[rescue] Ultra SPARC purchaseXP

[Jonathan C. Patschke]

On Sun, 30 Mar 2003, Lionel Peterson wrote:

> E250 (just plain rocks, but find a lesser box as console/desktop)

Makes a fairly crappy interactive workstation (if you want graphics).
It lacks UPA slots.  U450 is where it's at. :)

> Ultra 60 (yea right!) SMP, dual SCSI, dual-head, 16 memory slots PCI

Not so far-out-there these days.  Grap a cheap U30/U60 chassis and toss
in a SPARCengine AXdp board off eBay.  Voila!  Poor man's U60.

> Ultra 2 (I love SMP!) SMP, single SCSI, single creator, 16 memory slots
> SBUS

Plus!  UPA.  Creator 3d graphics is a -dream- when you've been using m64
for the last few months.

> Ultra 30 single SCSI, dual-head, 16 memory slots, PCI

Nice box, really.  And, you can always upgrade it to a U60 by swapping
out the system board.

> Ultra 5/10 (must be REAL nice config, but preferences vary) look for
> cache, SCSI, and framebuffer

Don't get a U5.  It's not worth it as a desktop.  The U10 is debatable
because it has UPA, but the IDE performance on both machines is
thoroughly pessimized.  It's slower than pissing tar, and the buses like
to reset frequently if you have more than one drive per channel.
However, toss the appropriate Symbios SCSI card in there, and you're
cookin'.

I wouldn't recommend a U10 for a newcomer unless it was a U10/440 with
SCSI already present.  Also, if you're going to be expecting snappy
performance from the GUI, you need Creator 3D.  M64 is usable, but
nothing to write home about.

DO NOT waste perfectly good money on a Raptor-8 card (also called
PGX32).  It's slower than the second-generation M64 by a painful amount,
and the SunOS 5.9 X server for it is very fragile.

> Ultra 1 (170e or 200e only) DAMN CHEAP these days.

And I am -STUNNED- at how responsive this 170e is.  Blows my U10/440 out
of the water.  Now, when you go balls-to-the-wall on the CPU, and you're
not hitting the disc, the U10 is faster.  But the U1 is much snappier
overall.  Plus sbus is so much more 'leet than PCI. ;)

-- 
Jonathan Patschke  *)  Q:  What do you call the hum of a rack of Apple
Thorndale, TX      (*      XServes?
                   *)  A:  The Al Gore Rhythm.