Paul Gress wrote: > Tim Scanlon wrote: > >> I noticed today that Sun has stopped selling Sparc based desktop machines. I >> was sort of shocked by this to say the least. I have to support applications >> that have endian issues, and this could be painful. >> >> Does anyone know if Fujitsu or another vendor will pick up the slack? >> >> >> > On comp.sys.sun.hardware there was already a discussion: > > "Just got off the phone with a Fujitsu rep. No SPARC workstations in > their lineup, either (at least the current line-up). He said they are > doing some pretty good things with the next family of SPARC > processors, but he doubts they will put it in a workstation format. > He just does not see the market is there for it. Of course, my > opinion would be that there might be a market for them if 1) the > prices were not crazy, and 2) the performance kept pace with Intel and > AMD. But neither of those things is really feasible at this point in > time" > > http://groups.google.com/group/comp.sys.sun.hardware/msg/bfeac95d0684e2ac > > I guess Sun expects everybody to us AMD or Intel as Workstation with > Solaris. I was always waiting for a new Workstation based on their new > Sparc processors. Maybe it's to much trouble to integrate good 3D > graphics chips or high speed bus into the Workstations. > > Paul > _______________________________________________ > desktop-discuss mailing list > desktop-discuss at opensolaris.org > I've ordered my Ultra 20 M2 since September 11, 2007 and since I received it about a week after it has been very solid, pretty comparable to the Ultra 2 and Ultra 80 I used to have. It has very good performance for price. If you have extra cash the Intel brothers are really nice. I understand that some people here have to work with SPARC for their job, but if you're questioning Sun's quality, don't fear I haven't seen any issues with the x64 line. They are too expensive to acquire under the guise of being a workstation, partly because the things they remove from the server boards have to be put back on increasing price. The graphics chipsets are a joke, below basic for most common needs, and now after a few years the rift between GHz to MHz ratios with MIPS and SPARC has been conquered by Intel but not by clockrate, by cores and efficiency. Every SPARC machine I've used and encounter generates massive heat and takes up much for electricity despite not being able to keep pace with large sets of data, all the while having only one strength still, scaling and keeping up with key types of load, such as databases but never number crunching anymore.
James
