The i-X2 Mediaworkstation is our most cost effective, compact form factor Dual Xeon Workstation. Featuring a pair of the latest Scaleable Xeon CPUs, up to 2TB DDR4 ECC RAM, space for up to 10 solid state drives including 2 m.2 NVMe SSDs, the i-X2 offers exemplary performance. There’s more. With PCIe slots for DeckLink or AJA cards, dual 10GbE onboard, fibre or IB interconnect capability and up to 6 NVIDIA GPUs for GPU rendering, AI or machine learning, the i-X2 is well-equipped for heavy workloads with 24/7 reliability.
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.
Joseph –
I am a designer based in LA doing freelance archviz work for design firms, mostly in the US but also abroad. I use 3dsMax and V-Ray Next for render. I haven’t made the leap to GPU rendering yet, and call me old school but I wanted Intel, even though the Threadripper and EPYC workstations have more cores.
Coming from a 16 core HP Z820, my i-X2 is easily the fastest workstation for V-Ray I’ve used. I got dual Xeon Gold 6254 CPUs for 36 cores, 192GB RAM, 2TB Samsung 970 drive and Quadro RTX 4000 graphics. I love the look of my i-X2 as well, and couldn’t be happier with the performance.
Efram –
We are a small studio in Paris France with 12 artists. We were looking for two of the fastest workstations for Arnold, and we also use Maya, Zbrush, Nuke and just starting with Houdini.
We don’t know the hardware!
We wanted to speak to someone who understand professional media and 3D rendering. We ended up ordering two i-X2 Media Workstations, each with 40 cores, 128 GB Rams, and two 2080 TI graphics cards. We want to try with the new Arnold GPU.
Media Workstations was really helpful. They answered all our questions, and build our new computers and ship to France in about 3 weeks. Our rendering speed increased three times with our new workstations. We are able to see more faster, and we can take larger projects. Thank you for your help and for our new workstations!
Ed –
Well I’m about 80% ZBrush and Keyshot and I have to say I loved the i-X2 the minute I saw it. I’m not a tekkie but I knew I needed as many cores as possible and I got ’em:
Dual Intel® Xeon® E5-2697 v4 (36 Cores)
128GB ECC RAM
OS Drive: Samsung 850 Pro 512GB
ASSET Drive: Samsung 970 Evo 2TB M.2 NVMe SSD
ARCHIVE Drive: 6TB HGST Ultrastar Storage Drive
NVIDIA Quadro P4000 8GB Graphics Card
Add my Eizo EV3237FX-BK 31.5″ display and I’ll just say for me it’s a whole new world. Thanks Chris – you know your computers and have a great sence of humor (Joe’s tire shop!).
-Ed
Tony –
I work at a major defense contractor designing machine vision/image processing algorithms. I got this i-X2 last year to support a new contract and have managed to hold on to as my personal development machine. I’m running a 44-core build with 128GB of RAM and Samsung 960’s for my working drives. Man, this thing is a beast! It’s become torture on the rare occasions that I have to use my Dell power workstation. Our core libraries typically take 20-30 minutes to compile, but with the i-X2 I can do a full rebuild in 5-7 minutes. Our software is designed to distribute processing across cloud-based architectures like AWS or Microsoft HPC, but I often find I can run image analysis and processing locally on the i-X2 nearly as fast as I can on our 192-core HPC grid thanks to its significant processor power and the ridiculously fast SSD drives.
For anyone who needs massive compute power, I’d definitely recommend the i-X2. The initial cost may seem steep, but it certainly pays dividends in the long run compared to a vanilla desktop. My box had paid for itself in the first month or two. Also, I would ante up for the Samsung 960’s or an equivalent SSD drive. I push A LOT of data across these drives and I’ve never saturated the drives (even with all the cores performing file I/O simultaneously). Christopher has been great to work with and has gone above and beyond in getting my workstation delivered quickly and still checks in on me occasionally to make sure everything is working well. Very happy with the i-X2 and MediaWorkstations.
Akim –
Where to start regarding mediaworkstations. net? I’ve actually been building PCs for many years, so it was challenging for me to decide to buy. I knew I needed an upgrade and started looking online for companies that specialize in hardware for media production. I’m a CG artist so I was looking for something that would be accelerate my workflow in Cinema 4D, Maya, the Adobe Suite and Zbrush. And the truth is I just didn’t want to build another computer.
I settled on the i-X2, with 3 GTX 1080 TI graphics cards. Christopher was very detailed going over my workflow, storage, and previous hardware to get a sense of what kind of performance increase I could expect. He also showed how each piece of hardware would support each part of my workflow…. something I just didn’t get with a couple other builders I spoke to.
The result is fantastic. Render times are 300% faster, and literally ten times faster with Octane which I’m learning to use. Thank you Mediaworkstations for a great machine and a great experience.
Jeffrey Jasper –
We were looking for the ultimate powerhouse workstation for doing VFX work and GPU rendering and Mediaworkstation.net’s i-x2 system was more than up to the task. Able to accommodate 4x GPUs with no system bottlenecks in addition to dual powerful CPUs, fast memory and storage it is designed to handle the most daunting production tasks.
Jeffrey Jasper – Digital FX Supervisor and CTO
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2483892/
Stu –
We are a small digital studio in the midwest and about 6 months ago we started to realize we were going to have to start looking for Mac replacements for our work. from the very first time we called we got really good knowledgeable, specific feedback from Mediaworkstations.net, not just about hardware but from moving from Mac to PC, too. Actually we first balked when they said $297 for the hour consult, but then we talked about it and said, if we’re investing $20,000 in our new hardware, understanding specifically what it will do for the next several years… well that seems like a good investment.
Our workflow is Adobe CC, with more and more Cinema 4D. We had seen what could be done with Octane Render to speed rendering several months back and that was pretty much the beginning of the end for our Macs. We bought two i-X2s with 4 GTX 1080 cards and 128GB RAM and we have real time rendering much of the time. No kidding – enter, rendered. Coming from Mac this was like stepping into a whole new world. Actually it was disorienting for awhile!
Thanks guys. We will be talking to you about a storage server next and REALLY appreciate your help.
David –
This is a review of the MediaWorkstations i-X2. We are a digital design agancy in Brussels, Belgium. We were looking for new solutions in our design work. We found our Macs could not longer do the work we wanted to do in Cinema 4D and several other applications and knew we had to make a change. We knew it meant switching from Mac to PC, and this is part of the reason we took so long. Well, we were tired of waiting for Apple.
Speaking with Chris, this was helpful – we discovered some ways of working, and software solutions we hadn’t thought of, and also got practical solutions for integrating the i-X2 into our Mac workflow. We just place an order for a second i-X2 with 4 graphics cards for Octane, as we are using C4D more and more. Itis the fastest computer for Cinema 4D we have found.
Thank you for your providing great help and great computers to us!
Bryan E. –
Octane Bender | Review by Bryan E
Ridiculous. I had a 2011 Mac Pro, it was painful. Didn’t want to do Windows. Friend ordered a 24-core i-X2 with 128GB RAM and three GTX 980 Ti for Octane, Maya and ZBrush, C4D.
Ridiculous. Best PC for rendering I have seen.
Real time rendering, and quiet. So I got one. Best hardware investment I ever made. Thanks MWS – for building it and for dogging me to write this :-).
Markus –
Solid | Review by Markus
I am a long time visual effects artist, started on Lightwave when it was in beta 21 (?) years ago now. Chris was great to work with, my i-X2 with 2 Titan X and 128GB RAM is capable of anything and everything I do – and Octane is a pleasant surprise for rendering, though I’m still using V-Ray for feature work. Thanks Chris – please stay in touch.
NYC-COMPOSER –
THE BEST OF THE BEST | Review by NYC-COMPOSER
Hi – I am a composer based out of New York City and Mediaworkstations.net put together a machine for me like no other. With 16 cores and 64gb of RAM, it has been very difficult to find any product that can come close to what my “BEAST” is producing. I do a lot of mockups for TV & Film using this machine and have never experienced any major issues. If I have a question, the team is very fast bout returning my email/phone call if I am not able to reach someone the first time I call. GREAT PRODUCT from an OUTSTANDING TEAM!!!!!
Thanks Mediaworkstations.net!!!!!!
Ian – Bubba’s Chop Shop –
Mac Daddy | Review by Ian – Bubba’s Chop Shop
I did a lot of research before placing the order for this monster with Mediaworkstations.net. We have several Macs and buying a PC just didn’t seem to make sense. After a few conversations with others in my same position we decided to take a shot and I can’t say how glad I am the we did that! To call this little guy the beast of beast is an understatement. It has been rock solid since we received it over 6 months ago. We are a small but growing shop and its great to not spend so much time worrying about renders or performance. Now we can get back to doing what we love, just being creative.
Kevin J –
Graphics Powerhouse | Review by Kevin J – SF
I’m a lead editor for a tech company in San Francisco doing a ton of compositing in Premiere and I needed something that could cut raw 6k red footage, Sony 4k fs7 footage and 4k graphics – this is the machine for it! In my work, I need to run at speed and the i-X2 (128GB RAM and 3 Quadro K5200) allows me to do that. Chris was able to configure the system to suit my workflow and I couldn’t be happier! Highly recommended.
Elias –
True workhorse | Review by Elias W.
As a Davinci colorist in a pure 4K workflow the i-X2 offers all the features I require to stay competitive. From graphics acceleration and 10-bit color with the K6000 display and Titan X, to 1.6TB Intel SSD DC P3700 for lightning fast reads and writes, my performance has improved five fold. All my Adobe CC apps also work seamlessly well – I just didn’t think this kind of performance was possible. I also had good support from Chris from start to finish.
A real workhorse.
James –
The Beast | Review by James
I normally don’t write reviews but I had to say something about my i-X2 (after some urging by Chris).
I have never had such a performance jump in my life. Let me repeat that – I have never had such a performance jump in my life.
I work almost exclusively in Maya with Octane as my render engine, with some ZBrush, After Effects and Photoshop. And almost everything is real time on my 24 core i-X2 with 128GB RAM and four 980 GTX graphics cards. Real time – that says is all really – and at a cost almost $5,000 less than my previous, much slower HP Z820.
Amazing and great service to boot. I thoroughly recommend mediaworkstations if your looking for for great hardware at a great price.
Mr Radiosity –
Happy Camper | Review by Mr Radiosity
I contacted Chris after a friend referred me, and we configured a 24-core i-X2 with dual GTX Titan Black. I was coming from a 3 year old (?) 12 core Dell Precision and it was time. Chris talked about the details of different configurations, especially about GPUs for my needs.
I’m never really into ‘waiting’ when it comes to PC stuff. The fact is there will always be a bigger/better/faster thing just round the corner, so I get the best within reason and am done with it. Still Chris explained things very well, about when to get dual xeon and when it will make no difference, how many cores you need to support multiple graphics cards, etc. I never got anything like this from Dell or any tech pro before.
For me, I usually don’t have a clear idea in my mind when I work. Maybe is should say I don’t have a plan. I improvise. I bring models into Layout, switch on Radiosity, work on shading and lighting, new elements. Using all my different approaches with the i-X2 makes this a breeze because I am not waiting, I’m creating.
Thanks Chris.
BCColorGuy –
Excellent | Review by BCColorGuy
Hi,
I do color correction outside Vancouver and after repeated houndings I’m doing a review for Chris.
We bought an i-X2 with three GTX Titan Black along with our Decklink, dual E-5 2687W 10 core CPUs and 128GB of RAM and this thing really hums…. It’s very quiet too – we went with the silent fan options and it’s quieter than any other rig we have.
Chris was responsive and thorough – I recommend you give mediaworkstations a call.
Bertrand –
All I was looking for | Review by Bertrand
We are a design firm in Paris – we provide video content on points of sale throughout the world for the most famous french brands (luxury, cosmetics, etc).
Most of the time, we’re working in huge resolutions for big video walls’ contents. We are mainly working in Adobe Premiere and After Effects, and we need to be fast and effective – we are always asked to deliver “asap” the final encodings! We need to render AND export as fast as possible. My new machine (i-X2, GTX 970) is the best computer I’ve ever seen doing that!
I’m happy to have dealt with Mediaworkstations and Christopher who has such a concern for the service and who always been fast and accurate to answer all my questions.
—
French:
Nous sommes en charge des vidéos sur points de vente à l’international pour les plus grandes marques françaises du luxe et de la cosmétique. La plupart du temps, nous travaillons dans de très grandes résolutions pour de grands murs d’images. Nous travaillons principalement sur Adobe Première et After-effect et nous devons être rapides, efficaces et on nous demande continuellement de livrer “au plus vite” les encodages finaux.
Nous devons pouvoir faire les rendus et exporter le fichier final aussi vite que possible.
C’est le meilleur ordinateur (i-X2, GTX 970) que j’ai jamais vu faire ça!
Je suis heureux d’avoir acheté auprès de mediaworkstations avec Christopher qui a le sens du service et qui a toujours répondu rapidement et précisément à toutes mes questions.
Massimiliano Bova –
Best PC For Maya and Octane | Review by Max
I work in the field of 3D animation for about 15 years and I can tell you that the i-x2 is the best computer I have ever used; computing power is simply awesome, the speed in project management with millions of polygons is crazy! … Right now I am in fact working on the design of the building in 3D which will be built in the center of Monaco; the model consists of 6 million polygons and the i-X2 manages the model as if it were a dice game!
I use Autodesk Maya with Octane Render, Maxwell and RenderMan, the average render times with all three render engines were practically halved but with Octane, which instead uses the GPU, I get the most out of their performance and when the two graphics cards are in operation, producing a warmth that will make me very comfortable this winter!
I’m excited about this machine, and work with it’s simply unique and rewarding, sometimes I would not go home from my office and I think my girlfriend starts to be jealous!
Massimiliano, Designer – Bergamo, ITALY
In Italian:
“Ciao ragazzi, sono un Designer e animatore 3D Italian, lavoro nel campo dell’animazione 3D da circa 15 anni e credo che l’ i-x2 sia il miglior computer su cui abbia mai lavorato; la potenza di calcolo dei due Xeon da 10 Core è semplicemente impressionante, la velocità nella gestione dei progetti con milioni di poligoni è fluida e la risposta del modello alle operazioni più complesse è fuminea!
Utilizzo Autodesk Maya con Octane Render, Maxwell e RenderMan, la media dei tempi di rendering con tutti e tre i motori si è praticamente dimezzata ma con Octane, che invece utilizza le GPU delle due schede Nvidia a bordo (Quadro K5000 e 6GB GTX 780) il refresh del modello anche in formati full HD è quasi immediato.
Sono entusiasta di questa macchina, e lavorare con lei è un’esperienza unica e gratificante.
Il particolare colpisce il case per la sua innovativa struttura che prevede un doppio scomparto per tenere separato l’hardware “che conta” dal resto, cablaggio compreso, a tutto vantaggio della pulizia di assemblaggio e della ventilazione interna, che non risentirà di inutili ostacoli.
Grazie a Christopher ed al suo team per il supporto e la pazienza dimostrata ad un cliente d’oltreoceano!”
Massimiliano Bova
VFX Pimp –
From Pitchvis to Previs | Review by VFXPimp
I work heavy textures in Maya, then pulling into AE adding effects etc, over and over. Chris was awesome. We got the 20 core 3.0 GHz i-X2, 128GB RAM, Quadro K6000, 7 day turnaround time, the ability for us to see a whole film in previs allowed us to cut a scene that probably saved us $400k in production cost. It was also about $5k less than the Z820 we were looking at, and this thing is silent. We have a couple Supermicro machines which are great but they sound like a 767 taking off. Kudos. Keep it up guys, we’ll be back.
Neel Kar –
Runs like a dream | Review by Neel – Infinity Ward
I have been working in the video games industry for 9 years (Call of Duty – Modern Warfare series). With the onset of next-gen hardware for consoles i wanted to invent some form of future-proof pipeline.
Media workstations delivered a highly convenient configuration process which was very progressive for the software I wanted to use (Octane Render as my render engine) on a daily basis
Once I started using my new machine (20-core i-X2 with two GTX Titan Black GPUs) I realized how much more productive I can be – things that take weeks can be done in hours. It has been an incredible experience so far.
Chris and his team have been highly responsive to any inquires and extremely friendly from the initial phone call. I got an express delivery for my machine which seemed like a record time for the build.
Chris – Outpost Pictures –
What a monster!
Cinebench of 2834 with a dual 10-core set up. The top Mac Pro “tube” maxes out at 1523 for the same cost! So nearly twice the performance for the same money. This is a fantastic machine that is very well designed. It is flexible and compact for the amount of stuff that will fit inside, and with the noise reduction option, extremely quiet even under full load.
I’m currently running DaVinci Resolve, After Effects, Avid, Premiere and a handful of other apps on this machine and it handles them all very well; even running several things at the same time.
Christopher has been great to work with and really caters to the creative industry. I couldn’t ask for better service. I highly recommend Christopher and Mediaworkstations.net!
Ethan –
Mind Opening | Review by Ethan
I first heard of Chris from a friend who worked at ILM several years back and heard about them from a friend of his. Sure it was a bit mind opening to spend 10K on a computer system, but more mind opening when I rendered something that took 6 minutes before in 8 seconds. Our i-X2 is equipped with dual 10-core E5 2690 v2 CPUs and 3 GTX Titans running Octane as our Render Engine for Maya (if you don’t yet know about Octane, check them out). We use Nuke for compositing … and the speed of this machine is astonishing.
Chris and his team are there for you all the way, intelligently answering your questions and responsive too. We priced the same machine at Boxx Technologies per Chris’ advice and it was over $2,500 more, and they weren’t nearly as great to work with. Mediaworkstations.net thanks for all your help and a great machine.
Marie –
Very fast, very professional | Review by Marie
I work for a design firm in the Pacific Northwest and we’d been looking at mediaworkstations.net for a couple of months, along with Falcon Northwest, BOXX and others. I am working in ZBrush, After Effects, Maya and Photoshop coming from an 8 core Mac Pro and can tell you it is 4x faster than my old machine. Also Chris was really great getting back to us immediately to thoroughly answer questions about configuration etc, and wasn’t shy about setting us straight on a few points! A great machine and experience.
mr composer –
Excellent | Review by mr composer
I had been looking at the site for about 4 months before leaping. I’m a composer and maybe I didn’t need this much horsepower but I look at it as an investment in the future, and wanted something that would handle as many plugins as I could throw at it. 16 cores, 7 PCIe slots, 64GB RAM, and effortless, silent, lightning fast performance. I couldn’t ask for more.