Zenith soups up the Z-Station

Zenith Data Systems released new, faster versions of its Z-Station desktop PCs.

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

May 20, 1996 10:00 a.m. PT

Zenith Data Systems today announced a new line of Z-Station desktop PCs featuring high-end Pentium processors running as fast as 166 MHz, Intel's newest PCI chipset, a high-speed graphics chipset from ATi, and a fast hard disk drive.

The Z-Station GT 500 Series provides up to 200 percent performance improvement over the graphics systems of the previous generation by using ATi's mach 64 VT 64-bit graphics chipset with advanced synchronous graphics RAM (SGRAM) memory. The new models also support future Intel MMX multimedia Pentium-based technology.

The GT 500 Series also offers optional components for videoconferencing. The integrated PictureTel desktop videoconferencing package "Z-Live 5000" meets the H.320 worldwide conferencing standard, the industry's highest-quality video and audio performance.

All models also include Intel's 430HX PCI chipset, 16MB of extended data out (EDO) memory, and 256K of synchronous pipeline burst cache. Multimedia GT-500 models add an 8X CD-ROM drive and a plug and play certified 16-bit sound card standard from Creative Labs.

Estimated street prices for the Z-Station GT 500 Series start at $1,554 for a Pentium 100 MHz model with a 1.2GB hard drive, 16MB EDO memory, and an ATi mach 64 VT graphics chipset. A Pentium 166-MHz mini-tower is priced at $2,158, including a 2.1GB hard disk drive. A 166 MHz multimedia model with a 2.1GB hard drive costs $2,365.