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To: Haim Barad who wrote (76563)	3/17/1999 10:17:00 AM
From: Rob C.	Respond to of 186894

Sequent demonstrates high performance and investment protection with three generations of Intel processors in a single server system BEAVERTON, Ore.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 17, 1999--Sequent Computer Systems, Inc., the leader in Intel(R)-based solutions for the data center, today announced support for Intel's Pentium(R) III Xeon(TM) processor in Sequent's NUMA-Q(TM) and NUMACenter(TM) server platforms. The Pentium III Xeon processor delivers a significant performance boost for Sequent data center servers with scalability to 64 processors and power that rivals the mainframe. A key differentiator for Sequent's NUMA-based servers is the ability to support multiple generations of Intel processors in a single system. This provides customers the ability to leverage the power of Intel's high-performance Pentium III Xeon processors while protecting existing hardware investments. Sequent demonstrated this capability today in a demonstration at Intel's press announcement in San Francisco with a single twelve-processor NUMA-Q 2000 server running one application with three generations of Intel processors (Pentium III Xeon, Pentium II Xeon and Pentium Pro). "As Intel raises the bar for performance and scalability with the new Pentium III Xeon processor, Sequent continues to leverage this power for business critical data center solutions," said Jeff Pancottine, vice president of global marketing for Sequent. "Our demonstration today of a system running multiple generations of processors shows that customers can buy Intel-based infrastructure today and take advantage of performance gains that are delivered as part of the IA-32 roadmap." Sequent Pentium II Xeon-based NUMA-Q and NUMACenter servers made news with record benchmark results in 1998 and early 1999. Sequent expects significant gains in industry standard benchmarks with Pentium III Xeon-based systems providing near linear scalability to 64 processors. "The multi-processing capabilities of the Pentium III Xeon processor provide the building blocks for a wide range of scalable solutions for high-end applications," said Dave Cowan, vice president and general manager, Intel Server Component Division. "Sequent's NUMA-Q server series takes advantage of these capabilities to deliver a flexible and scalable solution to address today's business environment while protecting investments made in previous generations of Intel processors." Sequent Demonstrates Investment Protection, High Performance Highlighting both high-end OLTP performance and its unique ability to protect investments in the Intel Architecture, Sequent today demonstrated a single NUMA-Q 2000 server running three generations of Intel processors. The twelve processor server included a mix of four Pentium III Xeon processors, four Pentium II Xeon processors and four Pentium Pro processors running a large OLTP benchmark application and the Oracle(R) database. "Sequent and Oracle teamed to provide record-breaking benchmarks running Oracle on the Intel Architecture with Pentium II Xeon processors," said John Hall, senior vice president of worldwide alliances for Oracle. "With the Pentium III Xeon processors, Sequent and Oracle will see even higher performance and better scalability for the Oracle database and Oracle Applications." In the demonstration, Sequent was able to show performance for each generation of Intel processor through the use of three separate benchmark instances and the cumulative impact of the three successively more powerful processors operating in the same system against three identical workloads. Each instance of workload was isolated to a particular generation of Intel processor using Sequent's Application Region Manager(TM) mainframe-like partitioning capability. About NUMA-Q Sequent's NUMA-Q architecture was designed to break through enterprise-level performance barriers by seamlessly connecting four-processor base boards (quads) in systems of up to 252 processors via an innovative interconnect technology called IQ-Link(TM). Sequent is the only server vendor to currently ship Intel-based servers with up to 64 processors. The NUMA-Q product line includes the high-end NUMA-Q 2000 scalable to 64 processors and the midrange NUMA-Q 1000 scalable to 8 processors. About NUMACenter Sequent's NUMACenter is an integrated framework for deploying large scale Windows NT applications with a UNIX database tier. NUMACenter is the industry's first system to support concurrent Windows NT and Unix resources within a managed and fully integrated environment including Intel processors, middleware, databases, storage, back-up and management tools. NUMACenter combines unique Sequent technology, such as NUMA-Q architecture and Advanced Detection Availability Manager (ADAM), with key partner components. NUMACenter provides a framework through which customers can quickly deploy applications and add new capabilities over time, protecting their infrastructure investment. About Sequent Computer Systems, Inc. Sequent Computer Systems (Nasdaq:SQNT.O), the leader in Intel-based systems for the data center, is committed to the success of its end-user and system integrator customers. Sequent's platform architectures and services are optimized for the scalability, availability and manageability requirements of corporate and institutional data center environments leveraging industry-standard technologies and best-in-class partnerships. Sequent was the world's fastest-growing server vendor with systems priced between $100K and $1M in 1997 on the strength of NUMA-Q 2000, and has been the number one vendor of high-end UNIX servers in the UK for the past seven years, according to IDC. Sequent supports more than 10,000 installations worldwide, including many of the world's largest and most sophisticated OLTP, DSS, business communications, and RDBMS applications. Trademarks Sequent is a registered trademark and NUMA-Q, NUMACenter, IQ-Link and Application Region Manager are trademarks of Sequent Computer Systems, Inc. Intel and Pentium are registered trademarks and Xeon is a trademark of Intel Corporation. Oracle is a registered trademark of Oracle Corporation. All brand and product names appearing in this release are registered trademarks or trademarks of their respective holders. --30--crd/sf* CONTACT: Sequent Computer Systems, Inc. Mike Fay, 212/317-5710 mikefay@sequent.com or Chris McManus, 415/778-5225 chrismcm@sequent.com KEYWORD: OREGON INDUSTRY KEYWORD: COMPUTERS/ELECTRONICS COMED TELECOMMUNICATIONS INTERACTIVE/MULTIMEDIA/INTERNET PRODUCT Today's News On The Net - Business Wire's full file on the Internet with Hyperlinks to your home page. URL: businesswire.com Copyright 1999, Business Wire

To: Haim Barad who wrote (76563)	3/17/1999 10:28:00 AM
From: Scumbria	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 186894

Haim, Your last statement is completely untrue. Any decent scene manager and geometry engine gets rid of most of the "invisible" geometries (i.e. triangles) before it ever gets to the rasterizer (i.e. 3D HW card). Proper scene management, view frustrum clipping, backface culling will get rid of most of the "world" model. Of course, depth complexity within the scene must be still handled. I assume that you are referring to a software geometry engine. High end graphics cards (and soon midrange cards) perform the geometry calculations much faster in hardware. If a scene has a depth complexity of 100 after the geometry calculations are done, all 100 objects will be shaded, even though 99 of them are at least partially hidden. There has been much research into "deferred shading" techniques for hardware accelerators. The idea is to eliminate hidden objects before the shading takes place, but no one has produced a product which does this. Scumbria