InformationWeek

Dell Joins Crowd Offering Windows NT Workstations

By Bob Francis

ell Comp uter this week joins the growing ranks of PC hardware companies offering Windows NT workstations, announcing systems based on Intel's 266-MHz and 300-MHz Pentium II microprocessors. The systems are priced aggressively but lack some of the key features of higher-end Unix workstations.

Compaq Computer, Digital Equipment, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, and others have already rolled out workstation-class NT systems based on high-end Intel Pentium processors. Like the others, Dell's WorkStation 400 line, priced at around $7,000 for a single-processor version, is aimed at the financial, software-development, and graphics markets. Comparable-speed Unix workstations sell for around twice that much, though their prices are coming down.

But the Unix machines still outclass the NT workstations in terms of graphics performance. To close the gap, many NT workstation vendors are adding advanced graphics feat ures. HP, for instance, is adding graphics cards and software from Evans & Sutherland, a company that previously supplied graphics to high-end Unix workstation vendors.

Meanwhile, the PC vendors are looking to integrate Intel's Accelerated Graphics Port, via a chipset due out by September, into their workstations starting in the fourth quarter. The AGP essentially widens the graphics throughput of Intel machines. "That should give the market yet another reason to grow," says Dan Dolan, an analyst with Dataquest Inc. in San Jose, Calif. Another research firm, International Data Corp. in Framingham, Mass., estimates that the market for NT-based workstations will increase to 5 million units by the year 2000, up from 1.5 million last year.

Dell's WorkStation 400 systems will be available in desktop or minitower designs with either single-or dual-processor-capable motherboards. Standard features will include error-checking and correcting, extended data output RAM, high-speed CD-ROM drives, a Universal Seri al Port, and a high-speed network card.

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