Monarch Announces Line of CAD Workstations Based on AMD's Multiprocessing Architecture

High-end workstations expected to come in below $3,000

ATLANTA, GA -- 6/5/2001 -- Monarch Computer Systems announced today their plans to support the much-anticipated AMD-760™ MP multiprocessing chipset with the release of the Monarch Professional Series of high-end workstations. These workstations are expected to debut under $3,000, a new price mark for workstations in this market. The pre-configured CAD Pro-2 1200 system will cost $3,200. In addition to the new, powerful AMD Athlon™ MP processors, the CAD Pro-2 1200 will feature high-bandwidth PC2100 DDR memory, two 15,000-RPM Seagate SCSI hard drives, and the 3Dlabs Oxygen™ GVX-1 Pro 64Meg video card.

"The new AMD Athlon MP and the AMD 760-MP is the cornerstone of this line. Everything else is configurable to the customer's needs" said Jason Valdes, Monarch's product manager, "Our CAD Pro-2 system uses the Oxygen video card because of its continued excellence in computer-aided-design, but video-editing professionals may choose to stay with the on-board ATI video card and add their own video capture system…with this platform, it's all good."

"Anytime a manufacturer releases a product this revolutionary, you expect there to be bugs with the early revisions, but not with this platform," Chuck Herndon, Monarch's chief technician said of the new AMD-760 MP chipset, "not only has it performed to expectations; it runs perfectly stable as well. That's important when your life's work (mission critical data?) is on the workstation."

About the AMD Athlon™ MP Processor
The AMD Athlon™ MP processor with Smart MP technology is a seventh-generation x86 processor for high performance multiprocessing servers and workstations. AMD's innovative Smart MP technology features dual point-to-point, high-speed 266MHz system buses, which are designed to provide up to 4.2GB per second of sustainable bus bandwidth, and an optimized MOESI cache coherency protocol which manages data and memory traffic. The AMD Athlon MP processor, with stable Socket A infrastructure and support for DDR memory technology, has a high performance full-speed cache with hardware data pre-fetch, an advanced 266MHz front side bus with ECC support, a fully pipelined superscalar floating point engine, and an exclusive L2 Translation Look-aside Buffer (TLB).

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Energy awarded AMD an ENERGY STAR® Certificate of Recognition for its energy-efficient processors, including the AMD Athlon MP processor. These processors can help manufacturers meet stringent ENERGY STAR specifications for a variety of appliances, equipment and other products. Products with the ENERGY STAR label are designed to use less energy, save money and help protect the environment. AMD Athlon MP processors are manufactured using AMD's .18 micron copper process technology in Fab 30 in Dresden, Germany.

Monarch Professional Workstation Availability
The Monarch Professional Workstation is a line of computers scheduled for release on June 4, 2001. Pre-configured systems will be available to ship within a week of launch date, with custom-built models available to ship within 10 business days of that date.

About Monarch Computers Systems
Founded in 1992, Monarch Computer Systems offers high-quality, custom-built computer systems for both business and entertainment needs. They are an AMD OEM System Builder, and a winner of the AMD Crystal Wafer for outstanding partners at this year's System Builder Summit in Orlando, FL.

Monarch Computers, Monarch Computer Systems, and Monarchcomputer.com are registered trademarks of Monarch Computer Systems in the United States and/or other countries. The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

For more information, press only:
(Jason Valdes), ((770) 939-8886 xt. 21), (Jason@ monarchcomputer.com)

For more information on Monarch Computer Systems: http://www.monarchcomputer.com