Digital Equipment Corp will launch the ‘StrongArm’ shrink of its 21164 Alpha RISC, plus Digital Unix V4 and a new PowerStorm graphics adaptor in a refresh of its AlphaStation workstation line on Monday, Unigram reports. The long-promised chip – which would have been called the 21164a before that tag was dropped – is in the company’s 0.35 micron EV56 process – a shrink of the EV5 21164 – and should dissipate 20W at 2.2V from some 9.66m transistors. A 400MHz part implemented in a new AlphaStation 500/400 is pegged at 11 SPECint95 and 14 SPECfp95. The 500/400 will ship in June, though it’s not clear what support chips will be used, as the Kodiak six-chip set was recently killed and plans for Alcor derivatives are hazy. The 500 series replaces the existing 250 desktop family, coming below the high-end 600 line. It’s targeted at electronic design automation, geographic information systems, scientific work and software developers. Other new models in the series include the 500/333 and 500/266, using 333MHz and 266MHz EV5 21164s respectively. Each of the 256- bit memory bus models include up to 8.5Gb disk, four PCI slots, 21 screen, Digital Unix V4 and the new PowerStorm 3D30 PCI-based workstation graphics board. The 333MHz model is from $25,800 and is rated at 8.8 SPECint95 and 11.6 SPECfp95. The 266MHz box delivers 7.29 SPECint95 and 10.5 SPECfp95 and is $20,800. NT versions will ship with 32Mb RAM, 2Mb L2 cache, 1Gb disk, 17 screen and PowerStorm 3D30 graphics. The 500/333 with NT is priced from $15,800. DEC puts the 500/333 up against Sun Microsystems Inc’s UltraSparc 170E and Hewlett-Packard Co’s two- way 120MHz J210 7200s which delivers 10.1 SPECfp95 and 7.6 SPECint95. The entry-level AlphaStation 255 line comes in for the existing 200 models. The two 21064a (128-bit memory bus) Alpha boxes come with 32Mb RAM, 1Gb disk, two PCI and one AT slots, up to 6.4Gb disk, PowerStorm 3D30 graphics, 17 screen and Digital Unix. The 300MHz Model 255/300 delivers 4.51 SPECint95 and 5.71 SPECfp95, the 255/233 performs 3.8 SPECint95 and 5.09 SPECfp95. The 255/233 is $8,500; the 255/300 is from $13,000. Windows NT versions start at $7,500. The new AlphaStations bring in a new naming convention that is guaranteed to confuse us all, doing away with any way of identifying what generation of the chip the things house, such as the 100MHz 21064-based 200 4/100.
