The new OCTANE family enables Silicon Graphics' customers to experience a higher level of productivity. In the demanding world of manufacturing, the 250 MHz OCTANE^TM/MXE system outperforms Sun workstations with the latest UltraSPARC II 300 MHz processor by up to 18 percent running Dassault Syst鑝es CATIA^TM software, a leading application used in manufacturing and design. "Our goal at Silicon Graphics is to continue to provide industry leading visual computing solutions by delivering world-class graphics systems," said Dave Orton, vice president and general manager of the Visual Systems Group at Silicon Graphics. "With power, speed and unparalleled bandwidth this new 250 MHz OCTANE/MXE reaffirms our commitment to powerful UNIX workstations."

Many workstation vendors are claiming graphics leadership based on outdated wire frame benchmarks, such as the OPC viewperf CDRS-03 benchmark. "I would caution any technical user against ever relying on a single benchmark for gauging overall performance, and this is particularly true now with the CDRS viewset," said Michael Abrams, associate editor of CAD Report. "With its tiny and idiosyncratic data set, the CDRS viewset has become a special target of benchmark jockeys, and now it is delivering inflated scores that are of increasingly less use for gauging performance on most technical applications."

E-Series graphics, which will first be available in the flagship OCTANE/MXE workstation, are designed for real-world visual computing. In industry-standard application benchmarks, the 250 MHz OCTANE/MXE system significantly outperformed Sun's newly introduced Elite3D^TM m6 graphics. Internal testing at Silicon Graphics revealed that the OCTANE system beat the Sun system by up to 67 percent on DataExplorer and up to 116 percent on Advanced Visualizer. "The 250 MHz OCTANE/MXE is far superior in real-world application performance when compared to other workstations running our MultiGen II Pro realtime 3D authoring software," said Rob Lewis, marketing manager at MultiGen, Inc., the leading provider of realtime 3D software.

Silicon Graphics also announced new pricing for the fully configured entry-level 175 MHz OCTANE/SI workstation. With an estimated street price of $13,908 (U.S. only), this system comes standard with a 4GB hard disk, 128MB of memory and a 20-inch monitor and, unlike the Sun Ultra^TM 10 workstation, is fully upgradeable to the highest performance graphics and processor. The OCTANE product family's unique high-bandwidth cross-bar architecture ensures that even the entry level of the workstation line has the bandwidth to expand with the latest graphics and CPU technologies.

Availability

The 250 MHz MIPS RISC R10000 microprocessor will be available across the entire OCTANE product line - the SI, SSI, and MXE - and will be shipping this quarter. The new E-series graphics package is currently available only on the OCTANE/MXE system, which will also begin shipping this quarter. Entry-level list pricing for the 250 MHz OCTANE line starts at $24,995. The high-performance 250 MHz OCTANE/MXE with E-Series graphics starts at $47,995.

About OCTANE

Combined with single or dual MIPS R10000 microprocessors and the world's fastest desktop graphics, the OCTANE systems provide premier application performance for users in the manufacturing, entertainment, government and science markets. The OCTANE family comes standard with 100Base-TX/10Base-T Ethernet; analog and digital audio I/O; external speakers; one or two MIPS R10000 microprocessors; 128MB or 256MB of memory; 4GB hard disk and a 20-inch monitor.

Silicon Graphics, Inc. is a leading supplier of high-performance interactive computing systems. The company offers the broadest range of products in the industry -- from low-end desktop workstations to servers and high-end Cray® supercomputers. Silicon Graphics also markets MIPS microprocessor designs, Alias|Wavefront^TM entertainment and design software and other software products. The company's key markets include manufacturing, government, science and industries, communications and entertainment sectors. Silicon Graphics and its subsidiaries have offices throughout the world and headquarters in Mountain View, California.

Silicon Graphics and the Silicon Graphics logo are registered trademarks, and OCTANE is a trademark, of Silicon Graphics, Inc. MIPS and R10000 are registered trademarks of MIPS Technologies, Inc. Cray is a registered trademark of Cray Research, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Silicon Graphics, Inc. Alias is a registered trademark, and Alias|Wavefront is a trademark, of Alias|Wavefront, a division of Silicon Graphics Limited. Ultra, Ultra 10 and Elite3D are trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. All SPARC trademarks are used under license and are trademarks or registered trademarks of SPARC International, Inc. in the United States and other countries. Products bearing SPARC trademarks are based upon an architecture developed by Sun Microsystems, Inc. CATIA is a trademark of Dassault Syst鑝es. MultiGen II Pro is a trademark of MultiGen, Inc. UNIX is a registered trademark in the United States and other countries, exclusively licensed through X/Open Company, Ltd. All other trademarks mentioned herein are the property of their respective owners.