SYSTEMS

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. --SGI has once again achieved top ranking with more Top 25 ratings--across all categories--than any other vendor in the recently released IDC Balanced Rating benchmark. Designed by analyst firm IDC to rate expected sustained performance on real-world supercomputing applications, the report verifies the critical need for high-productivity computing capabilities to meet the current requirements of technical compute environments. SGI attributes this high ranking to its unique SGI® NUMAflexTM shared-memory architecture and optimized operating and development environment. SGI maintains strong representation in the high-performance computing (HPC) industry report, surpassing Cray, IBM, Hewlett Packard, NEC and Sun Microsystems. Highlights from the newest rankings include the following: * SGI leads with the most systems in the Top 25 across all of the seven categories ranked. * SGI submitted the most powerful computer in both the Single System Capability and Enterprise categories. * SGI is the only vendor to have systems in the Top 25 of all categories delineated by IDC. * SGI represents nearly one-quarter of the systems rated in the Top 25 of the respective categories submitted by nine vendors. The IDC Balanced Rating report is among several recent industry statements indicating the change towards measuring high-productivity over theoretical peak performance. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is also emphasizing productivity over unattainable theoretical performance as essential for a new generation of scalable, high-performance computing systems. DARPA selected SGI to participate in a study for a new vision of high-productivity computing because of its expertise in delivering "balance-able," scalable hardware and software, low-latency memory access, scalable resource management, and an easily deployable, robust computing environment--critical requirements for this new era of computing. "IDC's benchmark is a critical tool because it allows companies to evaluate an HPC system based on how it will perform on real workloads," said Jan Silverman, senior vice president, Global Marketing, SGI. "SGI's leadership in the Top 25 across all categories proves we have the most productive systems in every price range. IBM's claim to leadership is based on having submitted the most systems. I grant you, they are bigger and have more customers, but dominating the bottom of the list just isn't very impressive." "Companies today don't have time to evaluate systems based on the lowest common denominator. It is critical they have tools that measure real performance to help accurately determine the best system for their business," said Earl Joseph II, research director, Worldwide Systems and Servers, IDC. "SGI's presence across all categories speaks highly of its NUMAflex shared-memory architecture, which consistently delivers balanced performance." SGI was also well recognized this week for increasing its presence on the TOP500 Supercomputing Sites list, which released twice-yearly reports on the world's most powerful supercomputers as measured by the system's ability to do simple mathematical operations. SGI posted a twelve percent gain in overall site installations on the November 2002 list. "We are thrilled to have IDC's measurement of real system performance to complement the traditional TOP500 peak performance measurement, and we are extremely proud to see these reports spotlight the consistent and exceptional performance of systems based on our NUMAflex architecture," added Silverman. The company will debut its latest HPC products and solutions at the Supercomputing 2002 exhibition this week in Baltimore, Md. (Booth #1521). Featured products include a new model of the SGI® Origin® 3000 series, also recently announced, and the upcoming system based on the Intel® Itanium® 2 processor running the Linux® operating system.