Support for Magama hardware for GPU-X?

[Butch007]

I don't know much about Cubix, but I do know Magma (http://www.magma.com) has pretty much the same and more hardware options within the same categories. I know that Magma has been building expansion units for about a decade, maybe longer so their business and offerings are solid. While I know that the GPU hardware will probably work with Magma hardware and with Octane out of the box at this point it would be nice to see an official relationship between Refractive and Magma to smooth over any potential driver pitfalls. Anyone know if there's any chance Refractive will partner up with other hardware manufacturers like Magma in the future?

[radiance]

Hi,

If the cards in those systems are CUDA capable it should work, however, we have good relations with our current partner and we would like to keep it that way.

Yours,
Radiance

[Storen]

The Magma products are way more expensive than the CUBIX version. I know B&H sells them:
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/buy/Cardb ... 4289361228

Cyclone Microsystems also offers similar products:
http://www.cyclone.com/products/expansi ... /index.php

I only wish the guys from CUBIX decide to offer a less expensive bare-bone alternative to their GPU-Xpander without power supply, fan and video card. For something like $600-700 maybe.

[EricNV]

I only wish the guys from CUBIX decide to offer a less expensive bare-bone alternative to their GPU-Xpander without power supply, fan and video card. For something like $600-700 maybe.

Without the power supply or fan, how are you going to power the unit?

I realize some of you guys are very hands-on with hardware, and prefer to build your own PC systems. However, there are alot of people out there who would prefer not to deal with hardware issues and just quickly add a device to their existing system. That's when GPU-Xpander / Xpander for OR becomes attractive to customers wanting to run either multi-GPUs or multi-GPUs PLUS other I/O controller cards (such as A/V capture, pro audio controllers, etc.,.) without replacing their current hardware.

As far as selling bare-bone systems with no video card, please keep in mind that once the product leaves the shipping docks, Cubix has to support these products world-wide via internet and telephone. If we ship the product with at least 1 graphics card that was tested overnight with the GPU-Xpander, then we have a baseline configuration which we know definitely works. Neither Cubix, nor any other vendor, has that comfort level when shipping a bare-bones system. This means that even if Magma sold a product capable of hosting 2 x GTX 470 / 480 cards (they do not have such a product), they can't provide the same level of post-sales service that Cubix can provide.

Cubix is a reputable company with a rock-solid, 35-year history of pioneering multi-PC systems (now known as "blade" computers or workstations). We were building 16-slot ISA expansion systems for servers before Magma or Cyclone were even thoughts in their founder's minds! (No offense to either company intended) You will not find a better manufacturer of power supplies in the world. Cubix has several patents on power supply designs alone, not to mention other components of its PC systems.

I think if you take a close look at the upgrade pricing, you will find that Cubix is not charging alot of money for either single card or dual graphics card configurations. In fact, it's just the opposite - Cubix can supply a fully-loaded Xpander for Octane Render with 2 x GTX 480 cards for half the price of the closest thing Magma has to offer in a bare-bones configuration!

EricNV