
The Xi MTower CX workstation
is housed in a rather distinct Corsair
Carbide Series AIR240 case, which has no
externally accessible drive bays. Image
courtesy of @Xi Computer.
Last
year, California-based @Xi Computer Corporation
(pronounced “at-ex-eye”) shipped us an updated
version of its over-clocked tower
PCIe workstation. This time around, the
company sent us something different. Unlike
traditional towers, which are typically tall and
narrow, the Xi MTower CX workstation that
arrived at our test lab was nearly a cube. And
its shape proved to be just one of its unique
qualities.
Housed in
a Carbide series AIR240 case manufactured by
Corsair, the Xi MTower CX measured
10.2×15.6×12.6 in. (WxDxH) and weighed in at 23
lbs. The front panel is split almost equally
down the center. Six air intake grilles with the
@Xi logo in the center fill the left side and
conceal a radiator with a pair of 120mm fans,
while a nearly blank panel occupies the space on
the right. An illuminated power button sits
nearly centered in the blank panel, flanked by a
reset switch and hard drive activity light to
its left, with microphone and headphone jacks
and a pair of USB 3.0 ports to the right. There
is no provision for any front panel drive bays —
the first time we have ever seen this (or the
lack thereof) on anything other than a mobile
workstation.
The front
panel air grilles appear to wrap around onto the
top of the case where they conceal a second pair
of 120mm fans. Removing the top panel reveals
three SSD (solid-state drive) bays with
removable plastic trays. Removing a cover on the
rear panel exposes three similar bays for
5.25-in. hard drives. There is yet a fifth fan
behind the rear panel.
The rear
panel also provides a PS/2 mouse/keyboard port,
two USB 2.0 ports, a USB BIOS flashback button,
two USB 3.1 ports, four USB 3.0 ports, two RJ45
network jacks, an optical S/PDIF out port and
five audio jacks including line-in,
line-out/front speaker out, microphone,
center/subwoofer and rear speaker out. The
NVIDIA graphics card in our evaluation unit also
provided four DisplayPorts, a DVI-I connection,
and a 3D stereo jack.

The rear panel of the Xi
MTower CX workstation provides lots of
expansion options. A removable panel reveals
three 5.25-in. drive bays. Image courtesy of
David Cohn.
While
built-in Wi-Fi is something not typically found
in workstations, the Xi MTower CX breaks that
rule as well. The ASUS X99-M WS motherboard
provides 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac and supports
dual-band frequencies of 2.4 and 5GHz as well as
Bluetooth 4.0. Three tiny jacks on the rear
panel provide connections for a small external
antenna with a 30-in. cable that you can place
on top of the computer or on your desk.
Abundant Options
The Xi
MTower CX has a base price of $1,199. That buys
you a quad-core Xeon CPU, 4GB of RAM, an
entry-level NVIDIA NVS graphics card, 500GB hard
drive, keyboard and mouse. But as we have come
to expect from @Xi, there are lots of options.
For example, you can choose any of eight
different CPUs and our evaluation unit was
equipped with an eight-core Intel Xeon E-1660 v3
Haswell processor. Although this CPU typically
runs at 3.0GHz, with a maximum 3.5GHz turbo
speed, ours came over-clocked to 4.1GHz and
cooled using a Cooler Master sealed water
cooling system with its dual fan radiator
concealed behind the front panel (adding $1,399
to the system price).
Xi MTower CX workstation
- Price: $4,997 as
tested ($1,199 base price)
- Size:
10.2×15.6×12.6 in. (WxDxH) cube
tower
- Weight: 23 lbs.
- CPU: 3.0GHz
8-core Intel Xeon E5-1660 v3
over-clocked to 4.1GHz
- Memory: 16GB DDR4
at 2666MHz
- Graphics: NVIDIA
Quadro M5000 w/four DisplayPorts and
one DVI ports
- Hard Disk: 256GB
Samsung M.2 PCIe 3.0 SSD and 1TB
7200rpm Seagate SATA HD
- Floppy: None
- Optical: None
- Audio: Integrated
HD audio (front panel: microphone,
headphone; rear-panel: line-in,
microphone, line-out/front speaker
out, center/sub-woofer, rear speaker
out, and SPDIF out)
- Network:
Integrated gigabit Ethernet, two
RJ45 ports, 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac W-iFi
plus Bluetooth 4.0
- Modem: None
- Other: Six USB
3.0 (2 front/4 rear), two USB 3.1
ports (rear), two USB 2.0 ports
(rear), PS/2 keyboard/mouse port
- Keyboard: 104-key
Logitech USB keyboard
- Pointing device:
Logitech USB 2-button optical wheel
mouse
- Power Supply: 850
watts, 80 Plus Bronze certified
- Warranty: Three
years parts and labor
Instead of a solid panel, the
left side of our Xi MTower CX case included a
clear plastic window, providing a view of the
inside. The internal space is split by a
backplane, which aligns with the division of the
case’s front panel. You can remove the left side
panel to access the half housing the motherboard
and the right side panel to access the power
supply and a fair amount of empty space. Due to
the power demands of our system, @Xi included an
850 watt Rosewill Glacier 850M 80 Plus Bronze
certified power supply, which added $65 to the
overall cost.
The motherboard includes a single
LGA2011-v3 processor socket flanked by four DIMM
(dual in-line memory module) slots. Although the
system supports up to 64GB of unbuffered or ECC
memory, our unit came with 16GB, installed as a
pair of 8GB Corsair Vengeance LPX 2666MHz
modules (adding $109).
There are
also three PCIe X16 3.0 expansion slots and one
PCIe 2.0 slot. @Xi offers a choice of 17
different NVIDIA graphics boards. Ours included
an NVIDIA Quadro M5000 GPU (graphics processing
unit) installed in one of the PCIe 3.0 slots.
Based on NVIDIA’s latest Maxwell architecture,
the Quadro M5000 features a 256-bit interface
and provides 8GB of dedicated GDDR5 memory and
2048 CUDA (compute unified device architecture)
parallel processing cores while delivering a
bandwidth of 211GB/sec. Because the M5000
consumes up to 150 watts, it requires an
auxiliary power connection. Its thickness also
means that it blocks the adjacent PCIe 2.0 slot,
with the board’s optional 3D stereo connector
routed to the adjacent rear panel bracket. The
M5000 added $1,659 to the system price. The Xi
MTower CX can accommodate up to two Quadro
boards, or one GPU and an NVIDIA Tesla board.
Storage
choices include conventional hard drives of up
to 4TB as well as solid state drives ranging
from 250GB to 2TB. For our review, @Xi included
a 256GB Samsung M.2 PCIe 3.0 solid state drive
($229) hosting the operating system and a 1TB
7200rpm Seagate Barracuda SATA drive for data
storage (a $29 upgrade from the base
configuration).
Although
the case makes no provision for an optical
drive, @Xi sells external USB DVD-Writer and
Blu-ray Writer drives for $69 and $119,
respectively. But we found the identical drives
from other online retailers at $24 and $80.
Blazing Performance
With
its SSD, the @Xi workstation booted up very
quickly. But its seven fans (including those on
the GPU and power supply) and a case lacking
acoustic damping results in a noisy system. The
Xi MTower CX averaged 38dB at rest (compared to
29dB ambient background noise), increasing to
46dB during heavy compute loads (about
equivalent to a typical office conversation).
Thanks to
the NVIDIA Quadro M5000 GPU, the Xi MTower CX
workstation performed great on the SPECviewperf
benchmark, turning in some of the best results
we have ever recorded for a single-socket
workstation. On the AutoCAD rendering test,
which clearly shows the benefits of multiple
fast CPU cores, the Xi MTower CX blew us away,
completing the test in 25.3 seconds–faster than
any single socket workstation we have ever
tested. And on the SPECwpc benchmark, the Xi
MTower CX scored at or near the top on every
component of this very demanding test.
For our
SOLIDWORKS tests, we have recently begun using
the SPEC SOLIDWORKS 2015 benchmark. This new
evaluation performs nine graphics tests and two
CPU tests. Although we have run this test on
several mobile workstations, this marks the
first time we have done so on a full-fledged
workstation. While we therefore have nothing
similar to compare it to, the Xi MTower CX
turned in excellent results on this new
real-world performance evaluation. For
comparison’s sake, we included the SPEC
SOLIDWORKS 2013 benchmark results on page 44.
Although
Windows 10 Home is included in the Xi MTower CX
base price, for our review @Xi pre-installed
Windows 7 Professional Edition 64-bit, adding
$179 to the overall cost. Customers can also
purchase their system without an operating
system or choose Windows 8.1, Windows 10
Professional, or one of eight different versions
of Linux. A free one-year license to McAfee
AntiVirus Plus as well as one-year usage of the
SplashID 8 Pro password manager software is also
included. @Xi rounded things out with a Logitech
104-key keyboard and Logitech USB 2-button wheel
mouse, but here again, the company offers lots
of other options.
The
standard Xi warranty includes just one-year
coverage on system parts and three years for
labor. We always find this type of coverage a
bit puzzling, since most of the actual
components (hard drive, graphics card, etc.)
come with their own three-year warranties. @Xi
offers warranties up to five years, and included
a full three year parts warranty on our system
(a $129 option).
Once all
of the extras were tallied, our evaluation unit
priced out at $4,997. Considering that price is
less than other over-clocked systems we’ve
tested yet beat their performance, the MTower CX
once again proves that @Xi delivers plenty of
bang for your buck.
More Info
Single-Socket
Workstations Compared
|
Xi MTower CX
one 3GHz Intel Xeon E5-1660 v3 8-core
CPU over-clocked to 4.1GHz, NVIDIA
Quadro M5000, 16GB RAM |
BOXX APEXX 2 2401
one 4GHz Intel Core i7-4790K 4-core CPU
over-clocked to 4.5GHz, NVIDIA Quadro
K5200, 16GB RAM |
Digital Storm Slade PRO
one 3.1GHz Intel Xeon E5-2687W v3
10-core CPU, NVIDIA Quadro M4000,
32GB RAM |
Computer
Direct Volta Pro
one 4GHz Intel Core i7-4790K quad-core
CPU, NVIDIA Quadro K5200,
16GB RAM |
Xi MTower PCIe
one 3.7GHz Intel Core i7-5930K 6-core
CPU over-clocked to 4.32GHz, NVIDIA
Quadro K5200, 16GB RAM |
Lenovo P300
one 3.6GHz Intel Xeon E3-1276 v3
quad-core CPU, NVIDIA Quadro K4000, 8GB
RAM |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Price as tested |
$4,997 |
$5,806 |
$6,187 |
$4,441 |
$4,985 |
$2,072 |
Date tested |
1/25/16 |
1/30/16 |
10/18/15 |
7/12/15 |
12/13/14 |
11/9/14 |
Operating System |
Windows 7 |
Windows 7 |
Windows 10 |
Windows 7 |
Windows 8.1 |
Windows 7 |
SPECviewperf 12 (higher is better) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
catia-04 |
126.16 |
133.05 |
78.54 |
103.66 |
98.53 |
38.19 |
creo-01 |
107.44 |
108.3 |
65.60 |
91.62 |
86.66 |
34.31 |
energy-01 |
11.65 |
11.44 |
6.31 |
3.73 |
3.49 |
0.65 |
maya-04 |
97.68 |
101.53 |
63.79 |
75.92 |
72.18 |
32.31 |
medical-01 |
45.78 |
45.12 |
25.99 |
31.33 |
28.84 |
12.38 |
showcase-01 |
61.65 |
60.37 |
42.26 |
49.76 |
48.98 |
22.64 |
snx-02 |
219.48 |
121.01 |
74.62 |
152.32 |
150.42 |
36.79 |
sw-03 |
149.88 |
158.22 |
110.74 |
134.67 |
126.08 |
69.37 |
SPECapc SOLIDWORKS 2013 (higher is
better) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Graphics Composite |
2.83 |
3.20 |
2.16 |
11.24 |
8.82 |
6.29 |
RealView Graphics Composite |
3.64 |
4.11 |
2.77 |
13.32 |
10.03 |
6.88 |
Shadows Composite |
3.69 |
4.17 |
2.80 |
13.37 |
10.05 |
6.89 |
Ambient Occlusion Composite |
8.48 |
9.57 |
6.44 |
28.08 |
17.58 |
9.65 |
Shaded Mode Composite |
2.77 |
3.13 |
2.10 |
11.25 |
8.95 |
6.17 |
Shaded with Edges Mode Composite |
2.90 |
3.28 |
2.21 |
11.22 |
8.69 |
6.41 |
RealView Disabled Composite |
1.04 |
1.18 |
0.80 |
5.69 |
5.28 |
4.39 |
CPU Composite |
4.92 |
5.11 |
3.39 |
4.87 |
4.50 |
4.18 |
Autodesk Render Test |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Time in seconds (lower is better) |
25.30 |
41.88 |
47.33 |
50.83 |
42.33 |
64.08 |
SPECwpc v2.0 (higher is better) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Media and Entertainment |
3.84 |
3.52 |
3.67 |
n/a |
n/a |
n/a |
Product Development |
3.38 |
3.06 |
3.89 |
n/a |
n/a |
n/a |
Life Sciences |
4.19 |
3.65 |
4.46 |
n/a |
n/a |
n/a |
Financial Services |
2.59 |
1.54 |
2.55 |
n/a |
n/a |
n/a |
Energy |
4.37 |
3.17 |
4.57 |
n/a |
n/a |
n/a |
General Operations |
1.78 |
1.99 |
1.47 |
n/a |
n/a |
n/a |
Numbers in blue indicate best recorded results.
Numbers in red indicate worst recorded results.
|