Sparc desktop vs x86 desktop

[David Griffith]

On Wed, 15 Oct 2008, C. Sullivan wrote:

> On Oct 15, 2008, at 5:58 PM, David Griffith wrote:
>
> > It seems that Sun has discontinued (hopefully temporarily) desktop
> > Sparc machines.  Can someone tell me how the prices of these machines
> > compared with their line of x86 machines?
>
> I was left with the impression that the Sparc machines were
> underperforming compared to what is possible using Xeon (or  even
> Phenom) processors and standard PC chipsets, which is part of the
> reason why Sun is sunsetting the machines.. especially in the
> workstation-class machines.  I'm sure the fact that Apple is hitting
> that segment hard with a dual-Quad Xeon (3.2GHz) chip based machine
> for under $5k doesn't help.  Add to the fact that $5k workstation will
> do Windows as well as UNIX-flavor-of-the-decade at bare metal speed,
> and I'm sure Sun has seen their workstation business mosey right into
> Cupertino's sunset.
>
> Have you seen what a $200 AMD Phenom motherboard/CPU combo is today at
> your local computer chop shop?  A quad-core 2.5 GHz processor, for
> crying out loud.   That'll fluff up your World Community Grid
> statistics a wee.

PC Club closed shop here.  CompUSA has been gone for a year.  PCXGEN has
mutated into a cybercafe with no meaningful hardware sales to speak of.
That seems to leave Best Buy way on the other end of town past the
molasses-like crawl that's known as Rosedale Highway.

> Sun is realizing what Apple figured out about 5 years ago: love it or
> hate it, x86 is here to stay and the war between AMD and Intel is only
> a "good thing" for you as a computer maker interested in the highest
> performance.

At least I'd like to see them do something with the BIOS replacements like
Coreboot.


-- 
David Griffith
dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu

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