[SunRescue] Speaking of SGI equipment...

[Dave McGuire]

On Thu, 16 Dec 1999, Gregory Leblanc wrote:
>>   I've had a Sun of one sort or another on my desk for the 
>> past eight years. 
>> Until just recently, that is.  Now my desktop platform, at 
>> home and at work, is
>> an Indigo2 (R4400/250, 128-192mb RAM) running Irix 6.5.
>> 
>>   It consistently runs rings around my SS20/81s.  I'm a 
>> diehard Sun fanatic but
>> these machines are simply TOO MUCH better to ignore them.  
>> AMAZING graphics
>> capabilities, great sound support, great SCSI performance, 
>> wonderfully fast CPU.
>> If people are looking to put together such systems, I know a 
>> little bit about
>> them and would be happy to help with questions and such.
>
><rant>
>Now this isn't exactly a fair comparison.  You're comparing a 64-bit 250-MHz
>processor to a 32-bit 85-MHz processor.

  Sure it's fair.  The two machines are pretty close to the same age.  Word
width doesn't determine processor performance, much less *system* performance. 
Comparing processor clock rates is even less useful...even in the context of
"similar" processors.  An 85MHz SS20/81 is 2-3 times faster (for typical
applications) than an 85MHz SS5, for example.

>  I'm not too familiar with sound,
>since I find that it's totally pointless for any "real" work.

  I'm a programmer.  I don't need sound to type into an emacs buffer.  But it
sure does make my office a little nicer when I can pull a few mp3s from my home
network and play 'em while I work.

>  I've never
>seen all that big a difference in SCSI of about the same age, unless it's
>just a cheap host adaptor and using the main CPU to do all of the work.

  I have.  It's noticeable.

>Graphics have got to be better on ANYTHING other than a Sun, the graphics
>that I've used aren't that impressive.  Speaking of which, is the CG14 in
>24-bit color actually slower than the cg6 when in 8-bit?  This 8-bit color
>is awful for almost every web site that I visit often.  :(  

  Yeah...Sun video really sucks compared to the rest of the world.

                  -Dave McGuire