As well as the 150MHz Alpha AXP machines designed to run Microsoft Corp’s Windows NT, Digital Equipment Corp has begun developing a new line of Alpha microprocessors addressed specifically at the personal computer market, according to US PC Week. The chip family will include a low-cost part that will offer an interface to Intel Corp’s high-speed Peripheral Component Interconnect local bus specification. The first EISA-based Alpha AXP personal computers, which include a minitower and a desktop, are expected to offer better price-performance than systems based on Intel’s Pentium processor – the superscalar Alpha executes 300 MIPS at 150MHz where Pentium is rated at over 100 MIPS. The paper reckons that a DEC AXP machine with 21064 CPU, a 512Kb secondary cache, six EISA slots, five drive bays and 16Mb to 128Mb memory will be $7,000 to $10,000. Entry-level Pentium machines, which could be used as servers, are expected to be under $6,000.
