Compaq Offers New Line of Powerful Graphics Accelerators for Professional Workstations

Business Wire, July 20, 1998

ORLANDO, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 20, 1998--

PowerStorm Graphics to Deliver Superb Graphics

Capabilities Across Compaq Workstation Line

Compaq Computer Corporation, (NYSE:CPQ), a worldwide leader in high-performance workstations, announced today an exciting new line of leading-edge graphics options for the Compaq Professional Workstation. The PowerStorm graphics line will bring unprecedented levels of 3D graphics performance to a range of Compaq workstation platforms, from highly affordable entry-level workstations to high performance Intel and Alpha-based workstations, clusters and render farms. The new graphics line will be brought to market in the third quarter of 1998 and will support multiple operating systems, including both Windows NT and Compaq's DIGITAL UNIX.

The Compaq PowerStorm graphics technology is making its debut here this week at SIGGRAPH 98, the 25th International Conference on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques and can be viewed in the Compaq booth (#1343).

"Utilizing industry leading graphics chip technology and core software from Evans & Sutherland, as well as key technologies available through the Digital acquisition, Compaq has developed innovative graphics solutions that provide new levels of technical application performance," said Les Crudele, Vice President and General Manager of Compaq's Workstation Division. "The rich history of graphics software optimization and application performance tuning developed by Digital for its PowerStorm graphics family ensures delivery of a leadership graphics lineup for the second half of 1998."

New Levels of 3D Graphics Performance

Compaq's PowerStorm solutions accelerate technical 3D applications for professionals with demanding graphics rendering requirements. There are high performance graphics options that will be available in the PowerStorm line this year. A new midrange graphics solution provides best in class performance for Digital Content Creation (DCC) and CAD applications at an affordable price. This solution is based on the Evans & Sutherland REALimage 2100 SD chip technology, which delivers up to 4 million primitives per second and renders filtered, MIP-mapped and textured polygons at sustained rates of up to 90 million pixels per second. Using the industry-recognized CDRS-03 graphics benchmark, the midrange PowerStorm graphics solution is expected to exceed a CDRS-03 weighted average of 95 when it comes to market on the recently announced Compaq Profession Workstation SP700 (see June 29, 1998, release entitled "Compaq Unveils Scalable Performance of New Professional Workstation SP700").

When coupled with Compaq's new Alpha-based Extreme Performance (XP) workstations, scheduled for release in 3Q98, the midrange PowerStorm graphics solution is expected to achieve a CDRS-03 weighted average greater than 170, well exceeding the performance of all graphics option priced within its class.(1)

A second new member of the PowerStorm graphics lineup is also scheduled to debut later this year. This solution provides unprecedented performance in technical 3D-application performance such as Alias Maya, Softimage/3D, Kinetix 3D Studio MAX, Paradigm and other high-end 3D graphics applications. Users will be able to take advantage of a larger frame buffer and flexible texture support for true color, double buffered visuals up to 1920x1200 resolution available with the PowerStorm graphics solution. Both graphics solutions are based on the same Evans & Sutherland core technology. However the high end of the PowerStorm line will also include a microprocessor dedicated to geometry and lighting calculations. This technology, combined with the Highly Parallel System Architecture of Compaq's Professional Workstation SP700 and XP line of products, will provide the fastest graphics application performance platform available for Microsoft Windows NT. This high-performance graphics solution is expected to exceed the benchmark performance delivered by Hewlett-Packard's VISUALIZE and Intergraph's Intense 3D Pro Family of graphics products.

"Compaq's use of the Evans & Sutherland (E&S) REALimage 2100 is further proof that our industry-leading graphics accelerator technology delivers the performance needed for high-end workstations," said Rick Maule, Vice President and General Manager of E&S's Desktop Graphics Division. "The REALimage 2100 is designed to take advantage of the CPU performance of the Pentium II Xeon-based SP700 and future Alpha-based products to deliver unmatched graphics power on Compaq Professional Workstations."

Availability in 1998

The new PowerStorm products will provide customers the flexibility to select the graphics option that best fits their needs based on the level of performance required and budget available, while supporting features required by technical 3D applications. The first of these new products will be a fully featured midrange 3D graphics solution with PCI and AGP bus support, and will be available in the third quarter of 1998. The high-performance graphics solution optimized for power users with higher performance requirements will be available later in the year.