Intel and SGI Announce Agreement to Optimize OpenGL API for Current and Future Intel Architecture Platforms

BURLINGAME, CA (June 30, 1999) -- At Intel Corporation's Workstation Leadership Forum, Intel and SGI (NYSE: SGI) today announced plans to work together to optimize the OpenGL® API for advanced 3-D graphics and data visualization workstations based on Intel Architecture (IA). This joint effort is expected to dramatically increase the performance and visualization capabilities of IA-based workstations, utilizing OpenGL API graphics, from entry-level to the highest-end platforms.

Initially, this agreement combines Intel's leading-edge technology Internet Streaming SIMD extensions, which deliver enhanced 3-D graphic visualization, improved video and animation capabilities with SGI's industry-standard OpenGL API. Future Intel optimizations will focus on enhancing key components of the OpenGL pipeline and providing those optimizations back to SGI for broad distribution to OpenGL licensees.

OpenGL is the current standard API for high-performance 3-D graphics and visualization applications and is licensed and available by every operating system and major hardware vendor, including Intel. A robust and mature 3-D software library that offers a broad set of rendering, texture mapping, special effects, and other visualization functions, OpenGL is recognized as a leading-edge 3-D graphics API. OpenGL is positioned to take advantage of the continuing evolution of graphics hardware, resulting in improved productivity to end users through better data visualization.

According to Anand Chandrasekher, general manager of Intel's Workstation Products Group, "This agreement builds on the already productive efforts between Intel and SGI to deliver leadership products to the workstation marketplace. Our combined efforts should result in the industry enjoying even more rapid performance improvement of graphics performance and visualization capabilities on IA-based workstations."

"We are pleased to see Intel optimizing this powerful and pervasive graphics tool for microprocessor execution," said Kurt Akeley, vice president and chief engineer for SGI. "This joint effort between SGI and Intel will result in consumers getting the maximum visualization performance of OpenGL applications on Intel-based systems."

Hardware and software workstation vendors as well as users will benefit from the improved performance and capabilities on Intel Architecture workstations. The work between SGI and Intel will include optimization of OpenGL for workstations based on the current Intel® Pentium® III and Pentium III XeonTM processors, as well as future IA-32 and IA-64 processors.

This news release contains forward-looking statements regarding the future relationship between SGI and Intel, which are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from described in such statements. Such risks and uncertainties include the future financial and operational performance of SGI and Intel, the impact of competitive markets, products and pricing, the acceptance of applicable technologies by markets and customers, the ability of SGI to manage a complex set of engineering, manufacturing, support, marketing and distribution relationships, and other risks detailed in each company's current reports on Form 10-Q and Form 10-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

SGI is a market leader in technical computing, offering the world's most powerful servers, supercomputers and visual workstations. SGI uniquely provides a broad range of high-performance computing and advanced graphics solutions that enable customers to understand and conquer their toughest computing problems. Headquartered in Mountain View, Calif., with offices worldwide, the company is located on the Web at www.sgi.com.

Intel, Pentium, and Xeon are trademarks or registered trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries.

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