Octane and Octane2 are two-way multiprocessing-capable workstations, originally based on the MIPS Technologies R10000 microprocessor.

It is a series of Intel-based deskside systems, as a Xeon-based workstation with one or two 3U EATX trays, or as cluster servers with 10 system trays configured with up to 10 Twin Blade nodes or 20 Intel Atom Mini-ITX nodes.

The Octane's system board is designated as IP30, based on SGI's Xtalk architecture.

Xtalk does not use a system bus, but a Crossbow application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC), referred to as Xbow, a dynamic crossbar switch that connects the XIO ports to the hub.

One of the ports is used for the processor and memory subsystem, one is available for PCI-X expansion, and four are XIO slots (packet-based high-bandwidth bus, somewhat similar to HyperTransport).

The Octane uses ARCS boot firmware, like all contemporary SGI computer systems.

The Octane supports 64 MB to 8 GB of system memory, using up to eight proprietary 200-pin DIMMs.

The memory subsystem has vast reserves of bandwidth that can be directly served by the Xbow router to any XIO card.

Graphics on the Octane are provided by a series of cards: SI, SI+T, SSI, MXI.

The boards were accelerated and reengineered with faster geometry engine and texture modules to create their new versions: SE, SE+T, SSE, MXE.

Later Octanes and Octane2's support the SGI VPro graphics board series, designated 'ODYSSEY'.

The VPro graphics subsystem consists of an SGI proprietary chip set and associated software.