BOXX Introduces APEXX 8R, an NVIDIA Visual Computing Appliance (VCA)

BOXX Technologies has officially introduced the BOXX APEXX 8R, an NVIDIA Visual Computing Appliance (VCA) certified solution that, the company says, is designed to accelerate visualization workflows. This scalable, rackmount server features professional-class NVIDIA Quadro GPUs (graphics processing units) and support for a variety of rendering engines, BOXX says. The APEXX 8R, adds BOXX, integrates into design workflows easily and is network-accessible.

BOXX calls the APEXX 8R an “ideal GPU-rendering solution for automakers, consumer-product manufacturers and other design-intensive industries.” The APEXX 8R can support look development for compositing the appearance of 3D scenes and VFX (visual effects) final frame rendering. It also supports compute-intensive operations such as collaborative real-time design reviews, product design visualizations and architectural visualizations.

A combination view of the front and rear sides of the NVIDIA Visual Computing Appliance certified BOXX APEXX 8R GPU-rendering system. Image courtesy of BOXX Technologies.

The BOXX APEXX 8R VCA is a 4U rack-mounted unit that can be configured with up to eight dual-width, NVIDIA Quadro GPUs. The company reports that the APEXX 8R relies on RDMA (remote direct memory access) over Infiniband to provide fast interconnect and rendering scalability between VCA-certified solutions. Administrators can use the APEXX 8R's 10 GigE (gigabit Ethernet) or 1 GigE connection to attach the system to their company network. The VCA-certified APEXX 8R also includes out-of-band control over IPMI (intelligent platform management interface) protocols, enabling administrators to manage and monitor each connection over ethernet, even if the system is powered off.

Additional specifications include capacity for dual Intel Xeon processors (up to 22 cores each for 44 total cores) running at speeds up to 3.5GHz and support for up to 1TB of memory. Two front-panel USB 3.0 ports, eight PCIe x16 (Gen3 x16 bus) and two PCIe x16 (Gen3 x8 bus) slots are available for expansion.

The BOXX APEXX 8R will accommodate up to eight removable SSD (solid state drive) / SATA drives and up to four internal 2.5-in. or two internal 3.5-in. SSD/SATA drives. It will run on various operating systems, including Windows, RedHat Enterprise Linux, CentOS 6 and Ubuntu.

A top-down view inside the BOXX APEXX 8R. This rack-mounted network server for design intensive industries can accommodate up to eight professional-level NVIDIA Quadro graphics units. Image courtesy of BOXX Technologies.

The NVIDIA VCA-certified APEXX 8R is available with NVIDIA Iray for Autodesk 3ds Max, Maya, Cinema 4D and Rhino; Chaos Software's V-Ray for 3ds Max and Maya; or SOLIDWORKS Visualize, according to BOXX. Optionally, the BOXX APEXX 8R can be outfitted with up to eight NVIDIA Tesla GPUs or AMD Radeon Pro graphics cards.

“BOXX solutions are designed to help professionals work faster and more efficiently,” said Shoaib Mohammad, BOXX VP of Marketing and Business Development, in a press statement. “For organizations where GPU rendering, collaborative design and easy network access are essential, APEXX 8R, our NVIDIA Certified VCA Solution, meets those criteria while accelerating workflows and expediting the decision-making process.”

For more on the VCA-certified BOXX APEXX 8R, click here.

Watch a multi-GPU BOXX APEXX 8R do some SOLIDWORKS Visualize rendering.

Check out a BOXX blog post on the APEXX 8R.

Download the APEXX 8R data sheet.

See why DE's Editors selected the BOXX APEXX 8R as their Pick of the Week.

Sources: Press materials received from the company and additional information gleaned from the company's website.