Cray, the advanced supercomputer maker, revealed its latest creation on Tuesday, which combines high productivity, with the latest technological achievements for competitiveness and survivability: Cray CX1 is the latest supercomputer for standard office environments and workflows, pre-installed with Windows HPC Server 2008.

The new product will be available for prices starting at $25,000, the most affordable offering yet from the supercomputer maker, and combines the two companies’ common goal to “drive high productivity into the mainstream,” covering everything from financial services to aerospace, automotive, petroleum, life sciences, government, academic and digital media.

Cray explained that the Cray CX1 supercomputer was designed to address the needs of small companies that could not afford to use HPC, unlike large companies that are HPC-addicts. Whether they could not afford it, or they did not have access to in-house experts to help them use the systems, small companies, as well as workgroups and departments in larger firms now have an accessible and affordable HPC system at their disposal.

“Windows HPC Server 2008, in combination with the Cray CX1 supercomputer, will provide outstanding sustained performance on applications,” explained Vince Mendillo, director HPC at Microsof, adding that “this combined solution will enable companies in various sectors to unify their Windows desktop and server workflows.”

According to an IDC report, HPC continued a record growth in the past five years, especially under $100,000 systems. The new combination of forces is likely to propel Cray CX1 on the HPC market, by addressing a larger number of users and markets. At the same time, the price, which will start at $25,000 and will go as high as $60,000, will prove to be one of its greatest assets, in addition to reliability and efficiency.

Cray CX1 is the first Cray product to incorporate Intel processors after the two companies announced their collaboration plans in April this year.

“Taking advantage of the energy-efficient performance of the Intel Xeon processor 5400 series, Cray CX1 system will bring many HPC capabilities to the office that were previously confined to the datacenter, enabling more users to employ supercomputing to help them solve some of their most difficult computational problems,” Richard Dracott, Intel General Manager of High Performance Computing, explained.

The Cray CX1 supercomputer incorporates up to 8 nodes and 16 Intel Xeon processors, dual or quad core; offers up to 64 gigabytes of memory per node and 4 terabytes of internal storage. In addition to that, the system allows configuration with a mix of compute, storage and visualization blades to meet customer demands, and interoperates with Linux.

The Laboratory of Neuro Imaging at UCLA will be among the users of Cray CX1, Cray revealed. The UCLA scientists explained they will use the HPC server-based system for mathematical modeling and visualization, which will support their development of advanced computational algorithms and scientific approaches for the comprehensive and quantitative mapping of brain structure and function.