Upwardly Mobile 3-D Workstation

Digital introduces a 266-MHz PC with a removable-motherboard design and plenty of configuration options.

Al Gallant

Digital Equipment brings some worthwhile engineering to its first dual-processor, high-end workstation, the Personal Workstation 266i. Competitively priced and a solid performer, the unit offers some intriguing new design features.

The most compelling feature of the 266i is the clever layout of its system boards. Its single motherboard has two components that allow a simple upgrade path to future versions of Digital's Alpha PC processor. The first board, which is stationary, contains power, ISA, P CI, and IDE components. The second board houses the processor and memory. You can swap it out without tools and easily plug it into the other board.

Digital offers both dual and single 266-MHz Pentium II processors; I tested the two-processor model. The BYTEmark CPU results were identical to those of the Intergraph TD-225 dual Pentium II system: 3.77 for the integer index and 4.45 for the floating-point index (see "3-D Price Breakthrough," June BYTE). The BYTEmark is not designed for multithreading, so test results will compare closely to a single-processor system.

The 266i comes with an integrated 10/100 Ethernet card and a sound card. These cards do not take up PCI or ISA slots -- a unique feature, as far as I know. Instead, these small cards sit away from both motherboard components, leaving additional room for five slots: three shared PCI/ISA slots and two PCI slots. This scheme lets you use five slots entirely for PCI boards or a combina tion of ISA and PCI boards. It can ease the transition from ISA to PCI as new PCI peripherals become available. Hard drive options are plentiful, with standard configurations allowing for any combination of the 2.1-GB IDE drive along with 2.1-, 4.3-, and 9.1-GB Wide UltraSCSI drives.

I tested the 266i's high-end PowerStorm 4D40T video adapter using two industry-standard OpenGL 3-D benchmarks. The first one included the CDRS viewset test, which is based on Parametric Technology's modeling and rendering software. Second, I used the DX viewset, which is based on IBM's Visualization Data Explorer. With a CDRS score of 15.88 and a DX score of 4.08, the 266i outperformed the higher-priced workstations that BYTE reviewed in December 1996 ("Affordable 3-D Workstations"). But it scored lower than the Intergraph TD-225, which came with a $1999 Intergraph Intense 3D 1000 video adapter.

Prices for the 266i start at $5200 for a single-processor system and $6600 for the dual-processor model. Optional large moni tors, high-end video adapters, and large SCSI drives can push the price over $10,000 quickly.

Although comparably equipped PCs for under $10,000 have begun to emerge, the 266i represents a competitive initiative by Digital to produce an affordable Windows NT 3-D workstation. The system's processor-board design is compelling. Anyone who has struggled to swap out a motherboard will appreciate its ease of use. Large-volume purchasers will find Digital's approach to upgrading an economical bonus.

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Product Information

Digital 266i Personal Workstation.................$5200 single CPU


..................................................$6600 dual CPU

Digital Equipment Corp.
Maynard, MA
Phone:    800-344-4825
Internet: 
http://www.digital.co
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Ratings

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Implementation	*	*	*	*
Performance	*	*	*	*
Key: ***** Outstanding, **** Very Good, *** Good, ** Fair, * Poor

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High-Powered for Low Cost

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The 266i represents Digital's low-cost Windows NT 3-D workstation.

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Snap 'n Play

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The swappable processor board easily snaps onto the motherboard.

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Al Gallant is the technical manager of the BYTE Lab. You can reach him at agallant@bix.com .