Supermicro SuperWorkstation 5039A-i

Description

Supermicro has a very complete lineup of workstations from entry-level to GPU-enhanced performers. The Supermicro SuperWorkstation 5039A-i supports a single workstation-specific intel Xeon processor family and can be outfitted with up to 512GB of memory. Nvidia GPUs are also supported providing enhanced graphics for 3D rendering and animation.

Performance

The single socket on the system board supports an Intel Xeon W Family processor with a thermal design point (TDP) of up to 140W. Intel’s W series processors are made specifically to optimized single-socket performance for workstations and offer better security and reliability for compute-hungry applications. They have up to 28 cores and 56 threads and can support up to 2TB of memory in 6x memory channels. It comes with a 900W high-efficiency PSU.

Memory

Eight DIMM slots support up to 512GB of Load-Reduced (LRDIMM) memory, or 256GB or Registered (RDIMM) memory and will run at a top speed of 2666MT/s. With eight memory module slots four modules will occupy their own memory channel while the other four memory module slots split two memory channels between them.

Storage

Four 3.5-inch storage bays on the front of the system provide storage (Supermicro recommends using only enterprise-class SATA HDDs). The system also supports two U.2 NVMe solid state storage (SSD) devices that can be mounted in the primary 3.5-inch or optional 2.5-inch drive cages but will require an optional cable for each drive. An integrated SATA controller is part of the Intel C422 chipset and offers RAID configurations of 0, 1, 5, and 10. There are two NVMe M.2 slots directly on the motherboard for superfast storage or to support your OS. Four more 2.5-inch drives can be installed using an optional drive cage (p/n: MCP-220-73201-0N). The PCIe lanes can also be used to support additional M.2 drives.

Expansion

There are three PCIe 3.0x16 slots and one x4 slot that can be used to support two up to two full-height, full-length GPUs from Nvidia. Two LAN ports on the back of the Supermicro 5039A-i provide network access. You also get eight USB ports for connecting a slew of additional external devices. Two additional PCie 3.0 x4 slots are dedicated for support of M.2 drives. Additional network cards and M.2 storage drives are also supported by the PCIe lanes.

Management

A control panel on the upper portion of the tower features several LEDs for system health. Additionally, Supermicro’s SuperDoctor management application helps you manage the system locally or remotely with a slick easy to read HTML 5 interface.

Summary

This high-performance workstation is a perfect fit for 2D and 3D content creation. With a single powerful Intel Xeon W processor, you get over 2TB of memory and up to eight storage devices using the optional internal 2.5-inch storage bay. The Supermicro SuperWorkstation 5039A-i is also compatible with Nvidia’s professional line of high-performance graphics cards.