[SunRescue] Interesting site...

[James Lockwood]

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