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From: Dave on 22 Nov 2009 07:21
Are there any options for fast single threaded SPARC hardware at a cheap price
(say under �500) used?

I have a Blade 2000 (2 x 1.2 GHz),

http://www.sun.com/desktop/workstation/sunblade2000/

and will no doubt at some point find someone putting a Blade 2500 (2 x 1.6 GHz)

http://www.sun.com/desktop/workstation/sunblade2500/

on eBay at a price they might actually get for it, rather than what they might
hope to get. But are there SPARC options I'm overlooking?

I recently had a Sun Netra T1

http://sunsolve.sun.com/handbook_pub/validateUser.do?target=Systems/Netra_t1_105/Netra_t1_105

destroyed by lightning, and my insurers gave me to money to replace it with a
SPARC based T1000

http://www.sun.com/servers/coolthreads/t1000/

which I note is just EOL, though it was not a couple of months back.

But I know the single threaded performance of a T1000 is going to be worst than
the Blade 2000 and in any case, a mate gave me another Netra T1.

But the performance of that is pretty poor - *much* worst than the Blade 2000.
But at only 60 W of power, I do not mind keeping the T1 on 24/7.

I'm just wondering if there are any other models (either server or workstation),
I've overlooked. The 2.52-GHz Sun M3000 Casper mentioned would be nice, but
that's not cheap.

Ideally a server which I could remotely switch on/off would be nice. Then I
could stuff it in the garage and not hear it. But I'm not too fussed about that.
Just something cheap and with better signle threaded performance than the Blade
2000.

I have an Ultra 27, but I spend some of my spare time working on the Sage project

http://www.sagemath.org/

and want to improve the Solaris SPARC support. (It seems a bit silly, as I will
probably never use Sage on SPARC myself much, but I started helping, and do not
intend stopping now).

I have remote (across the Atlantic) access to a Sun SPARC T5240, but the single
threaded performance of that is very poor. My Blade 2000 is much quicker than
the T5240, despite being several years older and worth only < 5% the price of a
T5240.

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From: Sami Ketola on 22 Nov 2009 11:45
Dave <foo(a)coo.com> wrote:
> Are there any options for fast single threaded SPARC hardware at a cheap price
> (say under �500) used?
>

Fastest Single-threaded UltraSPARC processors are the SPARC-VII+ processors
that you get in the M-series chassis. Cheapest of them all is the M3000.

Sami

From: Dave on 22 Nov 2009 12:46
Sami Ketola wrote:
> Dave <foo(a)coo.com> wrote:
>> Are there any options for fast single threaded SPARC hardware at a cheap price
>> (say under �500) used?
>>
>
> Fastest Single-threaded UltraSPARC processors are the SPARC-VII+ processors
> that you get in the M-series chassis. Cheapest of them all is the M3000.
>
> Sami
>
Thank you. That is out of my price range. Is there anything quicker than a Blade
2500, but cheaper than the M3000 ?



--
I respectfully request that this message is not archived by companies as
unscrupulous as 'Experts Exchange' . In case you are unaware,
'Experts Exchange' take questions posted on the web and try to find
idiots stupid enough to pay for the answers, which were posted freely
by others. They are leeches.
From: ITguy on 22 Nov 2009 13:09
> Thank you. That is out of my price range. Is there anything quicker than a Blade
> 2500, but cheaper than the M3000 ?

The most recent SPARC workstations, including the Blade 2500, are all
based on SPARC-III chips which are rather slow. If you need good
single threaded SPARC performance at lowest cost I'd look at the SPARC-
IV based systems. I believe the Sun Fire V490 was the smallest/
cheapest of the bunch.
From: Chris Cox on 22 Nov 2009 18:46
ITguy wrote:
>> Thank you. That is out of my price range. Is there anything quicker than a Blade
>> 2500, but cheaper than the M3000 ?
>
> The most recent SPARC workstations, including the Blade 2500, are all
> based on SPARC-III chips which are rather slow. If you need good
> single threaded SPARC performance at lowest cost I'd look at the SPARC-
> IV based systems. I believe the Sun Fire V490 was the smallest/
> cheapest of the bunch.

I would say this as well... And... you could find them used for cheap
potentially. But nothing new.

You can find decent V490's for around $3000USD used. There are some
for less... and they'll be faster than your SB 2000 as well.

If you're fortunate you'll find one that is relatively cheap with
some IV+ inside.

Best deal potentially on ebay is one with 4x1.35 IV's in it with 16G
for about $2600USD. I see a V890 with 2x1.35's for $1550USD.
That's not bad...

Like all non-cool thread contemporary Suns... they pull about
as much power as THE Sun :-)

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