[rescue] your next Solaris machine ??? (Sol/x86 booting on iMac)

[Patrick Finnegan]

On Saturday 15 April 2006 21:53, Patrick Giagnocavo wrote:
> On Sat, 2006-04-15 at 21:35, Sridhar Ayengar wrote:
> > Patrick Giagnocavo wrote:
> > > On Sat, 2006-04-15 at 00:19, Skeezics Boondoggle wrote:
> > >> On Fri, 14 Apr 2006, Andrew Weiss wrote:
> > >>> [...] The new POWER
> > >>> 6 is supposed to be pretty light on power use and scale to 6
> > >>> Ghz.
> > >>>
> > >>> The latest POWER5's have like 8 cores on die and like 8MB of
> > >>> cache on die per processor.  [...]
> > >>
> > >> ...which is exactly why Apple's move to Intel couldn't have been
> > >> more stupid.  As the "full-blown" POWER architecture evolves and
> > >> scales, you know that key improvements would make their way into
> > >> PowerPC.  And the use of PPC in gaming platforms means more
> > >> innovation and drive to improve
> > >
> > > And how much would that 8-core, 8MB cache per core CPU cost, even
> > > at G5 Mac volumes?  BTW I doubt the current OSX kernel can even
> > > scale to 4 CPUs much less 8.
> >
> > You can get a POWER5-based system for rougly five grand.
>
> Can you give me a link?  Preferably to something rackable.

Actually, $3400.  Dual will cost you $4200..

http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/p/hardware/entry/505/browse.html

I've been watching the prices for a while, hoping that some POWER5 stuff 
might show up on the used market.

> > > I am afraid my response will turn this thread into a flamefest,
> > > but the fact is that the existing POWER stuff didn't make it into
> > > the G5, so why would you expect any different on a "G6" ?  Look
> > > at the specs on even the earlier p-series machines
> > > (20GBytes/second memory bandwidth on STREAM), then compare with
> > > what Apple was able to ship.
> >
> > A bunch of POWER4 features made it into the G5.
>
> Would like to hear more... perhaps you have a link on this as well?

For the most part, (the original) G5 is a single core, smaller process, 
higher MHz POWER4.  Google for "POWER4" and "G5", and you'll find lots 
of stuff describing the relationship.

Pat
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