[rescue] Good deal or not?

[James Lockwood]

On Thu, 16 May 2002, Michael A. Turner wrote:

> 	Alright you mananged to confuse the snot out of me with this
> comment. The first paragraph got me all excited. I figured get two of them
> and take the cpu card out of one and put it in the other. Then I read the
> next paragraph and I was confussed.  So let me repeat this back and make
> sure I got it (anyone else could chime in also). THe ss10 uses two cpu
> connector in it that can take a card in each connector. these cards can have
> one or two cpus on them allowing up to 4 processors in each ss10.
> Unfortunatly the listed processors (SM20, SM30, SM40) do not allow
> themselves to be used more than one at a time. So getting two of the ss10s
> here would be a loss as I would not be able to combine the two cpus into one
> ss10 due to a limitation on the processors, not a limitation on the ss10
> itself.

Precisely correct.  The SM20 and SM30 were released because TI was having
production volume troubles with the SM40 and above.

> 	1. What is the going price for RAM in a ss10. is $20 worth it for a
> seocnd one just to get the 32 megs of ram in it.

Probably not just for the RAM.  64MB sticks are going for $30-40 now.

> 	2. I have a ss4 and ss5 and a couple ipcs at home. would it be
> possible (and worth while ) to use the extra cpu if I take the ram from one
> of these ss10 to upgrade one of these units (assuming they have a worse
> processor).

Neither CPU modules nor RAM is interchangable.  The SS4/SS5 use an
integrated microSparc-II CPU instead of a removable module, and they use
JEDEC 168-pin 5V parity DIMMs instead of the 200pin DIMMs used by the
SS10/20 and much of the Ultra line.

The SS4 and SS5 are probably faster than a SS10/20 (SS10 with SM20 CPU).
The SS10 has greater expandability (twice max memory size, potential CPU
upgrades, 4 sbus slots instead of 3).  Which one makes a better machine
depends on what you want to do.

-James