#News for nerds, stuff that matters Search Slashdot Slashdot RSS Index author OSTG | SourceForge - ThinkGeek - IT Product Guide - Linux.com - NewsForge - freshmeat - Newsletters - TechJobs - Slashdot Broadband X Welcome to Slashdot Login Why Login? Why Subscribe? Sections Main Apache Apple 2 more AskSlashdot 2 more Books BSD 2 more Developers 5 more Games 15 more Interviews IT 6 more Linux 6 more Politics 9 more Science 6 more YRO 6 more Help FAQ Bugs Stories Old Stories Old Polls Topics Hall of Fame Submit Story About Supporters Code Awards Services Broadband PriceGrabber Product Guide Special Offers Tech Jobs IT Research The Return of the Sun Workstation, With AMD's Help Sun Microsystems Hardware AMD Unix Linux Posted by timothy on Wednesday October 27, @05:01PM from the not-black-hole-sun dept. Hack Jandy writes "Would you be surprised to hear Sun is the lowest cost Tier 1 dual-Opteron provider? AnandTech benchmarks Sun's newest w2100z and includes some sneak peaks at Solaris 10 and Java Desktop System 2. The biggest surprise at the end - it costs less than IBM and HP's configurations. Has Sun learned from the demise of SGI workstations that relying on one processor architecture is harmful?" CrzyP adds "They perform various benchmarks including 2D/3D rendering, compiling, encryption, and thermal and noise performance, and compare the 64-bit Sun box with various other configurations, including varying operating systems." Slashdot Log In Nickname: ____________________ Password: ____________________ [_] Public Terminal Log in [ Create a new account ] Related Links · Dev Tools DevChannel · Compare the best prices on: Computers/Computer systems · Compare the best prices on: Software/Operating Systems · Compare the best prices on: Computers · Compare the best prices on: Computers/Components · Hardware DevChannel · High Performance DevChannel · AnandTech benchmarks Sun's newest w2100z · Sun Microsystems whitepapers · Best deals: Sun Microsystems · More Sun Microsystems stories · Hardware whitepapers · Best deals: Hardware · More Hardware stories · AMD whitepapers · Best deals: AMD · More AMD stories · Unix whitepapers · Best deals: Unix · More Unix stories · Index whitepapers · Best deals: Index · More Index stories · Linux whitepapers · Best deals: Linux · More Linux stories The Return of the Sun Workstation, With AMD's Help | Log in/Create an Account | Top | 70 comments | Search Discussion Threshold: [1: 57 comments.][Threaded...][Oldest First.................] Change Reply The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way. some info about Java Desktop (Score:4, Informative) by hsmith (818216) on Wednesday October 27, @05:06PM (#10646844) Since the article doesn't link it http://wwws.sun.com/software/javadesktopsystem/ [sun.com] [ Reply to This ] * Re:some info about Java Desktop by Short Circuit (Score:1) Wednesday October 27, @05:45PM * 1 reply beneath your current threshold. I dunno (Score:2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 27, @05:07PM (#10646859) Has Sun learned from the demise of SGI workstations that relying on one processor architecture is harmful? The lesson I'd learn from SGI is that jumping into the WinTel server market is harmful. [ Reply to This ] As I remember... (Score:4, Insightful) by NoMoreNicksLeft (516230) on Wednesday October 27, @05:08PM (#10646865) (http://24.125.12.101/ | Last Journal: Thursday March 07, @12:03AM) SGI started going downhill about the same time they first offered a WinNT machine. But yeh, it's a good thing to homogenize all our processor architectures, because there is only one perfect CPU, and Intel makes it. Am I the only one who longs for when we actually had a choice of CPUs? [ Reply to This ] * Re:As I remember... by Reivec (Score:2) Wednesday October 27, @05:14PM + Re:As I remember... by NoMoreNicksLeft (Score:2) Wednesday October 27, @05:25PM * Re:As I remember... by YetAnotherName (Score:2) Wednesday October 27, @05:16PM + Re:As I remember... by NoMoreNicksLeft (Score:2) Wednesday October 27, @05:28PM + 1 reply beneath your current threshold. * Re:As I remember... by sahtanax (Score:1) Wednesday October 27, @05:24PM + Re:As I remember... by NoMoreNicksLeft (Score:2) Wednesday October 27, @05:31PM o Re:As I remember... by PitaBred (Score:2) Wednesday October 27, @05:37PM What would really be surprising (Score:4, Informative) by overshoot (39700) on Wednesday October 27, @05:08PM (#10646868) would be if they actually got their X11 implementation working almost as well as an etch-a-sketch. I finally escaped from 7 years on a Sun workstation to a Linux box. Solaris had its advantages, but X11 wasn't one of them and CDE wasn't another. [ Reply to This ] * Re:What would really be surprising by sneakers563 (Score:1) Wednesday October 27, @05:15PM + Never mind... by sneakers563 (Score:1) Wednesday October 27, @05:17PM * Re:What would really be surprising by Jahf (Score:2) Wednesday October 27, @05:17PM Need modern workstation (Score:2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 27, @05:08PM (#10646869) Damn! If I only had a MODERN Sun workstation it might just have been fast enough to get first pos! On the subject of workstations though... At a train station, trains stop. At a bus stations, buses stop. What does work do at a workstation? [ Reply to This ] * Re:Need modern workstation by RAMMS+EIN (Score:2) Wednesday October 27, @05:45PM Their Xeon trade-in program is still going on too (Score:2) by megalomang (217790) on Wednesday October 27, @05:10PM (#10646887) Coupled with the xeon trade-in program, you can take a further $600 off off the w2100z price. I wonder how much AMD is subsidizing the deal to gain more market saturation? The truth is, the xeon is incredibly popular. I still can't get over how HP dropped itanium due to xeon. So why won't Sun sell a xeon? [ Reply to This ] Re:Their Xeon trade-in program is still going on t (Score:4, Informative) by Jahf (21968) on Wednesday October 27, @05:20PM (#10646988) (Last Journal: Thursday August 05, @04:55PM) Actually the best way to buy a w2100z, if you don't need it -today- but do want it cheap, is to buy off of Ebay. They are regularly going for about 1/2 the retail price. And AMD isn't subsidizing this at all, at least not actively. Sun just happens to be willing to sell for much lower than their traditional margins on these products to get back some of the workstation market. They have realized that workstations were a wedge into the hearts and minds of the admins who later (sometimes years later) made decisions on servers. And Sun has some very well priced Opteron servers now, too. [ Reply to This | Parent ] Re:Their Xeon trade-in program is still going on t by megalomang (Score:1) Wednesday October 27, @05:21PM * Re:Their Xeon trade-in program is still going on t by Jahf (Score:2) Wednesday October 27, @05:30PM 1 reply beneath your current threshold. For those who don't want to click through... (Score:5, Informative) by GillBates0 (664202) on Wednesday October 27, @05:12PM (#10646908) (http://slashdot.org/~GillBates0 | Last Journal: Friday October 22, @12:32PM) Direct link to the Conclusions page [anandtech.com] The results of the SPEC benchmarks (Page 8 [anandtech.com]) look quite impressive, from a cursory look at the graphs (more=better). It seemed to outperform RH9 and SuSE9.1 on most of them. Quite an extensive review IMHO. [ Reply to This ] * Re:For those who don't want to click through... by Jameth (Score:2) Wednesday October 27, @05:31PM Damn Story Titles (Score:1, Offtopic) by lukewarmfusion (726141) on Wednesday October 27, @05:13PM (#10646917) (Last Journal: Monday October 18, @10:18PM) I had my hopes up until the fifth and sixth words, when I realized that this wasn't a story by Tolkein. One Sun to rule them all One Sun to find them One Sun to bring them all And in the darkness bind them... But it wouldn't really be "darkness" if it were Sun, would it? I feel this is getting belabored, so I'm going to stop before I amuse myself past the limits of what the moderators will allow. [ Reply to This ] * Re:Damn Story Titles by mrchaotica (Score:2) Wednesday October 27, @05:29PM Waves hand impatiently in a dismissive fashion (Score:2) by Matey-O (518004) on Wednesday October 27, @05:16PM (#10646942) (http://slashdot.org/ | Last Journal: Tuesday February 19, @11:25AM) Yes, but how did it stack up in Doom3? [ Reply to This ] Typical (Score:3, Insightful) by DNS-and-BIND (461968) on Wednesday October 27, @05:17PM (#10646953) (http://queenella.com/) Everyone in the PC world worries about cost as their main consideration. Well, that's only an issue if you have one system, and you pay for that yourself. Real Computers, individuals don't buy them, and believe it or not, price is occasionally not the first and last consideration. [ Reply to This ] * Re:Typical by DAldredge (Score:1) Wednesday October 27, @05:33PM Here Comes the SUN...again (Score:3, Insightful) by Eberlin (570874) on Wednesday October 27, @05:18PM (#10646968) Are we talking about SUN the hardware company or SUN the Solaris folks? Hey, aren't they the ones that bought out the folks that eventually led to Star Office? Wait, I think they mentioned Java Desktop so is the compile-once-run-anywhere SUN? Oh, Java Desktop is Linux with some java-related enhancements? Boy, these guys must really like Linux to be using it. Didn't they buy Cobalt before...and those things used Linux? I'm glad a large company is getting behind Linux in such a big way. Wait, now I'm confused...they don't LIKE Linux? Anyone know what SUN does for a living? Reminds me of a slacker surfer dude with all these different "money-making" schemes they keep pitching. Diversifying sounds more and more like treading water. [ Reply to This ] * Re:Here Comes the SUN...again by ebooher (Score:2) Wednesday October 27, @05:25PM + Re:Here Comes the SUN...again by Eberlin (Score:2) Wednesday October 27, @05:30PM o Re:Here Comes the SUN...again by tesmako (Score:2) Wednesday October 27, @05:43PM + Re:Here Comes the SUN...again by leoc (Score:1) Wednesday October 27, @05:40PM * Re:Here Comes the SUN...again by bigjnsa500 (Score:2) Wednesday October 27, @05:26PM * 1 reply beneath your current threshold. Don't call this a comeback, been here for years (Score:5, Informative) by ebooher (187230) on Wednesday October 27, @05:19PM (#10646986) (http://www.letter-x.net/~ebooher/) The title is a little interesting to me. The Return of the SUN Workstation. Does this mean to say that the current versions of UltraSPARC and Sun Blade systems shouldn't be considered workstations? What do we (as a /. community) describe workstation as, anyway? Do we mean to say really high end 3D work in CAD/CAM, etc? Is the lowly XP machine I'm forced to use at work a "workstation" because it's where I get work done? The new Java Workstation series with the AMD Opteron processor is a pretty neat box. Hit SUN.com and download their PDF's on the machine. One includes a diagram/schematic of the motherboard. The motherboard is the mainboard and daughterboard. The daughterboard happens to house the PCI bus and associated gear as well as the SCSI adapter onboard. I wonder why. Will SUN later introduce a different daughterboard with some other version of expansion upgradability? Maybe with SATA instead of SCSI? Just a way to keep the mainboard more flexible? It also needs to be said that this isn't just a dual Opteron machine. There is a single proc version of the motherboard. They are also as full on x86 as you can get. No really out there ROMs or chips that only SUN knows about, because they are rated to run Windows as well. So the units will run all x86 OS's without a hitch, they just happen to have some SUN engineering behind them as well as the SUN name. I think the main push for the Opteron was that they have an entry level server built around it. SUN knows that not everybody buys really high end multi $$K machines and that some data centers only need one or two sub $1K servers. Is this why SUN is so vocal about their new found friends at Microsoft? Because they knew they would be releasing x86 gear that would be certified for Windows Server products and wanted to make sure the world knew that you didn't have to get your WinBoxes from Dell or HP anymore? [ Reply to This ] Sun may survive this (Score:4, Insightful) by RealAlaskan (576404) on Wednesday October 27, @05:21PM (#10646996) (http://geocities.com/nelstomlinson | Last Journal: Wednesday January 22, @02:19AM) Sun used to be all about high-quality hardware, where cost took a backseat to reliability. I wonder if they'll be able to keep their reputation for quality and support now that they're competing with HP and Walmart at the low end? Another post pointed out that SGI started to self-destruct when they started selling Windows NT boxes. At least Sun is peddling these with Solaris, so they aren't literally going into the Dell/Walmart end of the market. [ Reply to This ] * Re:Sun may survive this by PitaBred (Score:2) Wednesday October 27, @05:42PM * Re:Sun may survive this by tesmako (Score:2) Wednesday October 27, @05:46PM Sounds like a good linux platform (Score:3, Interesting) by argoff (142580) on Wednesday October 27, @05:22PM (#10647011) Would you be surprised to hear Sun is the lowest cost Tier 1 dual-Opteron provider? Yes I would be. Anyhow, sounds like a good reason to get one, format the drive - wipe solaris and install Linux on it to get all the apps. Thanks Sun [ Reply to This ] * Re:Sounds like a good linux platform by stratjakt (Score:1) Wednesday October 27, @05:27PM + Re:Sounds like a good linux platform by ebooher (Score:2) Wednesday October 27, @05:37PM * Re:Sounds like a good linux platform by bersl2 (Score:2) Wednesday October 27, @05:29PM * Re:Sounds like a good linux platform by Erect Horsecock (Score:1) Wednesday October 27, @05:35PM * Re:Sounds like a good linux platform by RAMMS+EIN (Score:2) Wednesday October 27, @05:43PM * 2 replies beneath your current threshold. Blech... (Score:2) by Krimsen (26685) on Wednesday October 27, @05:23PM (#10647018) (http://www.3113.com) Why not get even cheaper [ebsinc.com]! [ Reply to This ] w2100z. w00t! (Score:4, Funny) by micromoog (206608) on Wednesday October 27, @05:23PM (#10647025) Every time I see w2100z, my internal 1337-sp34k decoder kicks on. Then I realize it's the actual product name. [ Reply to This ] Re: The return of the Sun Workstation, With AMD's (Score:1) by OccidentalSlashy (809265) on Wednesday October 27, @05:24PM (#10647031) Would you be surprised to hear Sun is the lowest cost Tier 1 dual-Opteron provider? Yes I would be surprised, and I don't even know what that is! Wow! [ Reply to This ] one processor architecture (Score:1) by cadelor (103919) on Wednesday October 27, @05:25PM (#10647048) Has Sun learned from the demise of SGI workstations that relying on one processor architecture is harmful? Huh? The ultra 5, 10, sunblade 1500 and 150 were single processor. The ultra 60, sunblade 2000, sunblade 2500 are dual. Sun was never relying on one processor, there have always been dual options. The W1100z is the single processor version of the W2100z described in the article. http://www.sun.com/products-n-solutions/hardware/d ocs/Workstation_Products/Workstations/index.html [sun.com] Suns workstation docs. [ Reply to This ] * Re:one processor architecture by the grand asdfer (Score:1) Wednesday October 27, @05:41PM * Re:one processor architecture by PitaBred (Score:2) Wednesday October 27, @05:44PM * 1 reply beneath your current threshold. Damnit... where's SGI? (Score:1) by torpor (458) < > on Wednesday October 27, @05:26PM (#10647056) (http://virus.info/ | Last Journal: Saturday March 29, @02:33PM) C'mon SGI, rise from the Dead, bring on a new daemon, and teach these fools how to make laptops .. or .. something .. Darn. for a while there, the 80's and 90's were cool. all we have left now are Apple .. and Sun .. [ Reply to This ] Dual G5 Comparison? (Score:3, Insightful) by RAMMS+EIN (578166) on Wednesday October 27, @05:29PM (#10647085) (http://inglorion.net/) I wonder how these babies stack up against the dual G5 machines Apple has been offering. Looking at the specs, the Mac looks like a better deal. Upgrading the memory to 4 GB brings the price to $5,249.00, just a bit below the white box alternative Anand proposes for the w2100z (the w2100z itself costing some $8600). Of course, price is only one aspect. [ Reply to This ] * Re:Dual G5 Comparison? by codepunk (Score:2) Wednesday October 27, @05:37PM Cheaper than IBM? So what? (Score:3, Insightful) by BobaFett (93158) on Wednesday October 27, @05:34PM (#10647139) (http://pikus.net/) It's not IBM Sun has to compete against with these boxes. It's Dell. Dell sells the 64-bit workstations with Intel's Opteron clones, even with Linux preloaded, and beats Sun by at least 30%. It's even worse if you configure them with more RAM: Sun is so used to charging outrageous prices for their workstation RAM that they just can't turn on a dime. Dell wants about $1200 for the extra 4G of RAM (to bring the total to 8G), Sun at least twice as much. It's good that Sun realized that they have to move to commodity hardware if they want to survive, now we're waiting for them to have an epiphany that commodity hardware sells at commodity prices. [ Reply to This ] Re:The chance *BSD will run on these things: (Score:4, Insightful) by ebooher (187230) on Wednesday October 27, @05:08PM (#10646867) (http://www.letter-x.net/~ebooher/) I don't understand here, why are you saying there is a 0% chance of the machines running *BSD? Is it meant to be humorous? Because obviously they will run *BSD very well. Am I feeding the troll here? [ Reply to This | Parent ] * Re:The chance *BSD will run on these things: by red floyd (Score:2) Wednesday October 27, @05:13PM Re:Summary - whitebox + linux as good and $3k chea (Score:2) by codepunk (167897) on Wednesday October 27, @05:45PM (#10647266) (http://www.codepunk.com/) actually build 3 opteron boxes and put on the mosix kernel and kick the hell out of any box. [ Reply to This | Parent ] 5 replies beneath your current threshold. ____________________ Search Women are always anxious to urge bachelors to matrimony; is it from charity, or revenge? -- Gustave Vapereau All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective owners. Comments are owned by the Poster. The Rest © 1997-2004 OSTG. [ home | awards | contribute story | older articles | OSTG | advertise | about | terms of service | privacy | faq | rss ]