[SunRescue] LX versus SS5

[James Lockwood]

On Thu, 11 Jan 2001, Mike Hebel wrote:

> 1) SPARCstation LX - 50mhz but has built-in framebuffer, 
> 16-bit audio, and ISDN.
> 
> 2) SPARCstation 5 - 70mhz basically build from scratch.

You could also get a SPARCclassic instead of the LX if 16-bit audio and
ISDN are not important to you.  The cost difference is likely to be
minimal, though.

> I don't want to spend a lot for this experiment and if something 
> like a $50 LX that I only have to buy RAM for will work _about_ 
> the same as the SS5 then I'd probably get the LX.

Even the 70MHz SS5 is over 2x faster CPU-wise than the LX:

System            CPU        ClkMHz  Cache      SPECint SPECfp  Info
Name              (NUMx)Type ext/in  Ext+I/D      92      92    Date
================= ========== ======= ========== ======= ======= =====
Sun Classic,LX    MicroSP    50      4/2          26.4    21.0  Nov92
Sun SS5/70        MicroSP2   70      16/8         57.0    47.3  Mar94

The difference is the CPU (microSparc-II vs -I) and the memory bus (SS5
has the lowest latency to the CPU in a pre-Ultra).

> Is the SS5 going to work that much better than an LX for Solaris 8?  
> Are they going to both be too slow?

If you just want to learn Solaris, either one will do.  If you want to run
a bunch of large apps (X, Netscape, etc) then the SS5 will be much better,
though the biggest factor will be RAM.  IMHO 64MB is a practical minimum.
The SS5 also has 16-bit onboard audio, and you can get video equivalent to
the LX for around $30-40 (cg6 card, very common).  The SS5 can also take a
second hard drive and a CDROM drive internally (though 1" SCA drives are
required).

I use SS5/70's as production servers all over the place for applications
which don't require a huge amount of horsepower.  If you can afford the
SS5, it's a much nicer machine.

That said, SS5 RAM tends to be a bit on the expensive side and is not
transferrable to other systems.  A SS20 is a better system all around but
will cost more in an entry-level configuration.

-James