[rescue] Advice on Octanes

[Joshua D. Boyd]

On Mon, Sep 22, 2003 at 10:23:29PM +0200, Gerhard Lenerz wrote:

>   What you should look for depends a bit on what you need. If you
>   don't need higher 3D performance or texture support in hardware you
>   can safely buy a machine with a base level graphics option (SI or
>   SE). The money you can save at that point is better put into more

There is also the issue of resolution, isn't there?  If a reasonable
person wants higher than 1280x1024, they will need SSI or SSE.
Personally, I'd love the higher resolution, although I'd probably go for
a second display rather than move up to SSE.

>   memory/disk or faster CPUs. Speaking of CPUs it's probably not a bad
>   idea to get the 2CPU machine if you have the choice between a given
>   2CPU box and a slightly faster 1CPU Octane (eg. 2xR10000/175 vs.
>   1xR10000/195). For a lot of applications the second CPU won't help,
>   but it makes a difference when you throw load at the machine (think
>   of compiling an application and starting Open Office at the same
>   time).

Hopefully increasingly free software will come ready to take advantage
of the APO option.  I suspect that would only be a big help when a
program has to stop and chug through a lot of data though.