[desktop-discuss] The end of Sparc desktops?

[Bob Friesenhahn]

On Sun, 3 Aug 2008, James Cornell wrote:
> 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.

My Sun Blade 2500 uses less power than my Ultra 40 M2.  While the 
Opteron CPU is certainly faster, there are some things that the older 
SPARC CPU does quite well at given its much lower clock rate.  The 
graphics card in the Blade 2500 is indeed a severe disappointment, 
often being even slower than the much older 1998-vintage Ultra 30.

Regardless, it does not make much sense to compare past-generation 
hardware with current generation.  It seems that Sun has decided to 
stop selling past-generation SPARC workstation hardware.  It seems 
unlikely that Sun will deliver the Rock CPU in a workstation format 
even though some of us would be quite eager to buy it.  This is likely 
the end of the SPARC workstation era.

Bob
======================================
Bob Friesenhahn
bfriesen at simple.dallas.tx.us, http://www.simplesystems.org/users/bfriesen/
GraphicsMagick Maintainer,    http://www.GraphicsMagick.org/