SGI bolsters 3-D workstation line

Silicon Graphics of Mountain View, CA, last week beefed up itsworkstation line with new products designed to beat back incursionsby other vendors into the 3-D image processing segment, whichSGI has dominated. The machines are based on new 64-bit CPUs andrange from high-end supercomputers to entry-level workstations.

On the high end, SGI rolled out the Onyx InfiniteReality supercomputer,which the company claims is the fastest graphics system in theworld. It uses the new RISC-based R10000 processor, which hasa peak performance of over 9 gigaflops, twice that of Onyx supercomputersbased on the previous R4400 processor. List prices start at $208,000for a dual-processor machine based on the R10000 chip.

For customers interested in more economical platforms, SGIintroduced several new workstations at lower price points. Theyinclude Indigo2 Solid Impact for 3-D solid modeling, Indy R5000,an entry-level desktop graphics workstation and Indigo2 Impact10000.