SGI: Discussion

Hi,
I was wondering how faster is the Octane compared to the O2. For example, my O2 got a R12000 300MHz CPU and I know it is available on the Octane in a single CPU configuration. Knowing the architecture of these computers are different, I would like to know how much faster the Octane can be.

Any benchmark tool we can use to compare? These tests have already been done?

http://www.futuretech.blinkenlights.nl/sgi.html#SYSCOMP

Wow! thanks for these numbers. I am surprised how slow the O2 is, even compared to an Indigo 2 which is technicaly a generation before.

I was going to post that, but I was interested in what people had to say...

O2 and Octane have very different architectures, and, when they were new, they had very different prices.

O2 was targeted as a low end workstation, whereas Octane was a mid/high end workstation. It's more fair to compare O2 vs Indy and Octane vs Indigo2. (Interestingly, a high-spec R5K Indy can beat a low-spec R5K O2 in some respects.)

Sorry to spoil the fun.

I guess its ok...

yes yes O2 is generally slow
That is why I'm from time to time thinking about decent octane

Yup! me too! ...

The Octane and O2 have lots to like, not the least of which is an attractive appearance and great hardware/engineering. If you want to collect SGI hardware for occasional use, exposure to some of the third-party applications of the era, or just the IRIX experience, I don't think you could go wrong with either.

If your goal is a general purpose IRIX desktop for daily use, I'd suggest skipping over the Octane and going to a 600MHz or faster Fuel. Or keep the O2/Octane and use them as the display for an O300 or O350.

How it is with OpenGL then? I mean when O2 is used as terminal to O300 (if I have O350 I'd like to put Vpro in it). As I know O300 don't have any display adapter. So can O2 somehow render OpenGL locally using CRM even if application is running remotely on O300, or it must be rendered in SW on O300 and then send to O2 trough network as images?

Something like :


Thanks tomo

I've watched movies, done browsing, used Pro/E that way. It's not as bad as you think. In fact, it's not bad at all.

The O300 is probably the sweet spot if you want multiple processors ... otherwise, Fuels are pretty cheap these days. Octane gives a little more of the SGI Workstation feeling tho.

Hum, but the Fuel looks like a red painted PC to me

The graphics travels over the network as X11 calls/OpenGL GLX remote calls/DGL calls that use the capabilities of the machine running as the X server. In short, you'll get very close to the same graphics performance that you would running it locally (the only downside would be if you're running something that requires a lot of data to be moved around - the network (especially on O2s, no Gbit) is slower than local data.

Slower than data from a hard drive connected to a 40MB/s bus? Probably not by a whole lot - unless there's a multi-drive stripe and/or a faster controller added.

I had gathered he was talking about graphics data, not data on disk - the 100M b /s network is not fast compared to the whichever connection you're using in the O2 or Octane. I seem to recall the XIO in the Octane is about two orders of magnitude faster and could push 800MB/s - have no idea what kind of connection CRM uses............

See:

http://www.sgidepot.co.uk/ip32.gif


Btw, my 'main' site these days, re the performance data, is here:

http://www.sgidepot.co.uk/perfcomp.html

Blinkenlights is just a mirror now, and sometimes I can't access it, so always check the sgidepot site to be sure
of seeing the latest info.

My main index has numerous articles comparing O2 to Indigo2, Indigo2 to Octane, and there are dedicated CPU
comparison pages such as this one:

http://www.sgidepot.co.uk/r10kcomp.html

More pages coming soon, including Flame/Effect/Inferno SD/HD testing, though atm it's just Flame with HD .

Cheers!

Ian.

Looks might be deceiving occasionally, though

Well if you think about it, it is just a MIPS PC, not a nice little SGI.

That's nonsense, it's not a PC. The gfx offers the same advantages of all other like SGIs, eg. hw accelerated imaging;
mplayer does movie playback in hw. It's massively responsive, more so than Octane. It uses IRIX and thus offers all
the same benefits of any other SGI running IRIX. In a whole host of ways it has advantages over any other MIPS/IRIX
desktop, though it may not be the optimal choice for all tasks as I've often explained to people who may benefit from
dual CPUs in Octane (if they can afford it).

SGI used the tower-type form factor to save costs, and that was a successful approach. Fuel at launch was much cheaper
than an entry Octane or Indigo2.

Ian.