[rescue] RE: SGI vs. Sun

[Sheldon T. Hall]

Janet L. Campbell says ...

> ... The I2 was a nice system when
> introduced, but by the time the R10k came out, the I/O bus
> had become a serious bottleneck.

> ...  I2 IMPACT beat out pretty much
> everything Sun had in graphics, the ZX/TZX just didn't hold up by
> comparison.  The use of commodity 72-pin RAM was very nice.

Especially since you can put 1 GB of 'em in an R10K I^2.  I've got 768 MB in
mine.

> On the other hand, the SS20 had the I2 pretty well beat for I/O
> expandability and throughput,

The I^2 is essentially non-expandable if you have Max Impact graphics.  It's
only got 4 slots to start with and the video card "stack" takes up three of
'em.  Add a 100baseT NIC and you're done.
It does have a separate external SCSI chain, but it's 50-pin.  If there's
any other way to expand one, I've never heard about it.

I think of the I^2 as a desktop with server capabilities, and the SS20 as a
server with desktop capabilities.  In those days, if you wanted SMP and
major expandibility from SGI, I think the next step up from an I^2 was a
Challenge L or Onyx.  That's a big step.

-Shel