On January 3, 1994, Silicon Graphics introduced Indy(tm) R4400(tm), a high-performance version of the company's popular new desktop system that couples the world's most tightly integrated graphics and media workstation with the fastest 64-bit MIPS(r) RISC processor available. Powered by the 150 MHz MIPS R4400 microprocessor, the Indy R4400 workstation boosts the performance of the Indy product line by more than 50 percent, while maintaining the desktop system's industry-leading focus on collaborative engineering, interactive media and visual computing capabilities.
"Indy has led the media workstation revolution, providing powerful solutions to engineering and creative users alike," said Thomas Furlong, vice president and general manager of Silicon Graphics' Digital Sight and Sound Division. "While Indy has distinguished itself with graphics performance, ease of use and media integration, the Indy R4400 system represents the kind of vast expandability and immediate growth path that only a Silicon Graphics system can deliver."The Indy R4400 system provides a more than 50 percent improvement in performance over standard Indy configurations based on the MIPS R4000(r) processor, delivering system performance of 96.6 SPECfp92 and 88.1 SPECint92. AIM benchmark performance, which measures overall applications throughput, is rated at 109.9. The more powerful processor also results in faster 2D and 3D graphics, allowing Indy R4400 to deliver 1.6 million X lines per second and 800,000 3D vectors per second.
Indy R4400 is designed for power-hungry users in computer-aided design, photo retouching, animation, video production and media authoring environments. Its accelerated 2D and 3D graphics make the system ideal for imaging, graphics and CAD applications demanding true UNIX(r) workstation performance, while the increased compute performance and wide networking options of the Indy R4400 system enhance its position in enterprise computing environments.
Binary-compatible with all MIPS RISC processors featured in Silicon Graphics systems, the MIPS R4400 engine implements a faster 150 MHz clock rate. The processor offers primary cache that is double that of the R4000, with 16KB for both instruction and on-chip data cache, while featuring 1MB of unified secondary cache. The R4400 processor densely integrates 2.3 million transistors and includes on-chip technology to speed graphics processing.
The Indy product line, based on the R4000 and R4400 processors, shatters the conventions of personal computing by coupling its own digital color video camera, an engaging user environment and a host of digital media capabilities with the same advanced 3D graphics, imaging and compute performance that the world has come to expect from Silicon Graphics. Indy is the latest member of the Indigo(r) family of RISC-based desktop systems. Like all Indy systems, Indy R4400 supports up to 256MB of RAM, 2GB of internal disk storage and seven fast SCSI-2 devices. The Indy system bus operates at 267MB per second, while the memory bus is rated at 400MB per second. The IndyCam(tm) color digital video camera, which comes standard with all Indy systems, and the optional IndyVideo(tm) add-in card, reflect Indy's leadership in providing digital media integration. The system also ships standard with the Indigo Magic(tm) user environment, a point-and-click interface that easily delivers the power of Silicon Graphics' IRIX(tm) multitasking operating system to users accustomed to working with Macintosh(r) and PC systems.
The entry Indy R4400 configuration includes the 150 MHz R4400 Indy system, Virtual24(tm) bit (dithered 8-bit) color graphics, 32MB of main memory, 535MB system disk, 16-inch 1,280-by-1,024 resolution color monitor, IndyCam color digital video camera, keyboard, mouse, IRIX 5.1 operating system and the Indigo Magic user environment. The Indy R4400 system will be available in March 1994. Silicon Graphics, Inc. is the leading manufacturer of high- performance visual computing systems. The company delivers interactive three-dimensional graphics, digital media and multiprocessing supercomputing technologies to technical, scientific and creative professionals. Its subsidiary, MIPS Technologies, Inc., designs and licenses the industry's leading RISC processor technology for the computer systems and embedded control markets. Silicon Graphics has offices worldwide and headquarters in Mountain View, California.
