[rescue] Advice on Octanes

[Joshua D. Boyd]

On Mon, Sep 22, 2003 at 12:24:10PM -0500, Joshua Snyder wrote:
> I am thinking about getting an Octane what should I look out for?  And
> what type of prices should I expect to pay?  I have been looking on e-pay
> but I don't know if those machines are over priced or not... it does seem
> that prices have come down alot in the last year, I remember seeing $400
> and thinking that was a great deal...

You aren't totally clear on what sort of Octane you want?  The major
variables seem to be processor type (R10k or R12k), count (1 or 2),
speed (175mhz to 400 mhz), and cache (I believe 1 or 2 megs, but there
may be more options), and whether you get SI, SSI, MXI, SE (or ESI), SSE
(or ESSI), or MXE (or EMXI) graphics.

$400 for a single 195mhz machine with SI is too much, unless it has
other options in the form of disks.  Such a base line machine likely
isn't worth more than $200 on ebay.  If it had either dual 250mhz
processors, or anything R12k $400 would be a good price I'd think
though.

If you want to make it your main machine, you probably should aim for
either dual 250 R10ks or a single R12k.  If you want to run a higher
resolution that 1280x1024 you will need SSI or SSE or better.  If you
want texturing for games or graphics applications, you will need TRAM.
If you want what I said in this paragraph be prepared to pay $700 to
$1000, but you might get lucky.  For some reason, Octane pricing on ebay 
seems very variable.  Also, newgroups and mailing lists might generally
be better than ebay.  At least, they have been in my limited
experience.