BOXX Technologies

BOXX TechnologiesType| Privately Owned

|

Industry| Computer systems
Founded| 1996
Headquarters|

Austin, Texas

USA

Key people

| Rick Krause, President and CEO
Products| Servers
Workstations
Laptops
Website| http://www.boxx.com

BOXX Technologies is a private supplier of high-performance computing and workstation-class hardware solutions for visual effects, CGI animation, film editing, broadcast, architecture, engineering, product design, deep learning, and other industries. Founded in Phoenix, Arizona in 1996 as Digital Emulsion, BOXX Technologies has been located in Austin, Texas since 1998.[1]

## Contents

* 1 Products
* 2 History
* 3 Reception
* 4 References
* 5 External links

## Products

BOXX computer systems are based on high-end commodity PC hardware. Configured systems rely on Intel microprocessors (Core i7, Xeon W, Xeon SP, Intel X-series, ) and AMD microprocessors (Ryzen, EPYC). Systems include either preinstalled various versions of Microsoft Windows or Linux. Graphics cards include either NVIDIA or AMD Radeon Pro GPUs. BOXX has provided computer hardware systems for VFX and animation studios, the broadcast television industry[2], major architecture and engineering firms, professional sports, universities, and a host of other organizations. BOXX customers include Disney, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, BMW Designworks, the Federal Aviation Administration, and the U.S. Air Force.[3]

Current BOXX products include the APEXX desktop workstation line,[4] GoBOXX mobile workstation laptops[5], renderPRO and renderBOXX dedicated rendering systems, and deep learning servers. BOXX systems are custom-configured for graphic design, VFX, 3D animation and CAD, modeling, digital compositing, simulation, image rendering, and artificial intelligence.[6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13]

An eight-GPU BOXX workstation powers the Millennium Falcon flight simulator at the Disneyland and Walt Disney World as part of their Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge attraction.[14]

Integration of only enterprise-class components, drives, and customized BIOS[15] differentiates BOXX products from commodity hardware manufacturers and the company is also known for employing system engineering concepts like expandability, CPU overclocking, and liquid cooling.[4]

Former BOXX products include the 3DBOXX 4100 series, 4900 series, and 8900 series. The company also produced a version of the NVIDIA Tesla Personal Supercomputer that utilized NVIDIA Tesla C1060 GPUs in 2008.[16]

## History

BOXX began primarily in media and entertainment, producing computer hardware solutions for VFX, animation, and motion media software applications. With the decline of Silicon Graphics in the 2000s, BOXX Technologies has positioned itself as the primary heir to the legacy to SGI as a supplier of high-end graphics workstations and servers.[17]. Incidentally, the company also made workstations sold under the SGI Virtu name from April 2008 until SGI declared bankruptcy for a final time in April 2009.[18]

The original flagship product of BOXX Technologies was the 3DBOXX line of workstations in 1998.[19] In June 2003, BOXX Technologies the first fully-assembled 64-bit x86 personal computer with its 3DBOXX M4 workstation. The M4 is based on Opteron 200-series processors[20] and was featured at SIGGRAPH 2003 in San Diego, California.[21] The M4 also debuted around the same time as Apple's Power Mac G5.[22]

Later on, the hardware manufacturer expanded to also develop products specific to architecture, engineering, and other markets which rely on professional 3D design applications. Multi-GPU workstations always represented a significant portion of BOXX business, but as the company continued to add broadcast networks and organizations focused on deep learning, BOXX acquired the hardware division of the former Cirrascale Corporation in 2017.[23] Cirrascale, a developer of multi-GPU servers and cloud solutions designed for deep learning infrastructure, enabled BOXX to add deep learning hardware to its line of multi-GPU systems. In 2016, BOXX Technologies was sold by private equity firm Capital Southwest Corp. to another private equity firm, Craftsman Capital Partners, who also owns Cirrascale Cloud Services, successor of Cirrascale Corporation.[24]

## Reception

BOXX has been recipients of numerous industry awards, including the Intel Marketing Excellence Partner of the Year Award in 2015[25] and NVIDIA Partner Network Professional Visualization Partner of the Year Award (Americas) in 2018.[26] In a 2011 online review by Tom's Hardware reviewing the 3DBOXX 4860 workstation in regards to overclocking, the reviewer observed that the system performed with "roughly [a] 200% performance increase seen" on various CPU-oriented benchmark tests. The Tom's Hardware reviewer concluded that the workstation "demonstrates what a single-processor workstation can do given today's processor technology landscape" and was, at the time, the fastest retail workstation they had tested.[3]

## References

1. ↑ "BOXX Technologies - BOXX Corporate Information". https://www.boxx.com/about/about-us.
2. ↑ "BOXX Introduces New Workstation Featuring Intel Xeon W-3300 Processor". TVNewsCheck. 2021-07-29. https://tvnewscheck.com/tech/article/boxx-introduces-new-workstation-featuring-intel-xeon-w-3300-processor/. Retrieved 2021-09-01.
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Carroll, Jon K. (2011-03-02). "Boxx Technologies 3DBOXX 4860 Workstation". Tom's Hardware. https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/boxx-technologies-4860-xtreme-vfx-workstation,2853.html. Retrieved 2021-09-01.
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Wheeler, Andrew (July 30, 2018). "A Choice Workstation: The APEXX SE Workstation from BOXX Is Overclocked and Liquid Cooled" (in en-US). https://www.engineering.com/Hardware/ArticleID/17270/A-Choice-Workstation-The-APEXX-SE-Workstation-from-BOXX-Is-Overclocked-and-Liquid-Cooled.aspx.
5. ↑ "New BOXX Mobile Workstations Feature 8th Gen Intel Processors | Animation Magazine" (in en-US). 8 August 2018. http://www.animationmagazine.net/tech-reviews/new-boxx-mobile-workstations-feature-8th-gen-intel-processors/.
6. ↑ "BOXX APEXX W5 Achieves Autodesk Flame" (in en-US). TenLinks News. 2018-08-16. http://www.tenlinks.com/news/boxx-apexx-w5-achieves-autodesk-flame/.
7. ↑ "BOXX Updates SOLIDWORKS Workstations" (in en-US). https://www.engineering.com/Hardware/ArticleID/16759/BOXX-Updates-SOLIDWORKS-Workstations.aspx.
8. ↑ "Mac vs PC: Should Mac Users Learn to Embrace Their Inner PC? - HOW" (in en-US). HOW Design. 2018-03-26. http://www.howdesign.com/web-design-resources-technology/interactive-tools-and-software/mac-vs-pc-embrace-inner-pc/.
9. ↑ "What's In the BOXX: First Look at the GoBOXX SLM Series" (in en-US). https://www.engineering.com/Hardware/ArticleID/17343/Whats-In-the-BOXX-First-Look-at-the-GoBOXX-SLM-Series.aspx.
10. ↑ "Incumbent Intel's answer to challenger AMD's dual Epyc workstation platform". https://www.jonpeddie.com/reviews/incumbent-intels-answer-to-challenger-amds-dual-epyc-workstation-platform.
11. ↑ "Workstation Sustains 5.0GHz Clock Across Six Cores - Digital Engineering" (in en-US). 27 June 2018. http://www.digitaleng.news/de/workstation-sustains-5-0ghz-clock-across-six-cores/.
12. ↑ BOXX Technologies. "New BOXX Mobile Workstations Feature 8th Generation Intel Processors and More". Globe Newswire (Press release). Retrieved 2018-08-22.
13. ↑ "Professional Documentarian Doesn't Let a Slow Processor Hold Him Back - Videomaker" (in en-US). Videomaker. 2018-07-20. https://www.videomaker.com/professional-documentarian-doesnt-let-a-slow-processor-hold-him-back/.
14. ↑ Matney, Lucas (March 29, 2018). "Disney's ultra-realistic Millennium Falcon flight simulator will need 8 GPUs to run" (in en-US). TechCrunch. https://techcrunch.com/2018/03/29/disneys-ultra-realistic-millennium-falcon-flight-simulator-will-need-8-gpus-to-run/.
15. ↑ Alba, Michael (2018-08-26). "What's in the BOXX? A Review of the APEXX S3 Workstation". Engineering.com. https://www.engineering.com/story/whats-in-the-boxx-a-review-of-the-apexx-s3-workstation. Retrieved 2021-09-01.
16. ↑ "NVIDIA Tesla Computing compatible workstations and servers". NVIDIA website. http://www.nvidia.com/object/tesla_compatible_platforms.html.
17. ↑ Glaskowsky, Peter (2009-04-03). "Boxx fills in for a failing SGI". CNET. https://www.cnet.com/news/boxx-fills-in-for-a-failing-sgi/. Retrieved 2021-09-01.
18. ↑ "Back to the Future: SGI Returns to Visualization". HPCwire (Press release). 2008-04-11. Retrieved 2008-09-29.
19. ↑ "Trademarks". Official Gazette of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office) 1255 (3): TM 864. 2002. 2002-02-19. https://books.google.com/books?id=eJBZCVO3D6EC&pg=PA860-IA4.
20. ↑ Kanellos, Michael (2003-06-03). "Boxx unveils Opteron workstations". ZDNet. https://www.zdnet.com/article/boxx-unveils-opteron-workstations/. Retrieved 2021-09-01.
21. ↑ "Siggraph 2003: San Diego". TechwareLabs. July 27-31, 2003. http://www.techwarelabs.com/articles/tradeshows/siggraph_2003/index_4.shtml. Retrieved 2021-09-01.
22. ↑ Tran, Michael; Lam, Harry (January 2006). "Deception By Numbers: Don't Be Misled by Market Research Numbers". HWM (Hardware Zone Pte Ltd): 71. https://books.google.com/books?id=DOsDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA71.
23. ↑ "About Cirrascale". https://cirrascale.com/about_cirrascale.php.
24. ↑ "Boxx Technologies bought by Dallas firm". Austin Business Journal (Press release). 2016-01-12. Retrieved 2021-09-01.
25. ↑ "BOXX Earns Intel Marketing Excellence Partner of the Year Award". IntradoGlobeNewswire (Press release). 2015-05-19. Retrieved 2021-09-01.
26. ↑ "BOXX Technologies Receives Americas 2018 NVIDIA Partner Network Professional Visualization Partner of the Year Award". IntradoGlobeNewswire (Press release). 2019-03-20. Retrieved 2021-09-01.

## External links

* Official website

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