[SunRescue] Interesting site...

[Ken Hansen]

James,
    As always, thanks a ton - I appreciate your informed and reasoned
response,
and suspect I may go for the U2 machine:

    I failed to realize how expensive a 21" monitor really is! The best I
can find for a
reasonable Mfg. 21" PC monitor is $750 +/-, so add that cost to another 128
Meg
of RAM and the Ultra5 is now a $2300 machine. Toss in a SCSI adapter (to
boost
performance) and you are now over $2500. The cost difference between the U5
(with it's faster depreciation rate) and the U2 (with it's dual CPUs, better
graphics,
and vastly improved performance based on fundamental design issues) and it
approaches a no-brainer.

    If I go for this "whopper" of a system, I will have to purge *all* my
other Sun
SPARC bits (LX, SS5/70, SS10, etc. - but not the SPARCBook! ;^) to try and
make up the cost.

    At my old company we bought an Ultra 2 when they first came out (?)
about 3 - 4
years ago, and we spent a bundle on it... Ran a major software project on it
(telcom,
used several HSSI cards, lots of disks (heavy Oracle use) and I don't really
think
we stressed the system that much...)

Shoot, guess my mind is made up, and now I got this Sun PCi card for a
machine
I probably will not get (Ultra5)... I guess I'll eBay it and hope to get my
money back...

    But one thing is for sure - this will be a killer system! (I've even got
SBUS SCSI
and 4 port ethernet I could throw in the machine to make it fun...)

Thanks again,

Ken
n2vip at bellatlantic.net
----- Original Message -----
From: "James Lockwood" <james at foonly.com>
To: <rescue at sunhelp.org>
Sent: Wednesday, May 17, 2000 2:16 PM
Subject: Re: [SunRescue] Interesting site...


> On Thu, 18 May 2000, Ken Hansen wrote:
>
> > Ok, I have to ask - how *great* is this system? Should I be concerned
> > about being based on SBUS? I amplanning on getting an Ultra5 for $1295,
> > but that has a 17" monitor (not 21"), 128 Meg RAM (not 256 Meg), and
> > 1x360 Mhz CPU w/tiny cache vs. 2x300 Mhz w/LARGE cache. And,
>
> Ultra 2 is IMHO the best sbus based desktop ever built.  Really nice
> construction.
>
> > I would expect *each* 300 Mhz CPU w/2 Meg cache to perform about as
> > well as a 360 Mhz CPU w/256K cache - correct?
>
> The 300's will outperform the 360, especially in floating point.  Memory
> bandwidth is also better on the 300's (main memory bus is 100MHz vs.
> 90MHz).
>
> > I don't *need* this speed, but if I were to add-on to my Ultra5, it
would
> > start
> > to approach this price ($1295 + $225 for 128 Meg RAM + SCSI + larger
> > monitor) and you are approaching $2300 - consider the bump in speed and
> > maybe it makes sense to pay a little credit card debt...
> >
> > I am drawn to the Ultra 2, but am I asking for a more aggressive
> > depreciation
> > rate vs. an Ultra5 workstation (Which will be worth more in 12 mos.?)...
>
> U5's are everywhere and will depreciate rapidly (not quite as rapidly as
> PC's though).  U2's will likely go down much more slowly, there's still a
> lot of sbus technology out there and people want to hang onto them.  Sort
> of like the SS20 vs. the SS5, the 20 was top of the line and even though
> it was older it held onto a lot of value.  Keep in mind that many U2's
> were $10k+ when new.
>
> Though usually sbus is slower than PCI, the Creator in the U2 will
> outperform the PGX24 in the U5 by a wide margin.  For interactive use the
> U2 will be a screamer.
>
> That said, if you really don't need the extra speed the U5 is not a bad
> machine.
>
> -James
>
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