Hewlett-Packard Co yesterday finally unveiled its first 64-bit PA-8000 Precision Architecture-based systems, a line of Visualize graphics workstations, claiming that they deliver the world’s fastest computer performance. HP is offering the 180MHz systems at a price below its premium points of the past, with a lower-end HP Visualize Model C160 starting at $24,000; with 64Mb memory, 2Gb disk and 20 monitor, it costs $27,000 compared with a 200MHz Sun Microsystems Inc Ultra 2 Model 1200 Creator at $30,000, HP said. HP claims the C160 performs up to 176% faster on two- dimensional vectors than the Sun, 59% faster in floating-point and 23% faster in integer performance, it asserted. The HP Visualize Model C180-XP starts at $50,000 and is claimed to perform floating-point operations 50% faster than Silicon Graphics Inc’s 200MHz Indigo2 R10000, and more than three times faster, at $2,000 less, than the 200MHz Indigo2 R10000 Maximum Impact. The deskside workstation models are the HP Visualize Model K260-EG, the K460-EG and the K460-XP from $62,640, and are billed as being 60% faster than Digital Equipment Corp’s new 300MHz Alpha Server 4100/300, 64% faster than the 200MHz SiliconGraphics R10000 Power Challenge and 131% faster than the 167MHz Ultra Enterprise Model 3000 from Sun. Hewlett also reduced prices on its Model C110 workstation by 23% so a Model C110 with 64Mb, 2Gb disk and 20 monitor is $19,000. The new models ship next month. PA-8000-based servers will follow in September.
