[SunRescue] Q: Regarding Sun Educator promo Ultra 5 system

[James Lockwood]

On Wed, 19 Apr 2000, Bill Bradford wrote:

> As an example, I had two systems:
> 
> Ultra 5, 270mhz, 256k cache
> Ultra 1, 200mhz, 512k cache
> 
> The U1 with 512k cache was effectively FASTER at a lot of things due
> to the increased cache - it made up for the difference in mhz.

That and the fact that the U1/200 uses a 100MHz bus and a 2x multiplier,
so it actually has a higher peak memory bandwidth.

Originally the U5/333 used the Sabre CPU with a 111MHz bus, making it much
faster than the 360 with a 90MHz bus.  Sun then migrated it to Sapphire
keeping the CPU speed and cache the same but dropping the bus speed.

The maximum UPA bus rating of the Ultra 5/10/AXi (and UPA framebuffers) is
120MHz, so 480MHz is the current top of the line.  It's possible that Sun
could release another CPU series with a 5x multiplier and push up towards
600MHz, but I think they're hoping that Ultra IIIi will be shipping in
volume by then.  I certainly am.

-James