The world’s fastest PC costs less than you think, but you’ll have to be patient
Shortages of the Threadripper Pro 5995WX have been easing, but the lead time is still quite long
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Boutique high-endPCvendor Velocity Micro has thecheapest workstation PC based on the ThreadRipper Pro 5995WX, selling for a mere $11,774 at the time of writing, but customers will have to wait till mid August 2022 for delivery.
The ProMagix HD150workstationfeatures an Asrock WRX80 Creator motherboard, a PNYNvidiaQuadro T400 workstationvideo card(with 4GB of RAM), 32GB of DDR4 memory (judiciously spread across four modules), a 500GB CrucialSSDand even a DVD writer (remember these?).
Despite its desktop class, wireless connectivity (both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth) is available, complementing quite nicely the pair of 10GbE LAN connectors, all courtesy ofIntel.
You won’t get a keyboard or a mouse with your purchase, but at least there’s a free limited-edition T-shirt thrown in and there’s no bloatware. It’s a shame, though, that there’s no discount when you switch toUbuntu.
AMD rules the roost for now
The rest of the workstation demonstrates the typical of the level of attention to detail you’d get from a niche PC vendor. There’s a full tower casing with a side window, a liquid cooling system with three low-speed 120mm fans, custom hand wiring, individual custom testing, as well as lifetime tech support and one year standard parts and labor warranty.
Unlike the big three (Dell,LenovoandHP), smaller players do not offer next business day support, which is something to bear in mind.
AMD’s monster 64-core Threadripper 5000 CPU could power your next DIY PC build>AMD’s new 64-core Threadripper Pro CPU is now on sale - but you may need to take out a loan to afford it>Our list of the best business computers for SMBs and enterprises
AMDoffers several processors with 64 cores, while Intel is stuck at 38. Velocity Micro even sells a dual socket AMD EPYC system with a whopping 128 cores in total, which makes it ideal for applications that demand hundreds of threads for rendering, calculation or indeed any compute-heavy tasks.
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In comparison,a dual socket, 48-core Intel Xeon Platinum 8260 systemfrom the same vendor and with a similar specification to the HD150 will set you back a cool $16,279, a 38% premium that will yield a noticeably weaker overall performance.
Demand for the fastest Threadripper seems to be high, given that Lenovo is quoting a three-plus month delivery. Puget systems is the only other US-based workstation vendor that is currently offering the 5995WX.
Désiré has been musing and writing about technology during a career spanning four decades. He dabbled inwebsite buildersandweb hostingwhen DHTML and frames were in vogue and started narrating about the impact of technology on society just before the start of the Y2K hysteria at the turn of the last millennium.
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