Open Standards Workstation Embraces PCI-X

By DE Editors

NextComputing (Nashua, NH) has announced availability of dual PCI-X64bit/100MHz slots in its portable, FlexTop engineering workstation,called the NextDimension. The NextDimension is an open standards,high-performance mobile workstation that supports up to single- ordual-core AMD Opteron processors with AMD64 technology.

The company explains that because the PCI-X 64bit/100MHz isbackward-compatible with all PCI cards as well as faster combining itwith dual PCI-X slots with Opteron processors and the open standardsfunctionality of the slots themselves, you can set up the NextDimensionto use of a pair of COTS (commercial off the shelf) PCI cards forperformance enhancement or specific application functionality. Thus,applications that require PCI interfaces and compute-intensive programscan use this configuration of the NextDimension for specialized tasks,such as network monitoring and management, network traffic and datageneration, simulation applications, HDTV record/playback, image andstreaming data capture, and reconfigurable computing.

Further, this configuration means that the NextDimension effectivelybecomes a dedicated appliance. Bundling the hardware and software in aportable form factor with an integrated screen and user interfaceenables ISVs, OEMs, and integrators to offer a customized appliance ina portable form factor.

Among NextDimension’s are the ability to handle up to 16GB PC3200DDRAM, three Gigabit Ethernet ports, four USB 2.0 port, and twoexternal SATA ports. Its aluminum alloy chassis measures 4.44 x 11.44 x16.8 inches (DxHxW). It weighs from about 12 to 18 lbs. depending onconfiguration.

The NextDimension can be equipped with an integrated 15-inch or17-inch TFT LCD with resolutions up to 1600x1200. Graphics optionsinclude a 64MB VRAM ATI Radeon Mobility graphics controller or up totwo NVIDIA Quadros configured for SLI or quad-head mode. It can supportup to two additional displays via integrated ATI graphics controllerusing NextCom’s HydraGraphics configuration (Windows XP Pro 64-bitonly).

In addition to XP, workstation operating system support includes SuSe10 (32- or 64-bit), Fedora 4.0 Core Desktop  (32- or 64-bit), RedHat Enterprise (32- or 64-bit), and Solaris 10 x86 (64-bit). The sameoperating systems in their server form plus Microsoft Windows 2003Server are also available.

To learn more about the NextDimension and its other specifications, click here.

Sources: Press materials received from the company and additional information gleaned from the company’s website.