Our a-X Mediaworkstation features an AMD Threadripper CPU for powerful, multi-threaded processing. and up to 4 graphics cards for GPU rendering. With up to 256GB DDR4 3200 GHz RAM, available native 10Gb Ethernet and 3 m.2 slots for fast storage options, the a-X Mediaworkstation combines powerful GPU rendering and CPU rendering capabilities cost-effectively.
Not sure what the best configuration for your application usage is? Give us a call at 424-235-7479 and we’ll help you configure your workstation.
a-X - Tech Specs
- Dimension & Weight
- 22.3″ x 9.3″ x 19.6″, 48-64 lbs
- CPU
- – Supports AMD TR4 Socket Ryzen Threadripper Series CPUs
– IR Digital PWM
– 11 Power Phase design
– Supports ASRock Hyper BCLK Engine III
- Unique Feature
- ASRock USB 3.1 Gen2
– ASRock USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-A Port (10 Gb/s)
– ASRock USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-C Port (10 Gb/s)
ASRock Super Alloy
– XXL Aluminum Alloy Heatsink
– Premium 60A Power Choke
– Premium Memory Alloy Choke (Reduces 70% core loss compared to iron powder choke)
– IR3555M Dr. MOS 60A
– Nichicon 12K Black Caps (100% Japan made high quality conductive polymer capacitors)
– I/O Armor
– Matte Black PCB
– High Density Glass Fabric PCB
Intel® 802.11ac WiFi
ASRock Steel Slots
ASRock Ultra M.2 (PCIe Gen3 x4 & SATA3)
ASRock Ultra USB Power
ASRock Full Spike Protection (for all USB, Audio, LAN Ports)
ASRock Live Update & APP Shop
- Chipset
- – AMD X399
- Memory
- – Quad Channel DDR4 Memory Technology
– 8 x DDR4 DIMM Slots
– Supports DDR4 3600+(OC) / 3200(OC) / 2933(OC) / 2667 / 2400 / 2133 ECC & non-ECC, un-buffered memory(U-DIMM)
– Max. capacity of system memory: 128GB*
– 15μ Gold Contact in DIMM Slots
*Due to the operating system limitation, the actual memory size may be less than 4GB for the reservation for system usage under Windows® 32-bit OS. For Windows® 64-bit OS with 64-bit CPU, there is no such limitation.
- BIOS
- – 128Mb AMI UEFI Legal BIOS with GUI support
– Supports “Plug and Play”
– ACPI 5.1 compliance wake up events
– Supports jumperfree
– SMBIOS 2.3 support
– CPU, VCORE_NB, DRAM, VPPM, PCH 1.05V, +1.8V, VDDP, PROM 2.5V, Voltage Multi-adjustment
- Graphics
- – n/a
- Audio
- – 7.1 CH HD Audio with Content Protection (Realtek ALC1220 Audio Codec)
– Premium Blu-ray Audio support
– Supports Surge Protection
– Supports Purity Sound™ 4
– Nichicon Fine Gold Series Audio Caps
– 120dB SNR DAC with Differential Amplifier
– TI® NE5532 Premium Headset Amplifier for Front Panel Audio Connector (Supports up to 600 Ohm headsets)
– Pure Power-In
– Direct Drive Technology
– PCB Isolate Shielding
– Impedance Sensing on Rear Out port
– Individual PCB Layers for R/L Audio Channel
– Gold Audio Jacks
– 15μ Gold Audio Connector
– Supports DTS Connect
- LAN
- – Gigabit LAN 10/100/1000 Mb/s
– 2 x GigaLAN Intel® I211AT
– Supports Wake-On-LAN
– Supports Lightning/ESD Protection
– Supports Dual LAN with Teaming*
– Supports Energy Efficient Ethernet 802.3az
– Supports PXE
*Teaming is supported on Windows® 10 RS2, RS3 and RS4.
- Wireless LAN
- – Intel® 802.11ac WiFi Module (Free Bundle)
– Supports IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n/ac
– Supports Dual-Band (2.4/5 GHz)
– Supports high speed wireless connections up to 433Mbps
– Supports Bluetooth 4.2 / 3.0 + High speed class II
- Slots
- – 4 x PCI Express 3.0 x16 Slots (PCIE1/PCIE2/PCIE4/PCIE5: single at x16 (PCIE1); dual at x16 (PCIE1) / x16 (PCIE4); triple at x16 (PCIE1) / x8 (PCIE2) / x16 (PCIE4); quad at x16 (PCIE1) / x8 (PCIE2) / x16 (PCIE4) / x8 (PCIE5))*
– 1 x PCI Express 2.0 x1 Slot
– Supports AMD Quad CrossFireX™, 4-Way CrossFireX™, 3-Way CrossFireX™ and CrossFireX™
– Supports NVIDIA® Quad SLI™, 4-Way SLI™, 3-Way SLI™ and SLI™
– 1 x Vertical M.2 Socket (Key E) with the bundled WiFi-802.11ac module (on the rear I/O)
– 15μ Gold Contact in VGA PCIe Slot (PCIE1 and PCIE4)
*Supports NVMe SSD as boot disks
- Storage
- – 8 x SATA3 6.0 Gb/s Connectors, support RAID (RAID 0, RAID 1 and RAID 10), NCQ, AHCI and Hot Plug
– 2 x Ultra M.2 Sockets (M2_1 and M2_2), support M Key type 2242/2260/2280 M.2 SATA3 6.0 Gb/s module and M.2 PCI Express module up to Gen3 x4 (32 Gb/s)*
– 1 x Ultra M.2 Socket (M2_3), supports M Key type 2230/2242/2260/2280 M.2 SATA3 6.0 Gb/s module and M.2 PCI Express module up to Gen3 x4 (32 Gb/s)*
– 1 x U.2 Connector**
*Supports NVMe SSD as boot disks
Supports ASRock U.2 Kit***If M2_1 is plugged, U.2 Connector will be disabled.
- Connector
- – 1 x Power LED and Speaker Header
– 2 x RGB LED Headers*
– 1 x CPU Fan Connector (4-pin)**
– 1 x CPU Optional/Water Pump Fan Connector (4-pin) (Smart Fan Speed Control)***
– 2 x Chassis Fan Connectors (4-pin) (Smart Fan Speed Control)
– 1 x Chassis Optional/Water Pump Fan Connector (4-pin) (Smart Fan Speed Control)****
– 1 x 24 pin ATX Power Connector (Hi-Density Power Connector) (for Motherboard)
– 1 x 8 pin 12V Power Connector (Hi-Density Power Connector) (for Motherboard)
– 1 x 4 pin 12V Power Connector (Hi-Density Power Connector) (for Motherboard)
– 1 x 6 pin 12V Power Connector (Hi-Density Power Connector) (for PCIe graphics card)
– 1 x Front Panel Audio Connector (15μ Gold Audio Connector)*****
– 1 x Right Angle Front Panel Audio Connector*****
– 2 x USB 2.0 Headers (Support 4 USB 2.0 ports) (Supports ESD Protection)
– 2 x USB 3.1 Gen1 Headers (Support 4 USB 3.1 Gen1 ports) (Supports ESD Protection)
– 1 x Clear CMOS Switch
– 1 x Dr. Debug with LED
– 1 x Power Switch with LED
– 1 x Reset Switch with LED
– 1 x CPU Xtreme OC Switch*Each header supports up to 12V/3A, 36W LED Strip**The CPU Fan Connector supports the CPU fan of maximum 1A (12W) fan power.***The CPU Optional/Water Pump Fan supports the water cooler fan of maximum 1.5A (18W) fan power.****The Chassis Optional/Water Pump Fan supports the water cooler fan of maximum 1.5A (18W) fan power.
CPU_FAN1, CHA_FAN1, CHA_FAN2, CPU_OPT/W_PUMP and CHA_FAN3/W_PUMP can auto detect if 3-pin or 4-pin fan is in use.*****Connect the audio device to either one of the audio connectors.
- Rear Panel I/O
- – 2 x Antenna Ports
– 1 x PS/2 Mouse/Keyboard Port
– 1 x Optical SPDIF Out Port
– 1 x USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-A Port (10 Gb/s) (Supports ESD Protection)
– 1 x USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-C Port (10 Gb/s) (Supports ESD Protection)
– 8 x USB 3.1 Gen1 Ports (Supports ESD Protection)*
– 2 x RJ-45 LAN Ports with LED (ACT/LINK LED and SPEED LED)
– 1 x BIOS Flashback Switch
– HD Audio Jacks: Rear Speaker / Central / Bass / Line in / Front Speaker / Microphone (Gold Audio Jacks)
*Ultra USB Power is supported on USB3_6 port.
ACPI wake-up function is not supported on USB3_6 port.
- Software and UEFI
- Software
– ASRock A-Tuning
– ASRock RGB LED
– ASRock APP Charger
– ASRock XFast LAN
UEFI
– ASRock Full HD UEFI
– ASRock Instant Flash
– ASRock Crashless BIOS
– ASRock Easy RAID Installer
*These utilities can be downloaded from ASRock Live Update & APP Shop.
- Support CD
- – Drivers, Utilities, AntiVirus Software (Trial Version), Google Chrome Browser and Toolbar
- Accessories
- – Quick Installation Guide, Support CD, I/O Shield
– 4 x SATA Data Cables
– 1 x ASRock 3-Way SLI™ Bridge Card
– 1 x ASRock 4-Way SLI-S111 Bridge Card
– 1 x ASRock SLI_HB_Bridge_3S Card
– 2 x ASRock WiFi 2.4/5 GHz Antennas
– 3 x Screws for M.2 Sockets
- Hardware Monitor
- – Temperature Sensing: CPU, CPU Optional/Water Pump, Chassis, Chassis Optional/Water Pump Fans
– Fan Tachometer: CPU, CPU Optional/Water Pump, Chassis, Chassis Optional/Water Pump Fans
– Quiet Fan (Auto adjust chassis fan speed by CPU temperature): CPU, CPU Optional/Water Pump, Chassis, Chassis Optional/Water Pump Fans
– Fan Multi-Speed Control: CPU, CPU Optional/Water Pump, Chassis, Chassis Optional/Water Pump Fans
– Voltage monitoring: +12V, +5V, +3.3V, CPU Vcore, VCORE_NB, DRAM, PCH 1.05V, +1.8V, VDDP
- OS
- – Microsoft® Windows® 10 64-bit
- Certifications
- – FCC, CE
– ErP/EuP ready (ErP/EuP ready power supply is required)
Evan –
I was looking for the fastest PC for Houdini when I started looking to replace my Mac Pro in Spetember. I found the Houdini articles here on MediaWorkstations.net and looking at other benchmarks online, and was clear the AMD 2990WX was the CPU I wanted bc it gave me the maximum number of CPU cores for the price. It also provides expandability for extra drives, and more RAM and additional graphics card if I want to add them later. I got 64GB RAM and also a single 2080 Ti GPU to begin experimenting with Redshift, but still do most of my rendering with Mantra. MediaWorkstations even pre-wired my system so if I want to add additional graphics cards later i can.
Game changer! Incredible performance improvement over my old Mac Pro, and Andy and Chris were great answering all my questions. Thanks for your help!
Casper –
Well this was kind of a no-brainer for me – but I really wasn’t sure what was best before I called mediaworkstations. I’m a CG artist in Miami and wanted the fastest workstation for Arnold, ZBrush and Lightwave. Rendering is always longest, and with 32 cores I have a beast supporting me running Arnold. Chris was cool about GPU rendering, yeah I know what kind of speed you get with Redshift and GPUs, but I’m an Arnold guy, and Chris said if I want the fastest workstation for Arnold and ZBrush the a-X Mediaworkstation is it because of all those cores. Maya is fast but not so much faster, and Chris explained Maya is more about high frequency. Again rendering is what always takes the most time, and I will tell you it’s a night and day difference from the 6-core Intel machine I had before. A whole new world, really.
Alan –
We are a small CG outfit in the valley SLOWLY making our way switching from Mac to PC. We do 90% of work in Cinema 4D and Adobe CC, and wanted a renderbeast for C4D at low cost and we got it with the a-X. We just for our a-X Mediaworkstation with the brand new 2990WX 32 core CPU, 64BG of RAM and 12TB of storage and it is a BEAST. We had some concerns about bringing a PC in but new we could double our productivity this way, and as Chris explained it was easily networked using SMB.
Thank you Mediaworkstations.net for providing us with the fastest PC for Cinema 4D we’ve seen, and with all our Mac to PC questions.
Liam –
We’re are small agency in Los Angeles supporting several large studios, and a number of smaller clients in a variety of different industries. We had been an all Mac studio, and two years ago we made the switch to an all-Adobe CC workflow along with Cinema 4D and Davinci Resolve. Truthfully we had been delaying the inevitable move from Mac to PC and made the plunge purchasing 4 of the a-X media workstations.
The processing speed increase has been dramatic. Having 128GB of RAM for After Effects and other high res work, the 16 core 1950X Threadripper CPUs, and drives which allow us to work with 4K and even 6K raw without dropped frames has been especially gratifying. We are still doing physical render in C4D for most of our work, but we’ve just purchased Redshift and have begin exploring the rendering speed benefits available using the 2 GTX 1080 Ti we have on each workstation.
There are things we still prefer about Mac OS of course – all of us – but our company project scope and artistic freedom has increased dramatically as a result of the processing power of our new a-Xs.