Digital Equipment Corp has fleshed out details of its third generation Alpha RISC microprocessor, describing a part that will supposedly achieve 30 SPECint95 and 50 SPECfp95, well ahead of Hewlett-Packard Co’s latest PA-8200 and more than doubling the performance of its Alpha existing 21164. The 15m transistor part will be formally announced next year and ship in systems by the end of 1997. DEC is vague on expected clock rates but didn’t argue with the suggestion that it would go from 500M Hz. DEC is also talking up prospects for the low-cost 21164PC implementation of its existing high-end Alpha it’s working on with Mitsubishi Electric Corp. The part will feature in high-performance, sub-$3,000 Windows NT systems that DEC hopes will lead a charge to the high-volume sales it needs so badly. DEC claims the units will shatter the price/performance structure of conventional PC/NT and Alpha systems. It will announce low-cost, high-performance Alpha-based NT boxes at next month’s Comdex/Fall show. 21164PC systems are supposed to ship by mid-1997. Following what much of the industry has, or is about to deliver, 21164PC is additionally the first Alpha processor to incorporate on-board multimedia extensions to the architecture. What DEC calls Motion Video Instructions will feature in every subsequent Alpha implementation. DEC claims 20 partners building Alpha-based NT systems.
