Nashua, N.H. - NextComputing of Nashua, N.H., has announced the availability of Dual PCI-X 64-bit/100MHz slots in its portable FlexTop engineering workstation, the NextDimension. The NextDimension FlexTop computer is an open-standards, high-performance mobile workstation designed with extreme processing and graphics capabilities. The NextDimension is targeted at digital content creation (DCC), aerospace and defense, oil and gas, and other markets that require advanced imaging.
Open standards functionality of the dual PCI-X 64bit/100MHz slots themselves, and the system overall, enable the use of two COTS PCI cards for performance enhancement and/or specific application functionality, and the increased bus speed of the PCI-X 64bit/100MHz is backward compatible with virtually all PCI cards.
Applications requiring PCI interface cards and compute-intensive software programs can utilize this configuration of the NextDimension for specialized uses, such as network monitoring and management, network traffic and data generation, simulation applications, HDTV record/playback applications, image and streaming data capture, and reconfigurable computing. When combined with specialized software programs and PCI cards designed to enhance the performance of these programs, the NextDimension effectively becomes a dedicated appliance.
Bundling the hardware and software provides ease of installation and maintenance, all in a portable form factor with an integrated screen and user interface, features not usually found in a classic appliance platform.
Complex functions are enhanced with this configuration, such as those utilizing FPGA/DSP for reconfigurable computing. Most major DSP/FPGA manufacturers now offer PCI-X 64/100 compatible interfaces, such as the Xilinx Virtex-5 FPGA family and Altera’s Stratix line.
NextComputing also announced its HydraGraphics configuration, which supports up to 6 displays, and the availability of dual PCI Express slots.
