Fujitsu’s Mini-Workstation Powerhouse

The Quadro K1200 has solid 3D performance, 4 GB of memory and four Mini DisplayPort outputs.

The Intel Skylake Xeon E3-1275 v5 CPU delivers around 20 percent faster performance than the previous generation. And the new platform supports 64 GB of main memory—twice the previous generation. The one-two punch of the new CPU and GPU technology delivers much of the extraordinary performance found in the CELSIUS J550.

The system ships with the 64-bit version of Windows 7 preinstalled as well as the installation DVDs for Windows 10. We installed Windows 10 and checked the performance and applications. Everything worked and performed as expected. 

The size limitations imposed on SFF workstation designs usually rule out a full-sized graphics card—not in the case of the CELSIUS J550. Fujitsu’s unique design allows for a full-height GPU in the system by plugging the graphics card into a riser board that positions the graphics card parallel to the motherboard. This design allows the SFF CELSIUS J550 to use larger, more powerful graphics than other SFF workstations.

Fujitsu took advantage of this design to build in special options. Customers often use these products in specialized industrial environments that require the ability to use legacy PCI boards. Fujitsu provides a special-order model of the J550 with a riser board containing a PCI slot next to the graphics card in the PCI Express slot.

Getting the Most from Your Workstation Means Having the Right Display System

Given the quad 4K monitor support on the Quadro K1200, it makes sense to test the workstation on a high-resolution display. The workstation was tested on Fujitsu's 4K-resolution monitor, the P27T-7 UHD. The image quality is solid, and the screen real estate ample. The monitor provides inputs for the Quadro's Mini DisplayPort as well as for HDMI. It functions in either landscape or portrait mode. The menu controls are clearly visible and easy to set up. The panel employs in-plane switching (IPS) with LED backlighting. IPS displays provide a wide viewing angle and high contrast, and this monitor is no exception. The P27T-7 UHD adds a picture-in-picture feature that can display images from a second input source, and it also supports HDMI with MHL input for connecting tablets and smartphones. Missing from the display are minor features including integrated speakers and USB hub capability.

The Made-in-Germany Advantage

This workstation has several benefits that make a difference. Perhaps being nestled in the land of Audi, BMW and Daimler-Benz has given the Augsburg team a penchant for design, quality and reliability. Whatever the reason, some points stand out.

Attention has been paid to ergonomics. Noise is important to everyone. German customers, particularly, are known to rank silent workstation operation as important. And therefore, it is not surprising that the CELSIUS J550 is exceptionally quiet while in operation.

I mentioned the unique design that uses the riser board. It strikes me as typical German engineering to decide that the nominal, incremental cost of the riser board is worth it in order to add features such as the full-height graphics card support and the support for legacy PCI boards. Of course, decisions such as this don't come out of thin air. During the Fujitsu Forum in Munich, I listened as customers asked about PCI support and then asked about even supporting two PCI boards! 

The system benefits from extensive testing and quality assurance, with certifications from the developers of professional applications (Independent Software Vendor certification, or ISV certification).

Due to the centralized location of Fujitsu R&D, development, manufacturing and logistics in Augsburg, the company offers interesting value-added services related to IT customization infrastructure and IT security. The add-on services are available for all the Fujitsu products as well as the CELSIUS workstations such as the J550.

Interactive 3D Performance

Performance depends on several factors: characteristics of the task at hand, the efficiency of the application, the performance of the workstation systems for computing, graphics, memory and storage. In the case of interactive 3D for modeling, analysis or visualization, a good performance result provides a responsive system. To evaluate responsiveness, I take progressively larger models and measure the interactive frames per second (FPS). I look at the workloads for key system components in order to identify reasons for performance limits.

I use Autodesk 3ds Max to verify FPS performance, and I use Autodesk Inventor for a second usability check. The former provided FPS data. The latter, unfortunately, does not. In both cases, I turn off display features such as adaptive degradation (AD), and I force a full display of the model. It is worth mentioning that features such as AD have outlived their purpose in the same way that default display settings do little more than provide users with a lower quality image. For most modern workstations, there is no performance penalty for using the highest quality display settings. 

The tests with a single baseline Ferrari CAD model delivers 125 FPS performance, which is far beyond interactive levels for engineering and design applications. The Xeon E3-1275 v5 CPU utilizes a single core, and the Quadro K1200 is barely stressed. As the model complexity increases by a factor of 30, 50 and 100, respectively, the FPS performance drops to 12, 9 and 4 FPS.

FPS values of 12 and 9 are still interactive. An FPS of 4 is marginally interactive depending on your expectations for working with a model of that size; however, the rest of 3ds Max was unresponsive, which made the system ineffective. 

Running Autodesk Inventor in comparison showed, without FPS information available, a similar responsiveness with the baseline Ferrari model. Unfortunately, Inventor never made it up to the 30x Ferrari model, as it was unacceptably slow at the very next step up in size with a 10x Ferrari model.

Test	FPS mean	GPU mean	CPU mean
3ds Max 1 Ferrari	125	30	47.5
3ds Max 10 Ferrari	12	27.5	100
3ds Max 50 Ferrari	9	27.5	90
3ds Max 100 Ferrari	4	47.5	90

In the performance tests above, I tested a second time with the highest antialiasing display quality and had the same FPS results. The only difference was a higher utilization of the GPU. At the higher quality settings, the GPU was never loaded to 100 percent—or even close to 100 percent. If you are not already using the highest display quality settings in your design application, then I recommend that you increase the image quality settings and verify this on your workstation.

SPECviewperf 12 is developed by the industry group SPEC.ORG, and it is designed to measure the performance of a graphics workstation. Below are the results for the CELSIUS J550.

Viewset	Composite	Window
catia-04	31.19	1900 x 1060
creo-01	29.66	1900 x 1060
energy-01	2.30	1900 x 1060
maya-04	27.80	1900 x 1060
medical-01	10.00	1900 x 1060
showcase-01	16.73	1900 x 1060
snx-02	25.39	1900 x 1060
sw-03	61.79	1900 x 1060

The 3D performance of the Quadro K1200 is quite good for interactive CAD and 3D modeling. In fact, it is close to its big brother, the Quadro K2200. Consider that the Quadro K1200 can drive four 4K displays from a single board and you see that your workstation has a powerful, versatile graphics solution.

 

A Final Perspective

This new SFF workstation is a powerful new platform in a small package. New graphics technology, new levels of supported system memory, denser and faster storage technologies and faster processing power converge in a unique Fujitsu design that delivers a leap in performance. The Fujitsu design team in Germany created quiet, ergonomic designs with extra features for industrial customers. With all of this in the CELSIUS J550 SFF workstation, it begs a question: How big does your next workstation need to be?

About the Author

Tom Lansford is an international marketing consultant and manages the sites Professional Workstation, CADplace France and CADplace UK. He has been living in Europe since 1992, and previously managed workstation marketing in Europe at NVIDIA. Lansford is a professional videographer and his interests include design visualization, simulation, graphics and GPU computing.