Review: Comino Grando workstation RM

Posted on February 9, 2025 at February 9, 2025 by Greg Corke

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This desktop behemoth blurs the boundaries between workstation and server and, with an innovative liquid cooling system, delivers performance like no other, writes Greg Corke

Firing up a Comino Grando feels more like prepping for take-off than powering on a typical desktop workstation. Pressing both front buttons activates the bespoke liquid cooling system, which then runs a series of checks, before booting into Windows or Linux.

The cooling system is an impressive feat of precision engineering. Comino manufactures its own high-performance water blocks out of copper and stainless steel. And these are not just for the CPU. Unlike most liquid cooled workstations, the Comino Grando takes care of the GPUs and motherboard VRMs as well. It’s only the system memory, and storage that are cooled by air in the traditional way.

This article is part of AEC Magazine’s 2025 Workstation Special report

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Not surprisingly, this workstation is all about ultimate performance. This is exemplified by the 96-core AMD Threadripper Pro 7995WX processor, which Comino pushes to the extreme. While most air-cooled Threadripper Pro workstations keep the processor at its stock 350W, Comino cranks it up to an astonishing 900W+, with the CPU settling around 800W during sustained multi-core workloads. That’s a lot of electricity to burn.

The result, however, is truly astonishing all-core frequencies. During rendering in Chaos V-Ray, the 96-core chip initially hit an incredible 4.80 GHz, before landing on a still-impressive 4.50 GHz. Even some workstations with fewer cores struggle to maintain these all core speeds.

Not surprisingly, the test scores were off the chart. In the V-Ray 5.0 benchmark, it delivered an astonishing score of 145,785 — a massive 42% faster than an air-cooled Lenovo ThinkStation P8, with the same 96-core processor.

The machine also delivered outstanding results in our simulation benchmarks. Outside of dual Intel Xeon Platinum workstations — which Comino also offers — it’s hard to imagine anything else coming close to its performance.

As you might expect, running a machine like this generates some serious heat. Forget portable heaters — rendering genuinely became the best way to warm up my office on a chilly winter morning.

While the CPU delivers a significant performance boost, the liquid cooled GPUs run at standard speeds. Comino replaces the original air coolers with a slim water block, a complex process that’s explained well in this video.

This design allows each GPU to occupy just a single PCIe slot on the motherboard, compared to the two or three slots required by the same high-end GPU in a typical workstation. Normally, modifying a GPU like this would void the manufacturer’s warranty. However, Comino offers a full two years, covering the entire workstation, with the option to extend up to five.

Comino Grando workstation RM — The rear of the workstation, actually looks like the front

The machine can accommodate up to seven GPUs — though these are limited to mid-range models. For high-end professional GPUs, support is capped at four cards, although Comino offers a similar server with more power and noisier fans that can host more.

Options include the Nvidia RTX 6000 Ada Generation (48 GB), Nvidia L40S (48 GB), Nvidia H100 (80 GB), Nvidia A100 (80 GB), and AMD Radeon Pro W7900 (48 GB). Keen observers will notice many of these GPUs are designed for compute workloads, such as engineering simulation and AI. Most notably, a few are passively cooled, designed for datacentre servers, so are not available in traditional workstations.

For consumer GPUs, the system can handle up to two cards, such as the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 (24 GB) and AMD Radeon 7900 XTX (24 GB). Comino is also working on a solution for 2 x Nvidia H200 (141 GB) or 2 x Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 (32 GB).

Our test machine was equipped with a pair of Nvidia RTX 6000 Ada Generation GPUs. These absolutely ripped through our GPU rendering benchmarks, easily setting new records in tests that are multi-GPU aware. Compared to a single Nvidia RTX 6000 Ada GPU, V-Ray was around twice as fast. The gains in other apps were less dramatic, with an 83% uplift in Cinebench and 65% in KeyShot.

Liquid magic

Comino’s liquid cooling system is custom-built, featuring bespoke water blocks and a 450ml coolant reservoir with integrated pumps.

Coolant flows through high-quality flexible rubber tubing, passing from component to component before completing the loop via a large 360mm radiator located at the rear of the machine. Positioned alongside this radiator are three (yes, three) 1,000W SFX-L PSUs.

The system is cooled by a trio of Noctua 140mm 3,000 RPM fans, which drive airflow from front to back. Cleverly, the motherboard is housed in the front section of the chassis, ensuring the coldest air passes over the RAM and other aircooled components.

Users are given control over the fans. Using the buttons on the front of the machine, one can select from max performance, normal, silent, or super silent temperature profiles — each responding exactly how you’d expect in terms of acoustics.

All of our testing was conducted in ‘normal mode,’ where the noise level was consistent and acceptable. The ‘max performance’ mode, however, was much louder — better suited to a server room — and didn’t even show a significant performance boost. On the other hand, ‘super silent’ mode delivered an impressively quiet experience, with only a 3.5% drop in V-Ray rendering performance.

The front LED text display is where tech enthusiasts can geek out, cycling through metrics like flow rates, fan and pump RPM, and the temperatures of the air, coolant, and components. For a deeper dive, the Comino Monitoring System offers access to this data and more via a web browser.

Maintenance and upgrades

With such an advanced cooling system, the Comino Grando can feel a bit intimidating. Thankfully, end user maintenance is surprisingly straightforward.

Swapping out a GPU, while more intricate than on a standard desktop, isn’t as challenging as you might expect.

For upgrades, Comino can ship replacement GPUs pre-fitted with custom cooling blocks and rubber tubes. For our testing, Comino supplied a pair of AMD Radeon Pro W7900s. Despite their single slot design, these GPUs are deceptively heavy, weighing in at 1.9 kg each —significantly more than the 1.2 kg of a stock W7900 fitted with its standard cooler. It’s easy to see why a crossbar bracket is essential to keep these hefty GPUs securely in place.

Installing the GPU is straightforward: plug it into the PCIe slot, secure it with screws as usual, and then plumb in the cooling system. The twist-and-click Quick Disconnect Couplings (QDCs) make this process easy, with colour-coded blue and red connectors for cold and warm lines. Thanks to Comino’s no-spill design, the tubes come pre-filled with coolant, so there’s no need to add more after installation. (If you’re curious about the details, Comino provides a step-by-step guide in this video.

Naturally, coolant evaporates over time and will need occasional topping up. Comino recommends checking levels every three months, which is easy to do via the reservoir window on the front panel. A bottle of coolant is included in the box for convenience.

As for memory and storage, they’re air cooled, making their maintenance no different from a standard desktop workstation.

Our system was equipped with 256 GB of high-speed Kingston DDR5 6,400 MHz CL32 REG ECC memory, operating at 4,800 MT/s. All eight slots were fully populated with 32 GB modules, maximising the Threadripper Pro processor’s 8-channel memory architecture for peak performance. For workloads requiring massive datasets, the system can support up to an impressive 2 TB of memory.

The included SSD is a standard 2TB Gigabyte AORUS Gen4, occupying one of the four onboard M.2 slots. However, there’s plenty of scope for performance upgrades. One standout option is the HighPoint SSD7505 PCIe 4.0 x16 4-channel NVMe RAID controller, which can be configured with four 4TB PNY XLR8 CS3140 M.2 SSDs in RAID 0 for blisteringly fast read/write speeds.

Rack ‘em up

The Comino Grando blurs the boundaries between workstation and server. It’s versatile enough to fit neatly under a desk or mount in a 4U rack space (rack-mount kit included).

What’s more, with the Asus Pro WS WR X90 E – SAGE SE motherboard’s integrated BMC chip with IPMI (Intelligent Platform Managment Interface) for out-of-band management, the Comino Grando can be fully configured as a remote workstation.

However, you’ll need some serious muscle to lift it into the rack — it’s by far the heaviest workstation we’ve ever encountered. It will come as no surprise to learn that the system arrived on a wooden pallet.

The verdict

The Comino Grando is, without question, the fastest workstation we’ve ever tested, leaving air-cooled Threadripper Pro machines from major OEMs in its wake. The only close contender we’ve seen is the Armari Magnetar M64T7, equipped with a liquid-cooled 64-core AMD Ryzen Threadripper 7980X CPU (see our 2024 Workstation Special Report). We wonder how Armari’s 96- core equivalent would compare.

With support for datacentre GPUs, the Comino Grando can potentially transform workflows by giving simulation and AI specialists ready access to vast amounts of computational power on the desktop

While the Comino Grando’s multicore performance is remarkable, what truly sets it apart from others is that it can operate in near-silence. The sheer level of engineering that has gone into this system is extraordinary, with superb build quality and meticulous attention to detail.

Perhaps its most compelling feature, however, is its GPU flexibility. The Nvidia RTX 6000 Ada Generation is a staple for high-end workstations, but very few can handle four — a feat typically reserved for dual Xeons. What’s more, with support for datacentre GPUs, the Comino Grando can potentially transform workflows by giving simulation and AI specialists ready access to vast amounts of computational power on the desktop.

Of course, this level of performance doesn’t come cheap, but it can be seen as a smart investment in sectors like aerospace and automotive, where even the smallest optimisations really count.

Surprisingly, the Comino Grando isn’t significantly more expensive than an air-cooled equivalent. For instance, on dell.co.uk, a Dell Precision 7875 with similar specs currently costs just £1,700 less. However, two GPUs is the maximum and it would almost certainly come second in highly multi-threaded workloads.

Specifications

AMD Ryzen Threadripper Pro 7995WX processor (2.5 GHz, 5.1 GHz boost) (96-cores, 192 threads)
256 GB (8 x 32 GB) Kingston RDIMM DDR5 6400Mhz CL32 REG ECC memory
2TB Gigabyte Aorus M.2 NVMe 2280 (PCIe 4.0) SSD
Asus Pro WS WRX90E-SAGE motherboard
2 x Nvidia RTX 6000 Ada Gen GPU (48 GB)
Comino custom liquid cooling system
Comino Grando workstation chassis (439 x 681 x 177mm)
Microsoft Windows 11 Pro
2-year warranty (upgradable to up to 5 years with on-site support)
£31,515 (Ex VAT)