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Technology Stocks : Silicon Graphics, Inc. (SGI) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Don Green who wrote (5185)	9/30/1998 10:46:00 AM
From: Alexis Cousein	Respond to of 14451

>"We are using standard workstation technology. Our > competitor Silicon Graphics uses comparatively high-end technology," Of course, what follows is my own personal opinion, not SGI's. First, for a non-technical summary, I think the weknesses of what they announce will probably show in the dearth of apps running well on that platform, in bleak contrast to the high number of mature apps on Onyx2; and HP's pricing claims are really bogus. The base mono-workstation, one pipe, multi-screen config is $260000. From what I read, it will probably be incapable of multisample anti-aliasing, shutting it off from most vis-sim markets, and a good portion of other RealityCentre (excuse the English spelling ;) ) markets. Multi-pipe versions will probably not be able to use multiple pipes in iR monster mode-like fashion because bandwidth between components is not enough to copy framebuffer content around -- important in e.g. the Oil&Gas markets where you use the different texture memories of different pipes for one image with a very large texture -- yet another market gone. It's missing an NCLOPS mode which lets several pipes render images to one single screen region in sequence (important for dome simulators et al). Its texturing capabilities and framebuffer/texture memory blit rate will probably not let you use textures to correct image geometry for dome projections well either. As far as features necessary for high-end gfx markets go, this looks a lot like PixelFlow -- and we know where that went ;). Well, at least this one didn't need too much investment... Onyx2 Reality starts at $72000 list, and InfiniteReality starts at $162000 list -- and both do multi-sample anti-aliasing. Even a Groupstation with two InfiniteReality pipes is $352000 list. And it's not several systems connected with duct-tape, but a single-system image with shared memory. It looks like HP workstation technology isn't that cheap ;). Twice $260000 doesn't look much like $72000 to me ;). The only real comparison I've seen that dared to name an SGI product compared a one-pipe HP single-workstation solution with a three-pipe Onyx2 InfiniteReality, 'forgetting' that even a base Onyx2 Reality with a DG5-8 board can drive up to eight screens from one pipe. In other words, comparing apples to oranges (even when they could have compared to an apple). Good marketing; failing to mention specifics makes it easier to spread FUD. And let's not forget that most vis-sim applications are usually using a toolkit like Performer. HP wisely does not talk about middleware...