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Producer and influencer Jeff Gerling describes his recent release Thelio Astra From System76 as “the world’s fastest Arm desktop computer.” Geerling backed up his assertion by testing the system in various applications. In Cinebench 2024, it scored more than 5,000 points, a world record for a 120-core chip, according to the HWBot database. The System76 Thelio Astra sells starting at $3,299, but the price rises to nearly $25,000 for the top-spec model.
The Thelio Astra is by no means low-end in its default $3,200 configuration. So, you’ll still get a made-in-the-USA system with a 64-core CPU, 64GB of RAM, an Nvidia workstation GPU, and plenty of expansion options in an attractive tower case. However, the powerful Geerling-spec system tested in the video above pushes the envelope with 128 cores. Other max M128-30 CPU, 512GB octa-channel RAM, 1TB storage (max 40TB configuration), relatively low-cost Nvidia RTX A400 workstation graphics card (buyers can choose 48GB Nvidia RTX 6000 available maximum configuration), and a dual 25GbE NIC. This particular configuration costs just under $7,000.
Geerling has a lot of praise for the Thelio Astra. In a series of tests, he saw the System76 outperform “all other ARM computers by a wide margin.” Some of the details he highlighted were the 1.7 TFLOPS for the system’s FP64 calculation, performance in Blender, and excellent multi-threaded results in the aforementioned Cinebench 2024 (this app is in Windows). Read more about A wide range of tests On Geerling’s GitHub for the Thelio Astra Workstation.
System76 accidentally built the fastest Windows Arm PC – YouTube
Looking at Cinebench 2024’s performance for the 128-core system (on Windows), Girling commented that the last time he tested it, the app only supported 64 cores. Thus, he was happy with Maxon’s bug fixes, the Arm port, and the multi-core benchmark score of 5003. Checking out HWBot, the current certified world record holder for 128 cores (AMD EPYC 7713) Cinebench 2024 scored 4723 points. However, to be clear, more modern AMD CPUs with fewer cores can achieve scores in excess of 6,000 points. The Ampere CPU’s MP ratio was also pleasantly high at 98X.
However, using Windows on this system with an Nvidia GPU is not a great idea, as Nvidia does not yet provide a driver for Windows on Arm. Running any applications hoping to benefit from RTX acceleration may frustrate you. System76 ships the Thelio Astra workstation with Linux, of course, without any such problem.
In the video, you can also see some of the testing Gerling ran after upgrading his low-end Nvidia RTX A400 workstation graphics card (4GB) with Nvidia RTX A4000 (16 GB) of PNY and AMD Radeon Pro W7700 Card (16 GB).
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We mentioned the drawbacks of Windows on Arm, but Geerling highlighted other issues with the excellent System76 Thelio Astra. For example, this powerful system is still limited to using PCIe 4.0 and DDR4. The Altra Max’s single-core performance (3.0GHz) isn’t stellar either – just above the old one Threadripper 1950X (2017) in Cinebench 2024. On the mechanical side, Gerling was also disappointed by the rattling of the PCI brackets – on such a quiet and efficient system. I/O With the exception of Ethernet, I/O seemed somewhat limited as well, with no front I/O at all – making for a clean but inconvenient system.
The Thelio Astra workstation will star in more Geerling videos to come. The following device may feature system filling RTX 4080 Super (16GB) to provide more gaming testing fun. Interestingly, enthusiasts are commenting that this device will also support GeForce RTX 5090– Maybe this announcement should have waited until next week.
Remember, this tower PC isn’t aimed at enthusiasts and gamers, although there’s plenty of potential in these tests. Instead, System76 offers the device to automotive software developers, with its processing power ideal for “rapid development prototyping.”
