Shooting, it says, to become a billion dollar company by the end of its fiscal year in June, Silicon Graphics Inc has unveiled a raft of new hardware and software products which expand its current ranges upwards. As expected (CI Nos 2,032, 2,093), the announcement includes two lines of high-end, symmetric multiprocessing server systems, a graphics subsystem, beefed-up Indigo workstations and a Unix System V.4-compliant version of its Irix operating system. Still positioned as a technical, rather than a commercial Unix supplier – and with its sights set firmly on the Cray Y-MP and Convex Computer Corp user community – the Mountain View, California company has introduced Challenge and Power Challenge server systems, claiming Cray-equivalent performance at a tenth of the price. The Power Challenge series uses the high-end TFP variant of MIPS Technologies Inc’s R4000 RISC – MIPS began development of the part in conjunction with Silicon Graphics before it was acquired by the latter – which is optimised for floating point performance. Silicon Graphics claims that the superpipelined, superscalar 64-bit TFP can execute six instructions per cycle and delivers 300 MFLOPS. It comes as two-chip CPU board plus cache and connects to a 1.2Gbps system bus. The deskside Power Challenge L comes with up to six TFPs and is rated at up to 1.8 GFLOPS, while the rack-mounted Power Challenge XL delivers 5.4 GFLOPS with up to 18 CPUs. Each comes with from 64Mb to 2Gb RAM (16Gb by year-end), from 1.2Gb to one Terabyte disk, up to four Terabytes of RAID, Ethernet, four serial and two parallel ports, two SCSI II channels and a VME slot. Deskside systems start at UKP114,000, rackmounts from UKP160,000: a top-end configuration comes in at around UKP1,000,000, the company says.

Second Challenge series

A second Challenge series of systems – what the firm calls its network resource servers – is expected to compete with more traditional Unix suppliers like Sun Microsystems Inc and Hewlett-Packard Co. The machines use MIPS’ 150MHz R4400 CPU – a four-CPU chip set plus cache. The Challenge L, a deskside machine with up to 12 CPUs, is rated at 1,500 MIPS. It comes with from 64MB RAM and up to 6Gb disk, two SCSI II channels, Ethernet, five VME slots, one parallel and six serial ports. It starts at UKP68,300 as a two-CPU box with 64Mb RAM and 1.2Gb disk. The Challenge XL, a rack-mounted system, is configured with up to 36 R4400s processors, delivers up to 4,000 MIPS, comes with from 128Mb to 2Gb RAM (16Gb from year-end), up to one Tb of disk, 4Tb of RAID, and includes the same communications options as the deskside systems. With two CPUs, 128Mb RAM and 1.2Gb disk it is priced at from UKP127,900. The R4400 Challenge systems can also be configured with a new graphics engine, Onyx, which comprises up to three RealityEngine2 or VTX graphics subsystems. Like Challenge, these are built around the MIPS R4400 and come with up to 12 and six CPUs respectively. RealityEngine2 is an enhanced version of Silicon Graphics’ existing RealityEngine subsystem – VTX is aimed at users that need supercomputing performance but less graphics power. A two-processor Onyx subsystem costs from $114,900 – with two RealityEngine2s it is priced from $643,900. For systems administration purposes, all new servers are supplied with a visualisation console, which is included with the firm’s workstation graphics environment and the Legato Systems Inc and Veritas Software Corp file management software that it offers. The servers run Irix 5.0, Silicon Graphics’s implementation of Unix System V.4. It uses the company’s own file system and supports symmetric multiprocessing and multi-threading now, but will not support full 64-bit addressing until the beginning of next year. Optimised database packages and a transaction processing monitor are promised for the systems – new relationships with the various suppliers are under negotiation. Not content with launching the new servers, Silicon Graphics has also expanded its Indigo product lines with new mid-range and high-end workstations. A top-end Ind

igo2 Extreme uses a 100MHz R4000, comes with from 32Mb RAM, 1.2Gb disk, a 19 colour screen, Indigo Magic – a set of software development tools for audio, visual and three-dimensional modelling – and supports the EISA bus. It costs from $35,000, and a 150MHz R4400 upgrade board will be available from the third quarter priced at $6,000. The mid-range Indigo XZ uses a 100MHz R4000 and replaces the Indigo XS24Z. With from 16Mb RAM, 432Mb disk and 19 colour screen it is priced from $23,000. The company hinted that a sub-UKP5,0000 workstation package will be its next offering. – William Fellows