collect and return

3 year: parts, labour, collect and return

Website

www.fujitsu.co.uk

www.msi.com/product/workstation

CAM (Delcam PowerMill 2010)

i) 191 ii) 296 iii) 415

i) 176 ii) 272 iii) 386

Rendering (3ds Max Design 2011)

266

241

4.08

4.55

CPU Benchmarks (bigger is better)

Graphics benchmarks (bigger is better) CAD (SolidWorks 2013) CAD (PTC Creo 2.0)

4.27

4.98

Price (ex VAT)

£1,580

£1,699

WS20 OCTOBER 2014 DEVELOP3D.COM/HARDWARE

Enterprise and security The modular bay is standard across Fujitsu’s entire range of Lifebook E Line businessclass laptops (13.3”, 14” and 15.6”models) so the Celsius H730 fits nicely into a corporate environment, making IT management simple. All four machines use the same docking bay as well so hot desking is easy.

As an enterprise-class laptop it will come as little surprise that the Celsius H730 is big on security. The machine comes with a whole range of data and access protection features including hard drive encryption, remote disable and erase and tracking via WiFi or 3G — should you have the optional Mobile broadband module installed.

The icing on the cake is the PalmSecure palm vein authentication system. Simply hover your hand over the sensor next to the keyboard and it authenticates each registered user in seconds due to the unique patterns of veins in the palm. Fujitsu claims palm vein authentication is more reliable and more secure than fingerprint sensors. We certainly found it very easy to use and setup.

It only takes a minute to enrol your hand in the Workplace Protect software and getting authenticated as a user takes seconds, though you’ll need to learn exactly where to hold your hand. You can even get into position before Windows boots up so as soon as the log in screen appears your hand is already being scanned. It’s certainly much quicker and easier than typing in a password.

Maintenance Another standout feature of the Celsius H730 is also the most simple — a removable dust cover on the back of the machine that lets you easily clean out the fluff that gathers around the fan and heat sink.

As most laptop owners will know, if you don’t do this regularly airflow is restricted and the fan has to work harder. You not only end up with a noisy workstation and reduced battery life but the CPU and GPU can be throttled to protect them against overheating, and the whole machine slows down.

For a process that is so important, cleaning most mobile workstations is remarkably hard. It requires you to take off the back of the machine and unscrew the fans before you can even get to the heatsink. And because this can take a good 10 minutes you don’t do it nearly as often as you should.

WORKSTATION SPECIAL REPORT

MSI WS60

MSI delivers mainstream CAD performance in a slimline 15.6-inch chassis. Greg Corke reports

F The Celsius H730’s dust cover simply clips off so you can go to work with a pair of tweezers in seconds. Fujitsu reckons you can even use a small handheld vacuum cleaner to remove the smaller dust particles.

This might sounds like a small thing, but one shouldn’t underestimate the importance of keeping your machine free from dust so it can run at optimum performance. I find it hard to believe that other mobile workstation manufacturers haven’t done something similar.

In USE The full-sized island style keyboard includes a numeric keypad for that all-important engineering input. There’s not a lot of movement on the keys but it’s very comfortable to use. The trackpad is a also pleasure to work with and its three buttons have just about the right amount of give.

To the top right of the keyboard there’s an EcoButton, which allows you to instantly go into power saving mode. It’s completely configurable, so you can choose what gets switched off (WLAN, LAN, audio and the DVD drive) or turned down (display brightness and CPU performance).

There are four USB ports (3 x USB 3.0 and 1 x USB 2.0) distributed around the machine.

When the machine is on you can charge from any port, but when it’s off only from the ‘Anytime USB’ port. This single port can be configured to charge with or without the AC adapter connected giving flexibility on the road.

Conclusion If you’re after a good all-round machine for CAD on the go then the Fujitsu Celsius is an excellent choice. There are some great features, including the palm vein secure, modular bay and (our personal favourite) the dust cover. The only downside is when it comes to storage. With no support for mSATA those who want two drives in their machine (an SSD for operating system and applications and a HDD for data) will do so at the expense of a DVD or second battery.

inding the right balance between performance and portability is always a challenge for mobile workstations. We all get excited about powerful CAD laptops, but this enthusiasm tends to wane when you have to lug one around for the day.

The good news is we are now starting to see a new generation of mobile workstations that deliver a compelling combination of size, weight and performance.

Dell broke new ground last year with the Precision M3800 (tinyurl.com/D3DM3800), which delivered impressive 3D CAD performance in a slimline 15.6-inch chassis. Now MSI is getting in on the act with the WS60, a highly mobile 15.6-inch machine that weighs a mere 1.9kg and is only 19.9mm thick, almost half that of a mainstream 15.6-inch mobile workstation.

The magnesium alloy chassis feels strong and stiff. Looks-wise, it is understated in its styling with a brushed black metal finish.

It looks nice out of the box but is very prone to fingerprint smudging.

It’s is a definite improvement over the chunky plastic MSI GT60-20K we reviewed in April but doesn’t match the Dell Precision M3800 for style or slenderness.

It has certainly upped the ante in terms of spec though. First off it features a powerful Intel Core i7-4710HQ (2.50GHz, 4 cores), only a couple of models down from the top end CPU you’ll find in a mainstream 15.6inch mobile workstation.

There’s no trade off in GPU though with the Nvidia Quadro K2100 (2GB) matching the best you’ll find in a HP ZBook 15.

There is a compromise in memory though, with the MSI WS60 maxing out at 16GB, half that of a standard 15.6-inch, but this should still be plenty for mainstream assembly modelling. All of this translates to solid performance, backed up by good scores in our benchmark tests.

Despite packing in so much power into a small envelope, MSI has done a pretty good job on acoustics. Dedicated fans for both CPU and GPU mean it doesn’t get too loud or too hot, even under heavy loads. However, fans do run all the time, even when writing a Word doc, which is a little annoying.

For a laptop of this size it is impressive that it can pack in three drives and our 128GB M.2 SSD and a 1TB HDD is a good combination. It’s a shame there’s no option for a 256GB M.2 SSD as the GBs soon add up when fully loaded with CAD

software, but a second 128GB SSD can be added to form a fast 256GB RAID 0 array.

For larger capacities, third party M.2 SSDs can be bought for user upgrades but this is far from easy. In addition to the 10 plus screws on the back panel, you’ll need to remove the motherboard, which is very fiddly. Resellers, such as Scan or Workstation Specialists should be able to do this for you though.

The HD (1,920 x 1,080) IPS matte panel is a joy to use, but there’s an optional WQHD+(2,880 x 1,620) should you want to venture into 3K territory.

The keyboard is solid and comes with a numeric keypad, great for engineering input. It’s RGB backlit so you can change the colour of the glow around the keys and customisable so multi-key shortcuts can be assigned to a single key.

The touchpad is less impressive and we found the cursor jumped about at times, which is not ideal for precise CAD work.

The WS60 is well connected. With 3 x USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt 2.0 there are plenty of options for peripherals, but no DVD drive. Thunderbolt doubles as a mini DisplayPort, which together with HDMI, means you can connect up to two external displays.

All in all, MSI has done an excellent job in delivering a workstation-class laptop in a slimline chassis. There’s no other machine of this class that is so well equipped in terms of CPU and GPU. MSI may have made its name in gaming laptops, but that doesn’t mean the WS60 is just a GS60 with Quadro graphics. As a sign of how seriously the company is taking the workstation market, the WS60 is a certified CAD workstation, for SolidWorks and other applications.

DEVELOP3D.COM/HARDWARE OCTOBER 2014 WS21

WORKSTATION SPECIAL REPORT

SSDs: PCIe vs SATA

PCIe Solid State Drive (SSDs) are certainly grabbing the headlines but what is the reality for users of CAD/CAM/CAE software? Greg Corke investigates

T

here has been a lot talk recently about PCI Express (PCIe) Solid State Drives (SSDs). These high-performance storage devices are a headline feature in the Mac Pro, MacBook Pro and the latest HP Z desktop and HP ZBook mobile workstations. But what are they and what do they mean for CAD/CAM/CAE? PCIe is the high-speed computer bus traditionally used for Graphics Processing Units (GPUs). It offers much higher data transfer speeds than the SATA 3.0 standard on which most Hard Disk Drive (HDDs) or SSDs are based.

SATA 3.0 has pretty much hit its limits as far as sustained read / write performance is concerned. 500MB/sec to 550MB/sec is the most you can squeeze out of any SATAbased SSD, whereas entry-level PCIe SSDs can reach two to three times these speeds, easily hitting 1,500MB/sec.

Just because the PCIe bus overcomes the bandwidth limitations of SATA 3.0 it does not necessarily translate to better performance in real world applications. A PCIe SSD will certainly allow you to copy and paste 20GB of 3ds Max assets far quicker than a SATA 3.0 SSD, but you will not see such obvious benefits in most CAD-centric workflows.

Opening a SolidWorks assembly, for example, will not be faster with a PCIe SSD. In fact, disk I/O plays a relatively small role in this operation as the CPU does most of the work, uncompressing and compiling part and assembly files.

PCIe SSDs come into their own when large amounts of data need to be shifted around quickly (think tens or even hundreds of GB). They can become even more important when datasets become too big to be held in system memory (RAM). When this happens uncompressed data needs to be moved in and out of temporary swap space that resides on the SSD and the higher bandwidth can certainly help.

In the professional space there are a few workflows where PCIe SSDs really show their worth. Video editing and compositing is the big one, particularly when working with uncompressed 4K content.

For design and engineering, complex simulation and point cloud data processing are two prime examples.

Workstation-class Solid State driveS

Toshiba’s 19nm Multi-Level Cell (MLC) flash memory and multiple LSI SandForce 2282 controllers, which are essentially configured together in a RAID 0 array.

There are four on the 480GB and 960GB models and two on the 240GB — hence its slower rated performance.

The design is based on the enterprise-grade OCZ Z Drive 4500, but it doesn’t boast the same levels of

The OCZ RevoDrive 350 is a PCIe SSD that plugs straight into a desktop workstation’s motherboard, just like a GPU. It takes up a single PCIe Gen. 2 x8 slot and comes in three capacities (240GB, 480GB, 960GB).

The drive stands out for its sustained read / write performance, which makes the most of the PCI interface. The 480GB and 960GB models boast a maximum of 1,800 MB/sec read and 1,700MB/sec write, while the 240GB is significantly slower (1,000MB/sec read,

950MB/sec write).

Random read /write performance scales more, with the 960GB model peaking at 135,000 IOPS (read) and 140,000 IOPS (write) and the 240GB model significantly slower at 45,000 IOPS (read) and 80,000 (write).

The SSD features

LFM has long recognised that SSDs deliver exceptional performance benefits over HDDs. However, much less has been said about the benefits of using PCIe SSDs over SATA SSDs. We decided to test this out in some common workflows in LFM Server.

We compared two SSDs: a 1TB Samsung SSD 850 Pro (SATA 3.0) with a 480GB OCZ RevoDrive 350 (PCIe).

Both SSDs are pitched as being workstation-class, however, the OCZ RevoDrive 350 boasts far superior sustained read/write performance: up to 1,800MB/s sequential read and up to 1,700MB/s sequential write compared to the Samsung SSD 850 Pro’s 550MB/sec and 520MB/sec.

The random read/write speeds do not vary as much between these two drives, as this has less to do with the PCIe interface and more to do with the controller inside the Point cloud processing drive. See box out page WS24 for the full Point cloud datasets can become extremely specifications. large, often consisting of hundreds of We identified three point cloud processes individual laser scans that are stitched together to capture buildings, cars and other that might benefit from PCIe storage, including scan conversion, dataset complex physical products in incredible 3D detail. This could be for reverse engineering, generation and volume selection.

The OCZ RevoDrive 350 showed its biggest inspection, to reference an existing part, or benefit when converting seventeen 100to document a physical form.

200MB scan files, where it was 17% faster Processing this data needs a powerful than a Samsung SSD 850 PRO. workstation and dedicated software to Performance benefits in dataset generation convert, register and manipulate exceptionally (combining individual datasets into a single large models. For manufacturing, there’s project file) were less pronounced with Geomagic Studio, PolyWorks Inspector and RevoDrive 350 only 6% faster.

RapidForm XOS. For the built environment Interestingly, there was no benefit at all in – buildings, bridges, roads, etc. – one of the volume selection where a specific volume in a leading tools is LFM Server.

WS22 OCTOBER 2014 DEVELOP3D.COM/HARDWARE

endurance. OCZ rates the RevoDrive 350 for 50GB/day of host writes for 3 years.

The Samsung SSD 850 PRO is a 2.5-inch SATA 3.0 SSD that can be used inside desktop and mobile workstations. It comes in four capacities (128GB, 256GB, 512GB and 1TB).

The drive boasts good sequential read / write speeds of 550MB/sec and 520GB/sec, which push the limits of the SATA 3.0 interface. The 128GB model has a slower write speed of 470MB/sec.

Random read / write performance is also good (100,000 IOPS read and 90,000 IOPS write) Performance can be boosted with ‘RAPID’

(Real-time Accelerated Processing of I/O Data) mode, enabled in Samsung’s bundled Magician software. It uses up to 4GB of workstation system memory (rather than the SSD) to serve up frequently used data.

The 850 PRO scores highly in terms of endurance with a warranty that covers customers for 40GB of drive writes per day for ten years, double that of its predecessor the 840 PRO. Better endurance is thanks to

Samsung’s new 32 layer 3D V-NAND flash memory technology, which stacks flash memory cells on top of each other in layers, instead of shrinking down transistors in the traditional way.

According to Samsung, shrinking had reached a stage where it was expensive and unreliable.

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WORKSTATION SPECIAL REPORT

low-res point cloud is loaded up in full detail.

Read the full article on our sister website, AEC Magazine (tinyurl.com/SSD-LFM).

Samsung SSD 850 PRO

Simulation Users of simulation software are potentially the big beneficiaries of fast PCIe storage as the datasets involved can be extremely large.

It is not uncommon for Finite Element Analysis (FEA) solvers to read and write hundreds of Gigabytes of data in a single run. And there can also be big demands on I/O in post processing and generating the massive results files.

While we don’t have any test results to share, we have heard anecdotally how RAID 0 SATA SSD arrays can help reduce solve times. RAID 0 groups together multiple drives, increasing bandwidth and effectively doing the same thing as PCIe. The performance gains we have heard are not huge (10-30%), as disk I/O only accounts for part of the overall solve time, with fast CPU and memory essential to the process.

OCZ RevoDrive 350

Capacity (GB)

1TB (also available in 128GB, 256GB & 512GB)

Interface

SATA 3.0 (6Gb/s)

480GB

PCI Express Gen. 2 x8

TBW / Warranty

40GB/day for 10 years

50GB/day for 3 years

(also available in 240GB & 960GB)

Sequential read/write performance

Up to 550 / 520 MB/s

Up to 1,800 / 1,700 MB/s

4k random read/write performance

Up to 100,000 / 90,000 IOPS

Up to 90,000 / 140,000 IOPS

Website

samsung.com/ssd

ocz.com

11.4

CAD tests (lower is better) File copy: 5GB 3ds Max files (secs)

20.5

File copy: 2.2GB SolidWorks data (secs)

10.4

7.9

SolidWorks Pack and Go

15.9

17.2

SolidWorks Assembly load

73.4

76.0

LFM Server scan conversion

452

374

LFM Server Dataset generation

642

602

LFM Server Volume selection

80

82

Price (ex VAT)1

£400 (512GB model = £237)

£479 (960GB model = £786)

Point cloud tests (lower is better)

1 Price taken from scan.co.uk on Oct 3, 2014

big differentiator in workstation-class SSDs. The OCZ RevoDrive 350 is rated at 50GB of writes per day over a three-year warranty When it comes to general application and period. This is a decent level for most CAD system performance PCIe SSDs are less users but if you’re heavily into simulation or likely to show any real benefit over SATApoint cloud processing — workflows where based SSDs. the RevoDrive should give the most benefit In fact in our SolidWorks tests the OCZ — then it could come up short.

RevoDrive 350 lagged slightly behind Samsung, on the other hand, has taken the Samsung SSD 850 PRO, loading an endurance to a new level for a desktop assembly 3% slower. And for ‘pack and go’, focused SSD. The 850 PRO is rated at 40GB a routine that packages up parts with an per day over ten years. assembly it was 7.5% slower.

Of course, it is unlikely that your drive The CAD dataset comprises 200 part files will suddenly stop working when it hits mostly ranging from 200k to 2MB with a few larger assemblies. This appears to show its rated level of drive writes. Indeed, back that the 850 PRO is better at handling small in July, Samsung shared some long-term endurance figures where an 850 PRO had read / write operations. written over 1,300TB and was still going.

PCIe storage excels when shunting large In saying that, those with particularly amounts of data around. In our simple ‘copy’ write-intensive workflows may wish to test, the OCZ Revodrive 350 was 24% faster consider an enterprise-class SSD, usually copying 2.2GB of SolidWorks data and 44% deployed in a server or data centre. faster copying 5GB of 3ds Max data. The OCZ has a couple of enterprise-class PCIe performance gain is less with SolidWorks SSDs in its portfolio, including the Z-Drive data, presumably because it comprises 4500. Prices start around £2,000 for an smaller files: 4,000 part and assembly files 800GB model. It also offers enterprise class compared to 30 larger files in 3ds max.

SATA SSDs, including the Intrepid 3000.

While such high prices might be Drive endurance unrealistic for most workstation users, With point cloud processing, simulation Samsung recently launched an ‘affordable’ or any other workflow where you might datacentre-class SSD, based on the 850 be writing hundreds of GBs per day, drive endurance is a very important consideration. PRO. The 845DC Pro costs around US$800 for a 400GB model and is rated at ten SSDs are typically rated in terms of the entire Drive Writes Per Day (DWPD) over amount of data that can be written over a five year life. This equates to 4TB per their lifetime — Tera Bytes Written (TBW). day — a colossal amount for even the most This can also be expressed in terms of GB written per day, backed up by a warranty of a demanding workstation workflows. set number of years.

Endurance is where you typically start to Conclusion see the difference between consumer- and There is little doubt that PCIe SSDs can professional-grade SSDs, but it can also be a deliver big benefits over SATA SSDs in some

CAD and general workflows

WS24 OCTOBER 2014 DEVELOP3D.COM/HARDWARE

workflows. For pure file copy operations they win hands down and there are potentially big performance gains in video editing, complex engineering simulation and point cloud processing.

However, in most real world CAD workflows, particularly when there is a combination of CPU and I/O operations, the benefits will be far less pronounced.

Sometimes there are no benefits at all.

Indeed, the Samsung SSD 850 PRO looks to be the best option for mainstream CAD with a much lower cost per GB and better endurance than the OCZ RevoDrive 350.

There are also many firms that work with much larger datasets, which sometimes cannot fit into system memory.

This should increase the importance of fast I/O, but if your workstation can take it, try to expand system memory first as it is relatively cheap.

When SSDs started to displace HDDs as the primary workstation drive it was one of the most important transformations in years. Suddenly workstations felt infinitely more responsive, due to random read/write performance going off the scale. But this was down to a fundamental shift in storage technology from a mechanical to digital system.

The move from SATA to PCIe SSDs is far less dramatic, so our closing thoughts would be — do not get blinded by the breathtaking read/write performance figures. Make sure you understand your workflows, then consider your endurance requirements and apply your workstation budget accordingly. PCIe SSD storage still comes at a premium so you will want to make sure you are getting the most from your investment.

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WORKSTATION SPECIAL REPORT

Fujitsu Celsius C620 with Teradici PCoip Greg Corke get hands on with Fujitsu’s 1U rack workstation, which offers a relatively simple solution for remote CAD over a one-to-one connection

R

emote workstations are currently one of the industry’s hottest topics.

Put the workstation in the data centre and benefit from better security, centralised IT management and flexibility in how and where workstation resources are deployed.

Most of the buzz is around workstation virtualisation, where CPU (and increasingly GPU) resources are carved up to form multiple Virtual Machines (VMs). It’s all about supporting the biggest density of 3D CAD users on a rack in the data centre.

But workstation virtualisation can be incredibly complex. There is no one size fits all solution and tuning the virtualisation stack for bespoke 3D CAD workflows takes a great deal of specialist knowledge.

With this in mind there’s plenty to say for keeping things simple. A one-to-one connection between the rack workstation in the data centre and a thin client on the desk is not only easier to deploy but is widely regarded to deliver the best user experience. It is essential for the 3D CAD software to feel responsive or it will negatively impact the productivity of designers and engineers.

One-to-one connections typically rely on Teradici PCoIP, a mature remote technology that sends pixels rather than CAD data from rack workstation to end point. Everything is done in hardware — a dedicated Teradici chip takes the graphics output from the workstation’s GPU and converts into encrypted IP packets for transmission over the network. Client-side the data is decrypted and converted back into pixel information to be displayed locally.

The rack workstation From a hardware perspective, most rack workstations are designed with flexibility in mind. With two high-end Intel Xeon E5-2600 series CPUs, two high-end GPUs and hundreds of gigabytes of RAM the Dell Precision Rack 7910 and HP DL380z virtual workstation, for example, are both geared towards workstation virtualisation. They can also deliver very good performance on

a one-to-one connection, but the high-end specs will most likely be overkill if you simply want to run CAD remotely.

Japanese manufacturer Fujitsu takes a different approach. Its Celsius C620 rack workstation is tuned for CAD over a oneto one connection using Teradici PCoIP technology. It’s essentially a mainstream CAD workstation that has been crammed into a 1U server chassis. It can support workstation virtualisation but it is certainly not its forte.

On test Remoting a workstation is all well and good in theory but how does everything work in practice? To find out Teradici helped us set up a Fujitsu Celsius C620 on our

standard office network, which comprises six desktop machines, a printer, and a ZyXEL GS-1100-24E switch. We also plugged in a Fujitsu Futro L420 Thin Client.

The Celsius C620 The Fujitsu Celsius C620 is a 1U device, designed specifically to sit in a rack inside a data centre. While the form factor is very

different to a desktop workstation, the key components are very familiar. It comes with a choice of Intel Xeon E3-1200 v2 series CPUs, all with four CPU cores. Our test machine’s Intel Xeon E3-1280v2 has a nominal clock speed of 3.6GHz. For memory, the Celsius C620 can support a maximum of 32GB RAM with 4 x 8GB DIMMs. This is pretty light for a rack workstation but will be more than enough for most CAD workflows over a one to one connection.

There’s plenty of space for storage and a massive choice of 2.5-inch or 3.5-inch drives, including SATA SSDs and HDDs and SAS HDDs. Our machine was kitted out with two 128GB SSDs, mirrored (RAID 1) so you don’t have a single point of failure. With room for four 2.5-inch drives in total there’s also potential for more complex RAID arrays.

For graphics, there’s only room for one double height GPU, but there is a huge choice: from entry-level 2D (Nvidia Quadro K410), right up to high-end 3D (Nvidia Quadro K5000).

Our test machine’s AMD FirePro W5000 is at the sweet spot for mainstream 3D CAD. You can also plug in an Nvidia Tesla card for GPU compute, but you’d then need to rely on Intel graphics.

Fujitsu does support the Nvidia GRID K2, but with only four CPU cores and 32GB of memory there’s not really too much scope for virtualisation.

With everything tied together with Windows 7 Professional 64-bit this is pretty standard desktop CAD workstation specification. The magic happens when you

softly does it: The Windows and OSX client Recognising that its customers need flexibility at the end point, Teradici also offers a free software client for Windows or OSX, which can be used instead of a zero client like the Fujitsu Futro L420.

The Teradici PCoIP Software client is primarily seen as a complementary solution, for occasional use — to connect workers over VPN at home, for example.

However, Teradici also has some customers using it over LAN.

WS26 OCTOBER 2014 DEVELOP3D.COM/HARDWARE

With the software client Teradici acknowledges that the user experience is unlikely to be as good as when hardware is used at both ends.

A zero client, for example, can decode a maximum of 200 megapixels per second whereas the software client can do up to 50 megapixels per second. The performance also depends on the speed of the CPU in the client machine.

However, it does gives its customers the flexibility to connect from a

variety of different devices on demand. Teradici also has an Apple iOS and Android version in the pipeline so users will be able to get access to 3D CAD tools on a tablet.

The Teradici PCoIP Software client is not to be confused with the new Teradici Workstation Access Software, which is designed to give any desktop workstation a remote capability without having to install a Teradici PCIe card. You can read more about this on page WS18.

WORKSTATION SPECIAL REPORT

Connection Broker, for user authentication plug in a Teradici TERA2220 low profile The zero client and access. It will also give each machine an PCIe card, which transforms the machine The Fujitsu Futro L420 sits on the user’s into a remote workstation proper. desk to provide remote access to the Celsius easily recognisable name.

As we only had one machine on our The TERA2220 is different to most PCIe C620 using PCoIP. It has no operating cards insofar as it doesn’t need a Windows system, instead using a Teradici TERA2321 network, connection was easy. Double click on the host and the Windows desktop driver. Instead of communicating with zero client for image decompression and appears instantly. the GPU over the PCIe bus it connects decoding and to feed back mouse and To begin with, our experience was far externally using a custom mini DisplayPort keyboard input. from perfect. There was a slight lag when cable. Each and every frame it receives from The machine is tiny — a mere 45 x 130 opening individual windows and while our the GPU is turned into encrypted IP packets x 150 mm in size — and only consumes SolidWorks assembly was moving fluidly and sent out over the network via the card’s 19W at peak so gives off very little heat. It is around on screen the model was pixelated – built in Ethernet port. passively cooled so doesn’t make a sound so like a heavily compressed JPG. The TERA2220 uses dedicated hardware is perfect for quiet design offices.

This is all quite normal as Teradici’s for this task — a PCoIP processor and In addition to Ethernet the Futro L420 Dynamic Network Adaptation technology 512MB ECC memory. This is why Teradici has four USB ports. Keyboard and mouse kicks into action every time a new technology is regarded to be faster than take two up while the other two are free connection is made. It assesses the competitive technologies that do all of this for peripherals — a USB memory stick, network in terms of latency and bandwidth in software. If each frame can be processed a Wacom tablet, or a 3DConnexion then fine-tunes the settings to give the best quicker — and we’re talking milliseconds SpaceMouse, for example. or less here — then the experience for the As data security is one of the major reasons user experience.

In our tests it only took a minute end user will be better, particularly or so for everything to settle on low latency networks where down and then we really couldn’t there is a natural delay because of Deploying a number of Celsius C620s tell that we weren’t working on distance. should be easier than a full-scale Virtual a normal desktop workstation.

For our test, the monitor resolution was set at standard HD Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) solution, The machine was responsive and quality was perfect (though (1,920 x 1,080), but the TERA2220 which needs more specialist knowledge image with only one machine on the is actually capable of going up network we acknowledge this to 2,560 x 1,600. With two mini wasn’t a proper real-world test).

DisplayPort inputs it can also drive It is possible to set manual limits, not only two HD displays. for putting workstations in the datacenter to cut down on auto-tuning but to fine tune For more screens Teradici has a quad it is possible to lock down all of these USB display card, the TERA2240, which can ports blocking read / write access to external the user experience. This could be in terms of bandwidth, image quality or frame rates, handle two at 2,560 x 1,600 or four at 1,920 USB drives. This can help protect against IP for example, and is particularly useful on low x 1,080, but this puts increased demands on theft or infection by malware. bandwidth / low latency connections. bandwidth.

PCoIP may be an advanced technology, but Tuning is typically carried out by an The Celsius C620 is connected to the the way in which the Futro L420 connects to network via two Ethernet ports: one for the the Celsius C620 is actually quite primitive. In administrator using the PCoIP management console, which runs in a web browser. Devices TERA2220 card, which only transmits PCoIP its basic form it is done with a MAC address, can be managed individually or in groups, data, and the other for the workstation itself a unique number used to identify devices on including firmware updates and the like. which does everything else. a network. Switch on the thin client and the Some control can also be given to end users The Celsius C620’s Ethernet port is gigabit user is presented with a list of MAC addresses as standard, but if you want extra fast access for all the workstation hosts that are available. thanks to the PCoIP host software driver, a small Windows app installed on the host to a PDM data vault for example, an optional MAC addresses are pretty cryptic so make 10 Gigabit network card is available. sure you have a good memory or keep a list of workstation. This gives users control over The box also features data centre how they relate to each physical workstation. image quality and performance as well as giving statistics on network performance. management capabilities via an integrated It’s possible to hard wire a thin client to a Most users won’t need to touch these Remote Management Controller (iRMC S3) specific machine but this means much less settings, certainly on low latency networks, that allows administrators to monitor and flexibility in how and where centralised but the control is there if needed. manage the machine remotely regardless of workstation resources are deployed. whether the server is powered on. It’s also As the numbers grow, managing a pool of possible for the user to power up a machine remote workstations becomes much harder.

Beyond local networks from the thin client, though most data You’ll need to invest in third-party broker Running a Fujitsu Celsius C620 with centres tend to run 24/7. software, such as VMware View or Leostream Teradici PCoIP technology over LAN

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WORKSTATION SPECIAL REPORT

shouldn’t present too many challenges providing there is a decent network in place. The real test comes when moving further away from the data centre.

Rack workstations are often used between sites, even countries, providing firms with a centralised workstation resource.

With all data stored in one data centre this can make managing a complex PDM or PLM system much easier as you don’t have to sync huge amounts of data between sites.

It can also help reduce IT management costs, as workstation support is not required on every site.

While a hardware-based Teradici PCoIP solution is widely regarded to be the most forgiving on low latency networks — delivering a better user experience than a software based remote technology — putting distance between the data centre and end point still presents some challenges.

Ad hoc access, such as working from home or at a client premises, is possible over a public Internet connection but for a persistent multi-site deployment a direct Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) is recommended.

While bandwidth can always be bought, there is no getting round latency over particularly large distances. Teradici tests and supports latencies up to 250ms, but you will likely need a lot less than this for a good user experience.

As latency increases users may experience a lag on the mouse cursor, which can make it very hard to move 3D models into position quickly and accurately. For latencies over 50ms Teradici recommends using a local mouse pointer so there’s no round trip delay.

This is available as a tick box option in the Teradici host software.

Conclusion Fujitsu is somewhat unique in the expanding world of remote workstations insofar as it is the only Tier One manufacturer that offers

Rack workstations for virtualisation With the rise of 3D optimised virtualisation technologies from Citrix, VMWare and Nvidia, plus new Intel CPUs, it’s now feasible to serve ten or more CAD users from a single rack workstation.

Dell Precision Rack 7910 is a 2U workstation that supports up to two Intel Haswell Xeon E5-2600v3 processors. With up to eighteen cores per CPU and 512GB (soon to be 1TB) of DDR4 memory, there is huge potential to deliver

a massive number of CAD capable virtual workstations from a single Rack 7910.

The machine has less GPU power than its predecessor, the Precision R7610, with support for two Nvidia GRID K2A GPUs. Dell explains that this was a small, but necessary trade off in order to support iDRAC (integrated Dell Remote Access Controller), a data centre-level lights-out management technology, and VMWare, both critical for Dell’s rack workstation offering moving forward.

(Left) Image Quality Preference settings let you choose between smoother motion (higher frame rate) or sharper image (higher image quality) (Above) Fire up the Fujitsu Futro zero client and the user is presented with a list of MAC addresses for the available workstation hosts

a 1U rack solution, designed primarily for a one-to-one connection.

The Fujitsu Celsius C620 might lack the flexibility of the Dell Precision Rack 7910 or HP DL380z virtual workstation, which can both support an impressive density of users and spawn different virtual machines as needs change. However, it still offers a compelling solution if all you want to do is put your workstations in the data centre.

Deploying a number of Celsius C620s should be far easier than a full-scale Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) solution, which needs more specialist knowledge. This is a big benefit for smaller firms, and with PCoIP hardware at both ends users should also have the best experience on low latency networks.

Importantly, you can still reap the general benefits of a data centre workstation — that of keeping data secure, centralising IT, and not needing to shunt huge CAD/CAM/CAE datasets across LAN or WAN. Looking at the bigger picture, one could argue that Fujitsu has a gap in its Celsius workstation portfolio by not offering a dedicated, scalable data centre VDI solution.

The HP DL380z Gen8 virtual workstation is said to offer all the security and centralised management benefits of the mature HP DL380p 2U server, but has been optimised specifically for high-end 3D graphics.

It can support from one to eight workstation-class users per system.

There’s a choice of dual Intel Xeon E5-2600 v2 CPUs (6 to 12 core), up to 384GB of 1,866 MHz, DDR3 SDRAM and two double width Nvidia GPUs, including the GRID K2.

We expect HP will release a Gen9 version later this year that will feature new Intel Haswell Xeon E5-2600v3 processors.

WS28 OCTOBER 2014 DEVELOP3D.COM/HARDWARE

HP DL380z Gen8 Virtual Workstation

Dell Precision Rack 7910

Its Celsius M740 and Celsius R740 desktop workstations currently fill this role, as they can be kitted out with Nvidia GRID GPUs and rack mounted (5U), but they are not dedicated rack solutions. It will be interesting to see which direction Fujitsu goes in next.

FUJITSU CELSIUS C620 » Intel Xeon E3-1280v2 (3.6GHz) (quad core) » 32GB (4 x 8GB) memory » AMD FirePro W5000 GPU (4GB) » 2 x 128GB Solid State Drives (SSDs) (RAID 1) » Teradici TERA2220 low profile PCIe card » 431 x 683 x 44 mm » Microsoft Windows 7 Professional 64-bit » 3 year on site warranty £2,114 (ex VAT)

FUJITSU Futro L420 » Teradici TERA2321 with 512MB memory » 45 x 130 x 150 mm » 3 year on site warranty £256 (ex VAT) fujitsu.com