Sun Microsystems Inc has launched new VX and MVX visualisation accelerators for its deskside workstations to create Sparcstation VX and MVX models. The new Sparcstation VX models contain the single-board VX accelerator, which is claimed to deliver 40 MIPS and 60 peak MFLOPS in double precision – twice the performance and with twice the memory of Sun’s TAAC-1 accelerator, but cheaper. A multi-processor MVX board can be added to VX models to increase performance to 160 MIPS and 240 peak MFLOPS. SunVision visualisation software, which will be shipped this month, and XGL, Sun’s two- and three-dimensional graphics software library, are bundled with the VX. The VX includes a 32-bit proces sor, program memory and two acceler ated frame buffers a 16Mb 32-bit frame buffer for image display and an 8-bit GX frame buffer for display of Sun’s OpenWindows environment, all on a single board. The VX inte grates output of the two frame buff ers for display on a single 1,280 by 1,024 pixel 21 monitor. The MVX consists of four 32-bit processors, each with 4Mb memory; each transfers data over a block transfer bus at 320 Mbytes-per-second. The Sparc station 330VX is $55,900, the Sparc station 470VX $86,900 and the VX will also be available as a board for deskside Sparcstations and high- end Sparcservers at $24,000. The MVX can be added to a VX workstation for $30,000; ships start March 1991.
