I had the opportunity to spend last Thursday at BOXX Technologies headquarters in Austin, TX. BOXX builds professional-grade workstations and rendering systems which also happen to be great hardware platforms for 3ds Max, Maya, Revit, and other Autodesk applications. Unlike many other hardware manufacturers, BOXX is also a major reseller of most Autodesk apps, and almost one third of all BOXX workstations are quoted for 3ds Max workflows. During AU2010, I had the good fortune to demonstrate a 3DBOXX 8550 XTREME workstation, and having long admired BOXX creativity and innovation, I eagerly accepted Shoaib Mohammad’s (BOXX VP of Marketing and Business Development) invitation to visit the company, conduct some sales and support training, and test drive some upcoming products.

After a round of presentations for the BOXX top brass and sales crew, I sat down with founder and VP of Engineering Tim Lawrence and demonstrated some 3ds Max projects on the 8550 XTREME—the one BOXX refers to as “the fastest workstation in the world.” It was hard to argue against that. The top of the BOXX line, XTREME features dual Intel Xeon processors (12 cores) running at 4.3 GHz, and four GPUs, provides outstanding performance for 3ds Max, as well as some incredibly fast rendering using iray. Sitting directly on top of the XTREME was the compact BOXX renderPRO (PRO stands for Personal Rendering Option) which is designed to provide dedicated rendering at the user’s desk side. It did just that, quickly and effectively rendering images (in this instance) using mental ray.

I wrapped up my time in BOXXlabs by taking a turn on the innovative 3DBOXX 8500R, a remote access system featuring PCoIP technology by Teradici. The speed and interactivity of the 8500R was truly amazing—impossible to tell that I wasn’t using a desktop workstation. We also discussed some new product ideas (and future prototype hardware) and it was clearly evident that BOXX takes their role as a solution provider very seriously. Their expertise and knowledge of hardware, software, and workflows, was instantly apparent. In fact, all the people at BOXX, where the machines are designed, built, shipped, and supported, are passionate about high performance, and are clearly committed to remaining on the leading edge of innovation.