Supermicro 7047AX-TRF/72RF SuperWorkstation Preview

The SuperWorkstation relies on an AMD FirePro W5000 card for primary graphics acceleration.

We find this a slightly curious choice as a partner for a pair of top-of-the-range eight-core Xeons. We would have expected a W7000 or W8000, to match the processor power. The W5000 is still a good card, but it's aimed more at the low-to-mid range than the high-end that the CPUs are targeting.

The W5000 sports 768 Stream Processors, compared to 1,280 for the W7000, 1,792 for the W8000, and 2,048 for the flagship W9000. Its core clock is also marginally slower than its three siblings. You still get a decent 2GB GDDR5 memory, with 102.4GB/sec bandwidth.

On the plus side, power consumption is under 75W, so this card contributes well to the overall quietness of the system.

Become a Patron!