TECH

Portable Threadripper 3990X Workstation Wherever You Go

Who needs a laptop when you can lug around 64 cores of sheer power? That's what Mediaworkstations is doing with the a-XP, a very interesting portable Threadripper workstation PC that'll blow any laptop and the majority of the desktop PCs out of the water.
We spotted the machine today thanks to Reddit. The a-XP is built similar to a suitcase -- like the kind you'd see in spy movies that stores nuclear launch codes. The system measures 13.63 x 16.51 x 7.26 inches and weighs between 23 and 30 lbs, depending on the configuration. The a-XP doesn't just promise uncompromised performance, but it'll also help you build arm muscle. According to Mediaworkstations, the a-XP is made of heavy gauge steel and even features a mechanical keyboard. However, the company's product page doesn't reveal specifications for the integrated display.
The ASRock X399M Taichi is the heart of the a-XP, which is why you can configure the system with an AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3990X, Threadripper 3970X or Threadripper 3960X. The motherboard provides four DDR4 RAM slots, and Mediaworkstations lets you have up to 64GB of DDR4-3200 memory. With the emergence of 32GB modules, one would think that you could fit up to 128GB of memory on the ASRock X399M Taichi.



The a-XP isn't a gaming PC, but Mediaworkstations offers various models with consumer-grade Nvidia GeForce graphics cards, alongside the expected Titan, Quadro and Tesla options. Due to the design of the case, the GeForce models feature a blower design. The graphics cards are from PNY, and you can pick between the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti, RTX 2080 Super, RTX 2070 Super and RTX 2060 Super. The more specialized models include the Quadro RTX 4000 to RTX 8000, as well as the Tesla V100.



The X399M Taichi comes equipped with eight SATA III ports and three M.2 2280 PCIe 3.0 x4 slots. Mediaworkstations provides user the choice to fill up two of the M.2 slots on the motherboard and have up to two 3.5-inch drives inside the a-XP. Mediaworkstations also allows customers to deck the a-XP with other interesting hardware, such as an Intel Optane drive and 100-Gigabit Ethernet adapter.
The cheapest configuration with a Ryzen Threadripper 3960X, 32GB of memory, Samsung 970 Evo Plus 250GB SSD and GeForce RTX 2060 Super costs a whopping $7,997. Obviously, the price skyrockets when you start to furnish the a-XP with high-end components, such as the Ryzen Threadripper 3990X or those Tesla V100s.

by Zhiye Liu