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Technology Stocks : Silicon Graphics, Inc. (SGI)

SGI 93.75

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Dec 12 9:30 AM EST

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To: Jeff Maresh who wrote (1352)	5/9/1997 5:23:00 AM
From: Andrew Walton	of 14451

Jeff - Re: Octane Graphics > Did you try to figure out why Octane is using old graphics? My > understanding was that Octane was put together pretty rapidly. > Perhaps a "rush to market". Sounds like they are leaving the door > open for more attention down the road if they release a better > version (Octane 2?) in 6-9 months. What do you think? I don't think Octane was put together in a rush. Re-using the current generation of graphics makes a lot of sense from an engineering point of view. It reduces risk, can you imagine the difficulty of designing, building and debuging a completely new architecture and graphics system at the same time? To sort of answer the second part of your question, a little bit of history. The "Express" family of graphics, XS, XZ and Elan were introduced the original R3000 Indigo. During is life the Indigo recieved one major processor upgrade - the introduction of the R4000 (and later faster R4000) - but retained the same graphics hardware. The "Express" graphics were carried over into the Indigo2 in the form of XZ and Extreme as well as the R4000 CPU. The Indigo2 recieved a number of major processor upgrades R4400, R8000 and R10000 as well as number of clock increases (mostly on the R4400). The Indigo2 also received one major graphics upgrade - Impact. (I'll ignore the introduction of XL graphics and the XZ upgrade). The same pattern occurs at SGI's high-end. The original Reality engine graphics were introduced in the Crimson and Power-Series 4D-4X0 (an SMP R3000 system). The Power-Series was replaced with the Challenge, which takes a derivative (re-packaged version) of the Reailty Engine graphics - the original Onyx. The Onyx recieves a major graphics upgrade with the introduction of the Infinite Reality, and the Onyx/Challenge Range receives a number of CPU upgrades, R4400, R8000 and R10000. SGI's last product transition saw the introduction of Origin2000/Onyx2 which takes (a repackaged) Infinite Realty garphics system and the R10000 CPU from the previous Challenge/Onyx. And the Octane which takes (repackaged) Impact graphics and R10000 CPU from the Indigo2. I'm sure you can see the pattern here. You don't change everything at once - leading edge engineers know when to be conservative. And you design the system architecture so that major sub-systems can be upgrade throught out its life. Based upon historical precedent you could make some general predictions about Octanes, Onyx2 and Origins futures. Of course you'd be guessing the details and the timescales. Regards Andrew Walton

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