This PC is the fastest workstation in the world - and it uses a special trick

Armari Magnetar X64T workstation - £8,923.20 direct

Armari Magnetar X64T workstation - <a href="http://www.armari.com/system.asp?SysID=2093" data-link-merchant="armari.com"" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">£8,923.20 direct
(roughly $11,500/AU$16,000)
This absolute monster from Armari is the fastest workstation out there right now, thanks to an overclocked AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3990X. Check it out!

A small artisan workstation vendor called Armari has thrown down the gauntlet with an overclocked monster: the Magnetar X64T.

Earlier this year, it grabbed the top spot for fastest workstation by the SPECWORKSTATION V3 benchmark - a popular test comprised of workstation-relevant workloads.

The UK-based retailer took a 64-core AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3990X, overclocked it to a whopping 4GHz on all 64 cores (up from 2.9GHz), loaded it with plenty of memory and a pair of very expensive PNY Quadro RTX graphics cards.

The (rather impressive) result is a workstation that produces stellar performance, albeit at a steep price. But everything is relative; compared to other Intel-based workstation PCs out there, the Magnetar is a bargain.

As Dr. Ian Cutress of AnandTech put it in his review, "just the [AMD Ryzen] Threadripper 3990X and the [Nvidia] Quadro RTX 6000 together are a base $8000."

"Add in the other hardware, the custom liquid cooling setup with a custom block and the TRX40 motherboard and 256GB of high speed memory, with a 3 year warranty and a free checkup/coolant refill, and I suspect the big OEMs will be hard pressed to match the price. Not only that, the equivalent Intel system, using dual 28-core parts, starts easily costing $20k+ before even looking at memory or graphics.”

For anyone wondering about the name, a magnetar is a type of superdense neutron star, according to our sister publication Space. It is also the most magnetic entity in the universe, with up to one quadrillion Gauss - that's 100 million times stronger than an MRI machine.

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Desire Athow
Managing Editor, TechRadar Pro

Désiré has been musing and writing about technology during a career spanning four decades. He dabbled in website builders and web hosting when 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.