Tricord to ship PowerFrame with Intel's new 166 MHz processor.

PLYMOUTH, Minn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 4, 1996--Tricord Systems Inc. (NASDAQ:TRCD) Thursday announced that the company will integrate Intel Corp.'s new 166 MHz Pentium processor into the PowerFrame Enterprise Server and will begin shipping the new system, called the ES166, early second quarter, 1996.

"The high performance of Intel's latest Pentium chip continues to expand the performance reach of Tricord's unique Multiprocessing Accelerator Technology (MPAT)," said Dr. Cory Devor, vice president, systems development, Tricord. "Our MPAT design uniquely allows the PowerFrame to scale to eight Pentium CPUs, delivering the performance that large multiprocessing applications demand."

Tricord PowerFrame's MPAT design is a feature of the CPU/Cache Subsystem (CCS) that improves performance and ensures data integrity. Each Pentium has two MBytes of dedicated second-level cache, reducing the amount of system memory bandwidth required to support each processor.

The CCS with MPAT also reduces system bus utilization and increases performance utilizing a Tricord-designed cache protocol.

Because uptime is critical to large symmetrical multiprocessing applications, the PowerFrame provides auto recovery capabilities on the CCS. Designed for enterprise-level environments, Tricord's PowerFrame provides a full range of high-availability features standard on every system.

"With the 166 MHz Pentium, Tricord will extend its performance leadership in large Windows NT- and NetWare SMP-based applications," said Steve Douty, vice president, marketing, Tricord. "We're excited about the performance boost, especially for compute-intensive environments like Oracle on NetWare SMP or Lotus Notes on NT."

A sample configuration of the PowerFrame Enterprise Server lists at $80,000 and includes a single 166 MHz Pentium processor, SMP capability to support up to eight processors, Tricord's Intelligent Management Subsystem and Intelligent Storage Subsystem, including a two-GByte hard disk drive, PCI/EISA support and 64 MBytes of ECC memory.

Tricord Systems designs, manufactures, markets and supports the PowerFrame Enterprise Server for use in mission-critical OLTP, OLAP, media and file/print applications running on Microsoft Windows NT and Novell NetWare. All PowerFrame servers are characterized by an open system design with emphasis on system management, fault tolerance, high performance and scalability.

Tricord headquarters are in Plymouth. For information, call 800/TRICORD or visit the company's Web site at http://www.tricord.com/.

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