From: bam@rudedog.asd.sgi.com (Brian McClendon)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
Subject: Re: Inquiry on new high-end products from SGI
Date: 28 Jan 1993 04:58:59 GMT
Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc., Mountain View, CA
Distribution: usa
NNTP-Posting-Host: rudedog.asd.sgi.com

In article <1993Jan27.220625.21737@nas.nasa.gov> dbailey@wk49.nas.nasa.gov (David H. Bailey) writes:
>Today in the San Jose Mercury News was an article about some new
>products from SGI.  Included was mention of some high-end
>"supercomputer" products, including one that is to sell for nearly $1
>million.  Could someone post either the "official" news release from
>SGI or otherwise give the details (number of processors, individual
>processor characteristics, memory, peak and sustained performance,
>etc.)?
>

I'm sure others will post the press releases and so forth, but I'd
like to highlight the features that (IMHO) make each of the products
interesting.  Some of this is from memory, so for final numbers,
wait for the data sheets from your salescritter (hedge, hedge :-).

Indigo^2 Extreme
	new chassis: EISA slots, GIO-64 bus (266Mb/sec), more audio, 
			upgradeable CPU: currently available in
			100 Mhz R4000 (same as Indigo), and 150Mhz
			R4400 in CYQ3. Fast SCSI-2. different color :-).
	new Extreme graphics: basically 2x the Elan geometry performance
			I think 630k tmesh/sec is what we quote.

	XZ graphics - 2x of the XS/XS24 performance.  I believe this
			will be available in both Indigo and Indigo^2.

Challenge Server ("M"):
	The Indigo^2 CPU/chassis in a server configuration

new MP machines:

	They share the same bus, same IO, and same memory boards.
	The backplane varies in what qty of each can be installed,
	and some backplanes have no slots for graphics.  The chassis
	are either deskside, rack w/gfx, and rack w/o gfx.

	Up to 9 processor boards:
		100Mhz R4400 this quarter
		150Mhz R4400 in CYQ2/CYQ3
		upgradeable beyond that.
		4 processors per board ==> 36 processors max.

	up to 16 GB of memory using multiple boards
		(1,2,4, or 8way interleave)
	
	up to 4 IO boards
		320 Mbyte/sec I/O bus each
		up to 8 device slots/board
		up to 32 SCSI-2 (fast 'n wide) channels
		20Mbytes/sec/SCSI-2 channel
		VME64: 50Mb/sec, up to 5 buses, 24 slots

	the backplane bus bandwidth is 1.2Gbytes/sec
		40 bit wide physical address


The Products:
	Challenge Servers (desk side ("L") & rack ("XL"))
		support up 9 processor boards (36 R4400s)
		Don't have a graphics bus

	Onyx rack
		support up 6 processor boards (24 R4400s)
		up to 3 graphics heads
		either VTX or RealityEngine^2 graphics

	Onyx deskside
		1 processor board (up to 4 R4400s)
		1 graphics head
		either VTX or RealityEngine^2 graphics
		2 100Mhz R4400 processor, 64Mb, 2G, VTX: $114,900
		2 100Mhz R4400 processor, 64Mb, 2G, RealityEngine^2: $155,000(?)


	RealityEngine^2 graphics
		similar to RealityEngine, but with 12 instead of
		8 GeometryEngine processors (i860XP).  For most
		geometry, ~50% faster than existing Crimson RealityEngine.

		Supports up to four Raster Managers.

		Because of the increased host bus bandwidth, pixel 
		operations and texture loading will increase
		significantly.
	
			~1.5M tmeshes/sec flat
			~900k tmeshes/sec textured && AA
			~20Mpix/sec 32bit lrectwrite
			~25Mpix/sec 32bit lrectread

	VTX graphics
		similar to RealityEngine, but with 6 instead of
		8 GeometryEngine processors (i860XP).  Can only
		support 1 Raster Manager, so multi-sample AA
		available at reduced screen resolution (960x680).

			~1.0M tmeshes/sec flat
			~450k tmeshes/sec textured && AA
			>15Mpix/sec 32bit lrectwrite
			>15Mpix/sec 32bit lrectread
			


Also announced was the Power Challenge Server.  The only difference
(but its a _big_ one) is that it supports up to 18 TFP processors (2 per
board).

	The TFP processor is a MIPS compatible CPU with very hot floating
	point performance.  It will be available in CYQ1 of 1994 but
	was announced now to give supercomputer purchasers the lead
	time to actually order one and to make it clear that the 
	Challenge series will be upgradeable in multiple directions.
	The quoted performance is 300 MFLOPS _peak_ per processor  for
	a total performance peak of 5.4GFLOPS for a fully decked
	18 processor server.
-- 
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 - If it doesn't have graphics, it's a Challenge. If it does, it's a Mirage.
 Brian McClendon                  bam@sgi.com                  415-390-1110
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Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi