Workstations for cryoSPARC and RELION
cryoSPARC and RELION run on NVIDIA GPUs under Linux, and each GPU needs its own share of cores, memory and fast cache. We size these machines per GPU.
What matters for cryoSPARC and RELION
- NVIDIA GPUs with 16GB or more of memory
- About four CPU cores and 64GB of memory per GPU for cryoSPARC
- A dedicated SSD cache, 2TB or more per worker
- High CPU clock speeds for RELION
- Fast shared storage and 10Gbps networking for multi-GPU work
cryoSPARC runs on Linux with NVIDIA GPUs only. It needs at least 11GB of VRAM, and Patch Motion Correction can run out of memory on cards under 16GB, so we treat 16GB as the floor (cryoSPARC guide). It recommends four CPU cores and 64GB of memory per GPU, at least 100GB/s of memory bandwidth and a 2TB SSD cache per worker. It works almost entirely in single precision, and x8 and x16 slots perform similarly. RELION uses CUDA on NVIDIA and runs one follower MPI process per GPU, or two when VRAM is large enough (QMUL HPC docs). Double precision on the GPU slows RELION without improving resolution (RELION documentation), and PNY found that RELION benefits more from clock speed than core count, and from fewer larger GPUs than many smaller ones (PNY). So the range steps up from one NVIDIA RTX PRO 5000 48GB to two, then four and eight 96GB RTX PRO 6000 cards. Studio matches cryoSPARC’s own four-GPU example of 32 cores, 256GB and a 4TB cache, with extra memory headroom.
Recommended configurations
cryoSPARC and RELION – Standard
Electron · NVIDIA RTX PRO 5000 48GB
For a single artist or engineer
- CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D
- RAM: 128GB DDR5 6000 2x64GB
- PCIe slots (16x): Nvidia RTX Pro 5000 Blackwell 48GB
- NVMe Storage (Gen 5.0): Samsung 9100 Pro Gen 5 4TB
- NVMe Storage (Gen 5.0): Samsung 9100 Pro Gen 5 2TB
- Operating System: RBOS Rocky 9
£15,661.99 inc VAT
£13,051.66 ex VAT
Built to order · dispatched in 11 working days
cryoSPARC and RELION – Heavy
Atom · 2× NVIDIA RTX PRO 5000 48GB
For professionals and freelancers
- CPU: AMD Ryzen Threadripper 9960X 24 Core
- RAM: 4 × 64GB RDIMM ECC DDR5 6400
- PCIe slots (16x): 2 × Nvidia RTX Pro 5000 Blackwell 48GB
- NVMe M.2 Drives (Gen 5): 2 × Samsung 9100 Pro Gen 5 4TB
- Operating System: RBOS Rocky 9
£36,076.60 inc VAT
£30,063.85 ex VAT
Built to order · dispatched in 11 working days
cryoSPARC and RELION – Studio
Nano Pro · 4× NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Max-Q 96GB
For studios and small teams
- CPU: AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO 9975WX 32 Core
- RAM: 8 × 64GB RDIMM ECC DDR5 6400
- PCIe Options: 4 × Nvidia RTX Pro 6000 Blackwell Max-Q 96GB
- NVMe M.2 Drives (Gen 5): 2 × Samsung 9100 Pro Gen 5 4TB
- Operating System: RBOS Rocky 9
£103,343.64 inc VAT
£86,119.74 ex VAT
Built to order · dispatched in 12 working days
cryoSPARC and RELION – Team
Molecule Air · 8× NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Max-Q 96GB
For large teams and enterprise
- CPU: AMD EPYC 9375F 32 Core
- RAM: 24 × 32GB RDIMM ECC DDR5 6400
- PCIe slots: 8 × Nvidia RTX Pro 6000 Blackwell Max-Q 96GB
- Operating System: RBOS Rocky 9
£193,683.02 inc VAT
£161,402.52 ex VAT
Built to order · dispatched in 14 working days
Each recommended system is a starting point. Select Customise to add components or change the specification before you order.
Tell us what you need for cryoSPARC and RELION
Share your cryoSPARC and RELION versions, typical dataset and box sizes, your storage and network setup, and how many jobs you run at once. We will review the right configuration and confirm availability before you order.
Frequently asked questions
No. cryoSPARC is Linux only, with Ubuntu 22.04 and 24.04 and Rocky Linux 8, 9 and 10 recommended (cryoSPARC guide), and RELION targets Linux (RELION documentation). These machines ship with Rocky Linux 9.
cryoSPARC supports NVIDIA only (cryoSPARC guide). RELION has an AMD HIP build, but its example targets AMD Instinct data-centre cards (RELION documentation). We supply NVIDIA cards for both.
cryoSPARC needs at least 11GB, and Patch Motion Correction can run out of memory on cards under 16GB (cryoSPARC guide). RELION can run two MPI processes per GPU when VRAM is large enough, while low-memory cards may fail in that setup (QMUL HPC docs). Our configurations start at 32GB per card.
Some do. Patch Motion Correction, Patch CTF, 2D Classification and Extract can run across several GPUs, while Blob and Template Picker use one (NCCAT cryoSPARC tutorial). You can also run several jobs at once, one per GPU (cryoSPARC Discuss).
Standard suits one user processing on a single GPU. Heavy suits a small group, with two 48GB cards. Studio matches cryoSPARC’s four-GPU reference build with headroom. Team is for large labs with fast shared storage and 10Gbps or faster networking.
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