Wave of New Products

Before N+I opened today, a wave of new products had been released, spearheaded by two blockbusters—a new chipset from Intel and a new UNIX server from IBM.

by Eric Grevstad Hardware Central Managing Editor, and the Internetnews.com Staff [September 11, 2001]

As expected, Intel Corp. has unveiled its Intel 845 chipset for Pentium 4-based desktop PCs using PC133 SDRAM memory technology. PC vendors are rushing to offer systems using the new chipset, betting that a lower purchase price will more than offset the performance hit caused by pairing the Pentium 4 with SDRAM instead of its formerly only option, RDRAM.

Intel vice president and desktop products group general manager Louis Burns states that the company's i850/RDRAM platform "continues to provide the maximum Pentium 4 processor performance," but that the i845 "broadens the Pentium 4 processor family by delivering support throughout the mainstream market segment," adding that Intel expects it "to become the next high-volume mainstream platform for IT departments" worldwide.

Priced at $42 in 1,000-unit quantities, the 845 chipset combines an Intel 82845 memory controller hub—which supports a 400MHz system bus giving three times the bandwidth of Pentium III platforms, as well as wider data paths, a write cache, flexible memory refresh technology, and a 1GB/sec AGP 4X graphics interface—with an Intel 82801BA input/output controller hub, including two USB and dual Ultra ATA/100 controllers.

Looking to the fast-bootup features of Microsoft Windows XP, Intel has also announced an application accelerator software package designed to deliver faster operating system load times and hard disk data transfer rates, while supporting hard disks larger than 137GB. The company will also offer the i845 in two complete desktop motherboards, the ATX form factor D845WN and micro-ATX form factor D845HV.

Virtually every current Pentium 4 PC vendor is expected to offer systems based on the new chipset. Dell Computer Corp. jumped the gun by announcing its i845-based Dimension 4300 desktop, available with 1.5GHz, 1.6GHz, or 1.7GHz Pentium 4 power, late last week; a Dimension 4300 with a Pentium 4/1.5 processor, 128MB of SDRAM, 20GB hard disk, and 17-inch monitor costs $979, while one with a 1.7GHz CPU, 40GB hard disk, 32MB Nvidia GeForce2 MX graphics card, and 17-inch monitor is $1,419.

MicronPC is using the i845 in its new ClientPro CR desktop for managed network environments; a 1.5GHz system with 17-inch monitor and 20GB hard disk starts at $999.

Similarly, Gateway's new E-3600, starting at $1,199, combines 1.5GHz and 1.7GHz Pentium 4s with network manageability and security features. The Gateway Performance 1500CS, a consumer desktop with 20GB hard disk and 17-inch monitor, starts at $999.

Small, flexible Unix iron
IBM Corp. (NYSE:IBM) continued its server-side assault on chief rival Sun Microsystems Inc. (NASDAQ:SUNW) when it launched a new midrange Unix server.

For more on IBM's release, see "IBM Scurries New Server To Market."

More, more, more
A host of other companies lined up to tout their latest switches, processors, and servers.

Internet Machines Corp. was first out of the gate with its IMpower product family, a series of network processing and switching solutions for designers of OC-192c and 10Gbps networking equipment.

IMpower consists of three protocol-independent chips—the NPE10 network processing engine, the TMC10 traffic management co-processor, and the SE200 switch element—and the Development Workbench software development kit (SDK).

• The NPE10 is a programmable, single chip, massively parallel network processor based on RISC microcores and capable of performing packet processing at full duplex OC-192c rates.
• The TMC10 is a single chip, wire-speed traffic management co-processor—also capable of operating at full-duplex OC-192c rates—which performs buffer and queue management functions, traffic scheduling, flow control across a switch fabric, congestion management, and statistics for multiprotocol traffic at OC-192c rates.
• The SE200 is a 200Gbps protocol independent switch element providing 200Gbps full duplex switching throughput per switch element and scalable to terabit speeds.

Internet Machines was followed by WiredRed Software Corp.'s e/pop Linux Server, which has been named a Finalist in the Network Applications category of the Best of Show Awards. The e/pop Linux Server provides enterprise customers with a secure and scaleable instant messaging and real-time communications platform for the Linux OS.

ProductivityNet followed up by unveiling its flagship ActiveManage network management suite, which enables administrators to control and monitor their networks from any location through a Web browser or wireless Palm VII device. In addition to allowing remote monitoring through a single, centralized interface, the suite also allows the execution of one command across multiple platforms simultaneously. The company is demonstrating Version 1.0, for Windows NT/2000 environments, and Version 2.0, for multiple network operating platforms, during the show.

Meanwhile, Cenatek is previewing its new Rocket Drive solid state disk (SSD), a new high-speed storage device which Cenatek says is thousands of times faster than conventional hard disk drives. Cenatek says Rocket Drive delivers performance of up to 100,000 transactions per second. Like other SSDs, it stores data using memory chips rather than magnetic media. However, unlike conventional SSDs, it attaches directly to a system's PCI bus rather than through channel technologies like SCSI or fibre.

On the wireless front, MCK Communications Inc. unveiled its MobileConneX PBX gateway, which allows users to turn their cell phones into extensions of corporate telephony systems.

Mobile users can dial into the MobileConneX PBXgateway from any cellular phone and, using the Interactive Voice Response system, provide authentication and a dial-back telephone number to which the MobileConneX PBXgateway routes all incoming calls. It also allows mobile users to dial internal extensions to transfer a call to a colleague in the office, initiate a conference call, or put a call on hold. Unanswered calls are routed back to the corporate voicemail.

Network Elements Inc. stepped up next with its new Lithium 10Gbps Multi-protocol Module, a 10Gbps optical networking module with integrated multi-protocol processing. It supports 10 Gigabit Ethernet, Packet-over-SONET, and SONET/SDH applications in the LAN, MAN and WAN. It features a plug-and-play, multi-layer, optical network interface.

Next up to the plate was Raqia Networks, with its new RQDPC10G Deep-Packet Classification engine, a silicon-based regular expression classification processor operating at 10Gbps Ethernet or OC-192 Packet-over-SONET. It is a highly programmable, single-chip solution which provides wire-rate deterministic matching anywhere in the packet, including header and payload. Raqia said it boosts the performance of Layer 7-based systems by accelerating classification and increasing throughput.

— End

Related articles:
	[Sep. 5, 2001]	HP, Compaq Form Pact
	[Aug. 31, 2001]	Storage Area Network Notes
	[Apr. 18, 2001]	Sun Slashes Some Server Prices

Online resources:
	Hardware Central
	internetnews.com
	ISP-Planet's Routers & Switches index
	ISP-Planet's Servers index