| It was a Super Tuesday in November for Unix
workstations as three arch rivals — Sun Microsystems,
Hewlett-Packard's workstation systems group, and
DEC — unveiled several systems built around new high-power
CPUs. Sun staked a claim in the low-end workstation turf
by unveiling workstations based on the low-priced RISC
microSparc microprocessor. HP's workstation systems group
based in Chelmsford, Massachusetts, took jabs at DEC, IBM,
Silicon Graphics, and Sun with systems based on the
single-chip Precision 7100 processor. In addition, DEC
introduced the first of its Alpha AXP workstations based
on 64-bit RISC technology. Only Sun's Sparcclassic and Sparcstation LX and DEC's Alpha AXP workstations running Open VMS AXP were shipping in volume as of last December. The other workstations are slated to ship in the first quarter of this year. DEC also plans to release this spring what William Demmer, vice president of Alpha and VAX systems, describes as "the world's fastest Windows machine." DEC officials said the system will run Windows NT and will be priced competitively with Intel 486 machines. Low Sun on the Horizon Sun's two SPARC-compatible workstations and a server cost about the same as high-end 486-based PCs but offer superior performance. All three Sun machines use the new RISC-based microSparc processor (for more details on the microSparc, see "Coming Soon: Sparc Workstations at PC Prices," December 1992 BYTE, page 30). At $4295, the Sparcclassic is (for now, at least) the lowest-priced color workstation available. In quantities of 12, it costs even less: $3995. The Sparcclassic is not a bare-bones system. It includes 16 MB of RAM (expandable to 96 MB), a 207-MB hard drive, a 15-inch color monitor, a full array of I/O interfaces, and Sun's Solaris 2.1 and the Open Look GUI. Until Pentium-based machines become available, the Sparcclassic should be capable of outrunning the fastest PCs. Sun says a final production version of the 50-MHz microSparc executes 59 MIPS. A 66-MHz 486DX2 delivers about 54 MIPS. While the microSparc costs only $179 in production quantities, the fastest 486DX chips cost more than $500. Sun hints that faster versions of the microSparc are on the way. Sun's other microSparc workstation is the Sparcstation LX, billed as the lowest-priced ($7995) accelerated graphics computer on the market. The $5295 Sparcclassic server is similar to the Sparcclassic, but the server comes with a 1-GB hard drive. HP Spreads Out All the new HP systems are based on the company's Precision 7100 processor, which Robert Weinberger, manager of product marketing at HP's workstation systems group, said is "the first implementation of PA-RISC that is fully superscalar, capable of dispatching and executing two instructions per cycle." The 7100 includes an integrated FPU. At the high end, HP introduced the Model 735 (starts at $34,795) and the Model 755 (starts at $58,995) workstations. Both systems run on the 99-MHz 7100 processor and run HP-UX 9.0. Graphics options range from eight-plane gray-scale (GRX) to 24-plane accelerated, double-buffered color (CRX-48Z). At the low end (prices start at $4995; prices for color versions start at $5695), HP announced the Model 715, which uses a 33-MHz version of the 7100; a 50-MHz version is also available ($11,895). HP also announced its desktop Model 725, which runs at 50 MHz and can function as a server due to four EISA slots ($17,895). HP says that, except for the CRX-48Z, all its graphics options will be available up and down the new workstation line so that it can compete head-on with Silicon Graphics. A New Start for DEC DEC officials pulled no punches in reiterating that the Alpha rollout was more than a new product announcement. DEC announced two Alpha AXP-based workstations and five servers that will run Open VMS AXP and, when available, DEC's 64-bit OSF/1 for Alpha AXP and Micro-soft's Windows NT operating systems. All systems are based on the DECchip 21064 processor. DEC is working to protect its existing customer base by providing native compilers and binary translators for moving Open VMS VAX applications to the Open VMS AXP 1.0 operating system. As applications areas such as multimedia, imaging, and virtual reality move forward, 64-bit addressing will help those applications reach their potential, said Demmer. DEC promises that the 64-bit OSF/1 for Alpha AXP will run applications written to popular Unix variants such as System V, OSF, and Berkeley derivatives. Heading up the Alpha AXP lineup is the DEC 3000 Model 400 AXP at $14,995. The DEC 3000 Model 500 AXP workstation ($38,995) runs on a 150-MHz processor. On the server side, DEC announced the 133-MHz DEC 3000 Model 400S AXP system ($18,995) and the 150-MHz DEC 3000 Model 500S AXP ($41,195) deskside system. The DEC 4000 Models 610 and 620 AXP distributed/departmental systems are available in single- and dual-processor symmetric multiprocessing configurations. Dual 160-MHz processor configurations provide 247 SPECthruput89 performance, DEC says. Single-processor DEC 4000 systems start at $77,000. The DEC 7000 data center is available with up to six 182-MHz processors. Although system performance is important (see the figure), the success of DEC, HP, and Sun will not be determined solely on the basis of MIPS and SPECmarks. To substantially increase their sales, the companies will have to market their systems as not only fast but also supported by a wide range of applications. Graph: TALE OF THE INDUSTRY TAPE: SPECmark89 measures CPU-intensive, single-stream performance. SPECint92 and SPECfp92 measure CPU and FPU performance, respectively. MIPS ratings are based on the Dhrystone 1.1 benchmark. Higher numbers are better. Copyright 1994-1997 BYTE |