SGI debuts killer new NT boxes

Silicon Graphics officially released its new Windows NT-based graphicsworkstations today, entering a new era where the company's fortunes aretied to Windows, rather than a proprietary version of UNIX. The SGI "visualworkstations" still include plenty of proprietary hardware, however, whichis designed to speed graphics processing and rendering. SGI hopes that itsnew systems will find a home with graphics professionals and other powerusers that need advanced graphics capabilities.

"Silicon Graphics continues to solve the world's most complex visual computing problems," said Rick Belluzzo, chairman and CEO of Silicon Graphics. "With the introduction of these powerful new visual workstations,professional high-end graphics and media are now accessible to a much broader customer base at incredibly affordable prices. With access to thislevel of power and functionality on the desktop, the creations that engineers, scientists and creative professionals will develop will have ahuge impact on the world in the years ahead."

The new SGI workstations range in price from $3400 for an entry-level model320 to $6000 for the upscale 540. The systems come with dual-processor450 MHz Pentium IIs and four-processor 450 MHz Pentium II Xeon processors,respectively.

For more information on SGI's new systems, please visit the its VisualWorkstation Web site