Seeking more market share in the high-end computer market, Intel and Microsoft today launched an offensive aimed at luring Unix loyalists over to Windows NT-based workstations.
The companies have established the "Migration Assistance Program" to simplify the move from Unix systems to the NT/Intel platform, partly by making it easier to transport applications developed for one over to the other.
"With the raw computing power of the Pentium II processor, the latest graphics technologies and all the recent advances in Windows NT, users no longer question the technical capabilities of this new workstation platform," Intel president Craig Barrett said at the forum in Seattle.
But since workstation applications typically revolve around graphics-intensive applications such as computer-aided design, faster graphics hardware is critical to getting developers to bother moving in the first place.
Intel's primary challenge, then, will be to deliver an adequate graphics architecture.
The technology component of the initiative centers around a new Intel standard to speed the processing of high-end graphics display. Intel's graphics standard for this purpose, the Accelerated Graphics Port (AGP), already in its second version, is designed to beef up the display of complex 3D graphics. The AGP standard specifies the port's hardware interface, and provides some design suggestions for effectively using it in high-performance 3D graphics display applications.
But now Intel has announced a new pro version of AGP, dubbed AGP Pro, which it hopes will catch the eye of those now using Unix workstations for graphics-intensive apps.
"We've extended [application graphics port] to accommodate the highest demands of the workstation environment," said Andre Wolper, director of marketing for Intel's workstation products division.
The improvements, Wolper said, focus on space, power, and cooling to let the Intel architecture beef up its graphics processing. The specific processors that will leverage AGP Pro include a new version of the Pentium II, designed for servers and workstations and due out later this year. The standard will also apply to the new generation of 32-bit Pentiums scheduled for a 1999 release, as well as the 64-bit family, the first member of which will be the Merced processor.
With a fourfold increase in the electric power used by graphics chips - from 25 to 100 watts - Wolper said AGP Pro will let the Intel architecture do more in a shorter amount of time. Specifically, polygons - the fundamental building blocks of complex 3D graphics - will be able to be displayed faster.
"More complex scenes can be rendered more rapidly," Wolper said.
Another key component of the new standard allows for more space on workstation motherboards, so additional graphics processing chips and more cards can be installed. An added benefit of the new standard, Intel said, is better cooling of the heat-generating processors.
Finally, starting with the next-level Pentium II processor, workstation-targeted Intel processors will all be able to incorporate and work with much larger amounts of memory - one gigabyte of random access memory and more, Wolper said.
