Sun

Cheap but Powerful UltraSPARC under $500 - Page 3

mia avatar
mia
Who joined Feb. 19, 2003, 1:54 p.m.
and authored 731 notes
Wrote the following at Sept. 23, 2012, 8:52 p.m...
Winnili wrote:
mia wrote:
Has anyone played with vizserver on "cheap" (sub $2k) sun workstations? Is it usable?

My max'ed out Ultra 10 would certainly have adequate hardware-accelerated graphics processing capability ― with an Elite 3D-M6 (UPA) board installed ― for anything requiring or recommending OpenGL. If I had the means to try it (i.e. having the software at my disposal), I would definitely try it. (I haven't used this system much in a while, I'm actually thinking of parting with it. Maybe some interesting software might persuade me otherwise.)


Hm, I'm willing to give this a try, are GL libraries available in OpenSolaris?

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Winnili
Who joined Sept. 15, 2012, 5:37 a.m.
and authored 156 notes
Wrote the following at Sept. 23, 2012, 8:52 p.m...
Solaris 9 is installed on it at the moment. (Although I was thinking of upgrading to 10.)

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bluecode avatar
bluecode
Who joined Dec. 13, 2011, 7:56 a.m.
and authored 118 notes
Wrote the following at Sept. 24, 2012, 9:29 a.m...
edikat wrote:
As far as I could determine, staying with SPARC I had very few choices if I required better performance than a V210.


Agreed. For so-called "entry-level servers" they're pretty damn nice.

edikat wrote:
I'll benchmark but my feeling from reading the web comments is that single-threaded the USIIIi will beat the T1 easily, but once the T1 multi-threads it can even beat the V490 at high loads (not sure if I can believe that though).


I believe it but it will take a lot of threading to show it probably. The T1 CPUs are clocked 50% slower than top end IIIi.

edikat wrote:
Also of course the T series can run Solaris 11... unlike even the USIV....


Yeah this is an important point but even more important is you can run LDOMs! :D

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Paint It Blue
jpanchal
Who joined June 5, 2010, 10:06 p.m.
and authored 32 notes
Wrote the following at Sept. 26, 2012, 8:29 p.m...
How is the noise/sound level on the t1000? I've been seeing these in ebay US for ~$200 now - have been tempted. Are they noisier than a v210? Is it possible to run inside the house in any sane way? Being 1u I am assuming the fans are quite high rpm... Is the t2000 any quieter?

I have a bunch of older sparc gear - would be nice to consolidate down to a single server - 32 threads is quite nice! :)
R-ten-K avatar
R-ten-K
Who joined Nov. 15, 2004, 10:36 p.m.
and authored 1816 notes
Wrote the following at Sept. 27, 2012, 5:42 p.m...
I had a T2000 so I assume it applies to the T1000 as well, the machine was definitively not suitable for home use... Unless you live right next to an airport slash jackhammer testing facility, or you have a separated room for your computers with good noise isolation. These things are loud, the fans were definitively over spec'ed.

BTW, has Oracle changed their stance regarding patches and firmware updates? It made the proposition of owning SUN HW for hobbyist purposes not very appealing.

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bluecode avatar
bluecode
Who joined Dec. 13, 2011, 7:56 a.m.
and authored 118 notes
Wrote the following at Sept. 27, 2012, 9:33 p.m...
Quote:
BTW, has Oracle changed their stance regarding patches and firmware updates?


No, you still have to go without or "have friends in the business".

Quote:
It made the proposition of owning SUN HW for hobbyist purposes not very appealing.


It doesn't really affect Sun hardware very much unless you get a very recent ($$$$) box. Most of the EOL stuff is cheap and the firmware is as up to date as it will ever be. Solaris 10 is also pretty evolved and not likely to need many patches, at least I run Sun versions since I have entitlements and they're "good enough" for me, no problems. Plus you can always run Open/Net/FreeBSD on most Sun gear and also Linux.

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R-ten-K avatar
R-ten-K
Who joined Nov. 15, 2004, 10:36 p.m.
and authored 1816 notes
Wrote the following at Sept. 28, 2012, 4:09 p.m...
My experience has been the opposite to yours ;-) Not every machine that makes it to private hands is up to the latest BIOS/PROM/whathaveyou version, which is what I was referring to. Plus, to me, the whole point of owning these sort of systems as a hobby is to tinker with them, and eventually things do wrong, and eventually you may need to reload something, and then... poof...

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