Nvidia chips in to Sun workstations

By Matt Whipp

Posted on 12 Oct 2004 at 15:44

Sun Microsystems and Nvidia have announced a partnership to ship Java Workstations with the Quadro high-end graphics hardware on systems running Solaris, Windows and Linux on AMD's 64bit Opteron x86 chips.

Sun's W1100z and W2100z workstations will be the first machines to include the new graphics chips as standard. Customers will have the choice of either the Quadro FX 3000, 1100, 500 and 280 solutions.

The deal is intended to make Sun's low end x86 workstations more competitive against offerings from the likes of Hewlett-Packard. Using off the shelf graphics chips alongside the AMD Opteron will allow 64-bit workstation performance at something approaching PC pricing. Meanwhile, NVIDIA gets more traction in the professional graphics market, with its products in systems shipped to Sun's existing channel and customers.

'Nvidia and Sun are bringing to bear our combined expertise in industry leading workstation solutions,' said Jeff Fisher, executive VP of worldwide sales at Nvidia. 'The net effect is the delivery of outstanding performance and value to customers, especially those who benefit from 64-bit processing and the highest performance application-tuned graphics.'

The companies are targetting the Professional DCC (Digital Content Creation), CAD/CAM, Oil and Gas, Life Sciences, Defence and financial services markets.