[rescue] Would an Ultra 30 w/300 MHz CPU and 128 Meg RAM make a nice works tation?

[James Lockwood]

On Wed, 20 Jun 2001, Ken Hansen wrote:

> IIRC, they have dual SCSI chains, lots of uni-processor expandability, etc.

Only one SCSI chain.  2 internal drive bays which can take SCA drives in
SPUD brackets.

Dual UPA connectors so you can run 2 Creator/Elite framebuffers if you
want and not take up a single PCI slot.  4 64-bit PCI slots for plenty of
fast expansion.  16 DIMM slots for up to 2GB RAM.  I love mine, it's my
main desktop machine.

> (What would be an appropriate framebuffer to run in this box, and what
> would it cost?)

A Creator or Creator3D.  Cost should be anywhere from $50-200 depending on
how good of a deal you find.  If you don't need really high resolutions or
fast OpenGL the regular Creator is a good buy.  Make sure you get a
vertical ("PCI form factor") version.

> Price is *well under* $500 to me.

That's IMHO insanely good.  The only things I would do would be to add
memory (SS20 32MB DIMMs are cheap and work great) and a Creator card.  The
CPU modules have been known to go for over $300.

You can also use a 400MHz/2MB module, even though it's not offically
supported:

System Configuration:  Sun Microsystems  sun4u Sun Ultra 30 UPA/PCI (UltraSPARC-II 400MHz)
System clock frequency: 100 MHz
Memory size: 256 Megabytes

========================= CPUs =========================

                    Run   Ecache   CPU    CPU
Brd  CPU   Module   MHz     MB    Impl.   Mask
---  ---  -------  -----  ------  ------  ----
 0     0     0      400     2.0   US-II    10.0

The jumper settings for the U60 work fine.

> I am assuming this would blow away an Ultra 1/170e w/Creator graphics at 25%

Easily, it's a rocking box.  Miles better than the U5/U10 in many ways as
well.

-James