Sun

Greetings to all.

I've got the chance to purchase a fairly loaded Sunfire v880z. I initially thought it was a fairly boring v880, until I walked around to the back and noted the presence of four 13w3 connects on the /left/ hand side of the chassis... Yeah, you guessed it, dual XVR-4000's. The system is coming from a medical lab, and although the drives have all been pulled, the caddies are included and they didn't touch the RAM or anything else in the system. I *think* it has quad 1.2ghz processors and something like 32GB or 64GB of RAM, I'm not sure- the unit was apparently powering a proprietary display system of some sort, and they didn't have any 13w3 monitors to boot into OBP to check it out when I was down there.

As much as I /want/ the system, I don't know what I'd /do/ with it. I already have a metric ####ton of Apple and IBM gear, including the three racks that make up my z800, still taking up a parking spot in my garage, yet to be unwrapped. Figuring that my office breakers are pretty much topped off right now, I don't think the Mrs. would appreciate an 880z sitting in the kitchen hooked up to the 20A circuits over there (figuring that's the only other place I can pull +20A/120VAC).

They're asking around $2200 for the box, but I might be able to badger them down to ~$1600.

ATM, I'm only really interested in the XVR-4000's, because I've never /seen/ one of these in person (owned a few XVR-1000's, nice cards- though I'm told the XVR-4000 will kick the shit out of those anyday). More then likely, I'd be tossing the whole box up on Ebay or piecing it out as soon as I get it back home.

So... What are these XVR-4000's worth these days? All I can find is that the original list price was just shy of $30K/piece. As I've implied, I've never seen these on Ebay before, nor am I sure if there are even people actively searching for them. I certainly don't want to buy the box and have to stick it in my garage with the IBM gear, since I've got enough unhooked-up stuff lying around already.

$1600 seems a little high for such an old(ish) system, but again, I have no idea what the framebuffers are worth.

-DN

Can't be too much, any modern ${3,4}00 video card is a better purchase for todays large video work. However, that isn't to say you wont find a collector or something willing to pay big.

While you probably *could* find a buyer willing to pay more than that, I highly doubt it would be worth your time (unless you got extremely lucky), especially if you're low on space. Old computers at high prices are always a tremendous gamble unless you've got a buyer or extremely solid leads and working relationships lined up already. XVR-4000s are *very* cool cards (read Michael Deering's SIGGRAPH papers on them if you're interested: http://www.michaelfrankdeering.com/Proj ... /Zulu.html ), but the only places such old hardware has true monetary value are places that won't be buying from some guy on eBay.

Thanks for the replies.

That's sort of what I figured. I wasn't sure if they were still worth anything (given the power of modern day cards), I just knew they were rare, having never came across one before. As I recall the XVR-1000's used to sell for a pretty penny (back before PCI Express), though these days I've seen them go for $40/pop or lower. I wasn't sure if the 4K's were in the same boat, but it sounds like it.

-DN