New SGI Altix Installations Leap Onto Top500 List

Easy Deployment of Powerful New Altix 4700 Prompts 66 Percent Jump in Number of Altix Systems Listed Among World's Fastest

SUPERCOMPUTING 2006, Booth #905, TAMPA, Fla. (November 14, 2006) — SGI (NASDAQ: SGIC) today announced a surge in the number of SGI® Altix® systems appearing on the latest ranking of the world's 500 most powerful supercomputers. The latest Top500 list, released this week here at the annual gathering of supercomputing users and innovators, shows a 66 percent increase in the number of SGI Altix systems compared to June's Top500 list.

The increase in listed SGI systems results from the rapid global adoption and deployment of new SGI® Altix® 4700 systems. In fact, three of the world's top four listed SGI sites have deployed SGI Altix 4700 systems since the last Top500 list was published: Germany's 4,096-processor National Supercomputer System in the Leibniz Computing Centre Munich; a 2,560-processor supercomputer at the Japan Marine Science and Technology Center; and a 2,048-processor system at the Dresden Institute of Technology.

Each of these systems delivers more than 90 percent efficiency on the Linpack benchmark - significantly better than competing platforms and a clear testament to the leadership of SGI's NUMAlink® system interconnect. The complete list is available at www.top500.org.

"SGI Altix systems - and particularly the new modular Altix 4700 platform - are transforming the way supercomputers are deployed and scaled, and the latest Top500 list bears this out," said Dave Parry, senior vice president and product general manager, SGI. "Altix 4700 features a versatile architecture that is easily deployed, is both space- and power-efficient, and truly delivers results. For organizations familiar with the time and expense required to bring traditional supercomputing solutions online, these benefits are entirely unique and utterly welcome."

The advantage of implementing Altix 4700 systems is reflected in several entries in the latest Top500 list. For instance, a single 768-processor system recently installed at NOAA's Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL) in Princeton, NJ, outperforms 69 percent of all other supercomputers on the Top500, even some powered by more than 3,000 CPUs. Since June's Top500 list was published, GFDL deployed two Altix 4700 systems, each equipped with 768 Intel® Itanium® 2 processors. The SGI Altix 4700 platform is comprised of modular blades - interchangeable compute, memory, I/O and special purpose blades for "plug and solve" configuration flexibility. The innovative blade-to-NUMAlink architecture enables users to mix and match eight standardized blade choices, for perfect system right-sizing. The compact blade packaging of the Altix 4700 rack also provides excellent performance density.

Socket-compatible with Single Core and Dual Core Intel Itanium 2 processors, SGI Altix 4700 platform offers easy upgrade or expansion of CPU, memory, I/O or visualization capabilities. This flexible growth path makes it possible for customers to adjust system configurations to meet current and changing requirements easily and cost-effectively; minimum risk for maximum productivity.

The new systems join many other SGI Altix installations that have been Top500 mainstays for years. Chief among these is the No. 8-ranked NASA Columbia system, which is widely considered one of the most productive and valuable HPC resources in government use today. Unlike traditional supercomputers that can take months or even years to fully bring on line, Columbia was built and fully deployed at NASA Ames Research Center in less than 120 days. When it was installed at NASA two years ago, it was the most powerful production supercomputer ever built. NASA's SGI Altix system is powered by 10,240 Intel Itanium 2 processors and features 20TB of memory.

To make the latest Top500 list, systems must deliver at least 2.7 Teraflops (TFLOPS) of performance as measured by the Linpack benchmark. The SGI Altix systems currently listed range from 51.870 to 2.869 TFLOPS in Linpack performance. All leverage the world's most scalable 64-bit Linux® platform.

For more information on SGI Altix systems, visit www.sgi.com/altix.

SGI - Innovation for Results
SGI (NASDAQ: SGIC) delivers a complete range of high-performance server and storage solutions along with industry-leading professional services and support that enable its customers to overcome the challenges of complex data-intensive workflows and accelerate breakthrough discoveries, innovation and information transformation. SGI helps customers solve their computing challenges whether it's enhancing the quality of life through drug research, designing and manufacturing safer and more efficient cars and airplanes, studying global climate, providing technologies for homeland security and defense, or helping enterprises manage large data. With offices worldwide, the company is headquartered in Mountain View, Calif., and can be found on the Web at www.sgi.com.

© 2006 SGI. All rights reserved. SGI, Altix, the SGI cube and the SGI logo are registered trademarks, and NUMAlink is a trademark of SGI in the United States and/or other countries worldwide. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds in several countries. Intel and Itanium are trademarks or registered trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries. All other trademarks mentioned herein are the property of their respective owners.