Out in Front: November 23, 1995

Designers developing 3-D applications or using software, such as thermal-analysis packages, that requires accelerated 3-D graphics can turn to new system offerings from Hewlett-Packard and Intergraph. H-P's new systems leverage the HP PA-7200 (PA-RISC) mP, and Intergraph has tapped the new Pentium Pro mP for its offerings. Both companies are targeting the Silicon Graphics Indy and Indigo desktop workstations with the new product families, and, therefore, both support OpenGL-based 3-D graphics applications.

Prices for Hewlett-Packard's Unix-based HP 9000 C-class workstation family start at $19,715. The units include the company's HP Visualize graphics technology. The systems yield performance benchmarks of 167 SPECint92, 269 SPECfp92, 4.41 SPECint-base95, and 7.45 SPECfp-base95. The company claims that the system offers 60% greater floating-point performance and 70% faster 3-D graphics than does Silicon Graphics' R4400-based, 250-MHz Indigo2. You can also upgrade the systems to the HP PA-8000 processor that the company claims can double system performance next year.

Intergraph's TDZ-300, -400, and -600 systems feature single, dual, and quad, 150-MHz Pentium Pro mPs, respectively, and run Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. A dual-processor TDZ-400 yields performance benchmarks of 215 SPECint92 and 220 SPECfp92 and graphics speed of 500,000 triangles/sec. The systems use Intergraph's GLZ graphics-accelerator technology and as much as 32 Mbytes of video RAM. The family is available now, and prices start at $10,000.
-- by Maury Wright

Hewlett-Packard Co, Chelmsford, MA. (800) 637-7740.

Intergraph Computer Systems, Huntsville, AL. (205) 730-2000.