[SunRescue] SGI Indigo 2 Impact or Extreme?

[James Lockwood]

On Wed, 2 Feb 2000, Eric Ozrelic wrote:

> What's better Impact or Extreme graphics? What is the fastest

Impact, by far.

> for the Indigo 2? What is the fastest CPU for the Indigo 2?

Fastest graphics are Max Impact.  Fastest CPU is 195MHz R10000, followed
by the other R10k CPU's, followed by the 150-250MHz R4400, followed by the
133MHz R4600, followed by the 100MHz R4400 and R4000.  The R8000 fits in
all sorts of places depending on your code.

Upgrading a pre-Impact machine to Impact graphics usually requires a new
powersupply and expansion backplane.  Upgrading from R4x00 to R10000
requires a new motherboard and usually a new powersupply.

Solid Impact is like Sun's framebuffers, good for geometry but no
texturing accel.  High Impact adds tex accel, and Max Impact doubles the
geometry engines over Solid and High.  You can also get TRAM upgrades for
High and Max that improve performance substantially.

The only real deficiency of the Indigo2 is the lack of fast ethernet.  I'd
rather have an I2 Max Impact than an O2 for most apps.

-James