Claiming 350 PowerParallels installed, 120 at commercial sites, IBM Corp enhanced the SP2 version a new Thin Node 2 processor claimed to enhance floating point performance at a lower price, performing numerically-intensive tasks up to 40% better than the previous processor in the SP2. It also cut the price on the entry-level SP2, improving price-performance by 10% so that the Thin Node entry price is $138,000, and added higher availability software for critical commercial applications. It added the RS/6000 Model 3CT with 67MHz Power2 microprocessor, claiming it to be the fastest workstation offered at under $40,000. It comes with 64Mb and 1Gb disk. The same chip goes into the RS/6000 Model 39H, the new top-end server, 25% more powerful than the previous top end. The new compact Xstation 160 is the first IBM product to incorporate a PowerPC 603 microprocessor; it uses a 66MHz part and costs $4,950.
