SGI today announced the first in a powerful new line of next-generation workstation products, the Silicon Graphics Fuel visual workstation. The new workstation includes a single 500MHz R14000A MIPS processor with 2MB L2 cache or 600 MHz with 4MB L2 cache, 200 MHz front side bus VPro V10 or V12 graphics with up to 128 MB configurable graphics memory, 104MB texture memory and 48-bit RGBA (or 12-bit per color component – 4-bits higher than any other desktop system) with 16-bit Z buffer capability, industry-leading memory bandwidth (3.2GB per second) and graphics bandwidth (1.6GB per second) on the desktop, Dual Channel Display capability for double the screen real estate with a single graphics board at resolutions up to 1920 x 1200 at 72Hz on each screen, a wide range of peripheral options including internal CD-ROM and four integrated PCI slots, and the fifth-generation 64-bit IRIX 6.5 operating system.
SGI Introduces Silicon Graphics Fuel Visual Workstation
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Ok, that’s it … I’m in the throes of Ubergeek technolust! I want one! I want one! I … what’s that you say? … they cost *how* much???
Uhmmmm.
Maybe I can scrape by with what I’ve got for another few (hundred) years
Starting at $11,500 USD but with 35% off for students, I think.
In the words of Wired:
Irix: Tired
SGI MIPS CPU speed advances: Tired
SGI ‘bend you over a barrel’ pricing: Too tired.
I would want one of these.
http://www.terrasoftsolutions.com/products/briQ/hpc.shtml
Stick that rackmount cluster in a closet and hook it up to the network.
I added up the cost and it runs at about 18,000 for the 8 node cluster.
uhm… is this going to be a slashdot-like trolling, where people wonder why their 1.5 year old PentiumIII@choose-one+700Mhz is 2.5 times faster than a more than a 6 year old r10k processor or bitch about IRIX because it doesnt have any fancy GUI effects?
i think sgi showed quite often that their strenght are system architectures that are highly scaleable (like the NUMA technology used in origin3k servers (and in the fuel workstation) that scale easily from 2 to 6144 processors with unified memory/io etc…). of course, the mips cpus arent up-to-date, but they are elegant, dont eat 80watts ,thus dont produce much heat and are quite powerfull if you look at the Mhz/flops ratio (pmc-sierra just released one that has two cores on one chip @1ghz and has only 5watts powerconsumption).
For x86 and co, memory bandwidth is a serious bottleneck, you dont have that on a sgi workstation (fuel : 3.2 gigabyte/s ; o2 (released 1996) : 2.1 gigabyte/s).
Not to mention the gfx system that kicks ass and is highly integrated, and not,
as many slasdhot trolls claim to be comparable to a geforce4, because the workstation subsystems are optimized for high-polygon modelling and not for (that) intensive texturing.
But Kon, you are right about sgi´s pricing
The only thing stopping me from getting one is the price. It even makes the Sun Blade’s look attractive for the money, esp since a Sun Blade 100 goes for around AU$2500.
I’m just glad people still make good decent hard working workstations…
karmah – no contention that the I/O on the SGI boxes is above all. Pity they can’t bring the CPU speed up to take full advantage of all that memory and bus bandwidth though. I guess its chicken and egg – x86 has crappy bandwidth in comparison but faster processors. Unless youre doing I/O intensive work, not much point – spend 1/10th the price and get a dual athlon, or something in that range. I wouldn’t say the Fuel is anything for joe blow to use though. Anyone who is sitting at home and wants one is an idiot. Get it if you are sitting at work trying to do processing of uncompressed film frames, uncompressed HD, or whatnot.
Processors aren’t just MegaHertz.
Thanks for stating the obvious.
Well you’re the one complianing about mips speed.
Indeed, MHz aren’t the end all be all of microprocessor design. Look at
Intel’s IA-64 (aka Itanium CPUs), much lower clocks than P4, but better
performance. The IA-32 family may have mind-blowing theoredical numbers,
but in fact are for the most part unable to deliver anything near peak
performance in real life.
MIPS are not the fastest CPU on the block, but deliver reasonable
substained throughput to satisfy the appetite of the most demanding
consumers (military, medical research, drug research, oil exploration,
NASA, bla bla).
Intel has perpetuated the notation that MHz are the critical factor
in judging performance, but they are forced to eat their own words
with the IA-64 architecture.
Never judge a book by its cover (yes, corny, I know).
Dual 1Ghz + G4 = value compared to SGI. Application support – X windows and Microsoft Office. Awesome total solution for any technie or CGI guru.