Nvidia has teamed with HPC specialist Supermicro UK to deliver two turnkey GRID-based solutions aimed at the growing VDI (Virtual Desktop Infrastructure) market with two different audiences in mind.
The more expensive model (RZ-1240i-NVK2, £6,299, or US$9,829) is powered by the more powerful Nvidia Grid K2 GPUs while the cheaper one (RZ-1240i-NVK1, £8,009, or US$12,489) is equipped with K1 GPUs.
The latter targets so-called knowledge workers and power users while the K2-based model focuses on designers and engineers.
Double power
A pair of K1 bring together 1,536 CUDA cores, 32GB of DDR3 memory and have a maximum power consumption of 260W, whereas two K2s total 6,144 CUDA cores, 16GB GDDR5 memory and consume up to a whopping 450W.
The GRID base unit in either case is a 1U chassis rackmountable server with two Intel 'Ivy bridge' E5-2680 V2 Eight Core Xeon 2.8Ghz processors, 256GB DDR3 Reg ECC DIMMS, a pair of Intel S3500 240GB SSD in RAID-1, an Intel i350 Dual Port GbE Controller and a 1.8KW redundant platinum rated PSU.
The offer, which is currently hosted on Nvidia's website, is limited to the first 50 business customers who qualify and represents a 50% saving off the recommended retail price.
Speedy response
Supermicro provides with a three year next business day response return-to-base warranty on parts and labour. Speaking about the new servers, Nvidia's Walter Mundt-Blum stated "Remote users involved in everything from product design to manufacturing to supply chain management can now enjoy the benefits of desktop and application virtualization with NVIDIA GRID technology."
VDI has become increasingly popular with the rise of near-ubiquitous wireless broadband, faster speeds thanks to the wider adoption of 4G, more powerful mobile devices (smartphones, tablets and laptops), higher display resolutions and a more positive approach towards BYOD within enterprises.
Other GRID server vendors include: Cisvo, HP, Dell and IBM whereas Nvidia counts Asus, Fujitsu, Tyan, Sugon and Inspur amongst its channel partners.
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