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Digital's processors run at 366 MHz

Digital Equipment today rolled out some of the fastest Windows NT workstations in the world.

Brooke Crothers Former CNET contributor
Brooke Crothers writes about mobile computer systems, including laptops, tablets, smartphones: how they define the computing experience and the hardware that makes them tick. He has served as an editor at large at CNET News and a contributing reporter to The New York Times' Bits and Technology sections. His interest in things small began when living in Tokyo in a very small apartment for a very long time.
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Brooke Crothers
Using new super-charged versions of its Alpha processor, Digital Equipment today rolled out some of the fastest Windows NT workstations in the world.

Digital's new Alpha XL personal workstations are built around two new Alpha processors that run at 300 and 366 MHz. These models may be shown up, however, by systems built around a 400-MHz Alpha processor that Digital is already working on, company representatives said.

The current high-performance system architecture includes: 2MB of level-2 cache, a 128-bit memory bus, a 32-bit PCI input-output bus, Fast and Wide SCSI-2 for high-speed disk access, and integrated Ethernet. The workstations support up to 512MB of memory and come with a quad-speed speed CD-ROM drive, up to 12GB of internal storage, and five drive bays.

Available now for $8,495, an Alpha XL 300 Personal Workstation includes 32MB of memory, a 1GB hard disk drive, a Matrox Millenium 2D/3D graphics adapter, CD-ROM, and a floppy disk drive.

The Alpha XL 366 Personal Workstation will ship in May and will cost $9,995 for the same configuration.

Digital also announced the PowerStorm family of 2D and 3D graphics adapters for both X86-based Celebris and Alpha XL personal workstations. PowerStorm adapters are based on the PCI bus and were designed to accelerate the OpenGL 3D graphics library.